The Brabazon Committee was a committee set up by the British government in 1942 to investigate the future needs of the British Empire's civilian airliner market following World War II.Phipp, 2007, pp.15-16 The study was an attempt at defining, in broad overview, the impact of projected advances in aviation technology and to forecast the global needs of the post war British Empire (in South Asia, Africa, the Near and Far East) and Commonwealth (Australia, Canada, New Zealand) in the area of air transport, for passengers, mail, and cargo.
The study recognized that the British Empire and Commonwealth as both a political and economic entity would have a vital need for aviation systems (principally aircraft) to facilitate its continued existence and self-reliance in the post-war world. For military and commercial reasons, the empire simply could not continue to exist if did not understand the needs, and develop the industrial infrastructure to provide, the aviation systems and sub-systems necessary to supply and maintain a global air transport service.
Background Soon after the start of World War II, with no recorded discussion in government, a decision was taken to concentrate all efforts of the British aircraft industry on combat aircraft, and two embryo airliner projects, the Fairey FC1 and the Short S.32, were both cancelled.Masefield and Gunston, 2002, pp.79-81 Subsequently, Britain had to purchase three Boeing 314 flying boats for BOAC to operate an air service between the US and the UK. It has been suggested that there was then some agreement with the United States that the US would concentrate on transport aircraft while the UK would concentrate on their heavy bombers. However, Peter Masefield was certain that such a policy was never even suggested, far less implemented.Masefield and Gunston, 2002, p.97 On the contrary, the action was simply to do nothing: no orders were ever placed for new British transport aircraft. It was stated in Parliament in December 1942 that "the work of aircraft designers must, at the present stage of the war, be devoted wholly to war requirements".https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1942/1942%20-%202664.html Flight 1942 The UK was simply too busy producing military aircraft to find the capacity to build transports, and the materials required were in any case in very short supply.
When Winston Churchill attended the 1942 Moscow Conference, travelling in the freezing bomb bay of a Consolidated Liberator bomber, it brought home to him the absence of modern British airliners and the need for action with regard to transport aircraft. After discussion with Sir Stafford Cripps, the Minister of Aircraft Production, and his predecessor Lord Brabazon, he recognized that as a result of that neglect the United Kingdom was to be left at the close of the war with little experience in the design, manufacture and final assembly of transport aircraft, and no infrastructure or trained personnel for the doing of same. Yet, the massive infrastructure created in the US would allow them to produce civilian aircraft based upon military transport designs; and crucially these would have to be purchased by the UK, Empire and Commonwealth to meet their post-war civilian transport aviation needs.
In consequence, Churchill asked Lord Brabazon to form a Committee to investigate the issue and make suitable recommendations. Following this the Cabinet authorized a Second Committee to undertake more detailed work and prepare a list of requirements for each type to provide a basis for design and development.Masefield and Gunston, 2002, p.82
On 24 Dec 1942, a two-part article in Flight concluded "The whole British Empire at the present time has an operational fleet of transport aircraft, comprising conversions, makeshifts and cast-offs, totally inadequate to represent the Empire in serving the air routes of the world in the peace to come. Have we to rely upon other nations to do it for us? The British aircraft industry is equal to the task. The Government should decide this vital question at once."https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1942/1942%20-%202678.html Flight 1942
First Committee and Interim Report The first Committee under the leadership of Lord Brabazon first met on 23 December 1942 and met a further nine times between then and 9 February 1943, when it submitted its outline recommendations to the UK Cabinet in its Interim Report. This recommended the adaptation for civil use of four military types of aircraft which were then in, or near, production, and the design of five new types specifically for civil use.Phipp, 2007, p.17
The four adaptations were:
(i) Avro York (developed from the Avro Lancaster) (ii) Vickers Warwick (iii) Short Hythe (converted from the Short Sunderland III) (iv) Short Sandringham (an improved conversion of the Short Sunderland V)
The five new types proposed were:
Type I: a very large, long-range landplane for the North Atlantic route. Type II: an economical replacement for the Douglas DC-3 for European services. Type III: a four-engined, medium-range landplane for the Empire routes. Type IV: the most advanced of them all, a jet-propelled mailplane for the North Atlantic. Type V: a twin-engined, fourteen-passenger feederliner.
Second Committee and Final Report
Some weeks after the report from the First Committee, it was decided to form a Second Committee with more comprehensive and detailed terms of reference. The Second Committee began meeting on 25 May 1943 under the leadership of Lord Brabazon in order to investigate the future needs of the British civilian airliner market. The committee included members of the state-owned airlines British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and later British European Airways (BEA), and the Secretary was Peter Masefield who later became the Chief Executive of BEA. They studied a number of designs and technical considerations, meeting frequently over the next two years to further clarify the needs of different market segments, and producing 151 papers. The government contact for this committee was Sir Stafford Cripps, the Minister of Aircraft Production until May 1945 when he was succeeded by Ernest Brown.
The views of the Committee changed considerably in that period and the list of Brabazon Types continued to vary, as did the specifications of each. One early recommendation was to pursue the "Interim Types" which were conversions and/or developments of wartime aircraft. The original four adaptations became:Phipp, 2007, p.18
(i) Avro York (developed from the Avro Lancaster) (ii) Avro Tudor (developed from the Avro Lincoln, itself a development of the Lancaster), the Tudor I being an interim transatlantic airliner pending the introduction of the Brabazon Type I, and the Tudor II being an interim Brabazon Type III airliner with shorter range and greater capacity for the British Empire routes.Phipp, 2007, pp.35-37 (iii) Handley Page Hermes, a civil development of the Halifax, first flown in 1945 but did not enter limited service with BOAC until 1950, having evolved through several iterations to be the Hermes IV. (iv) Short Sandringham (an improved conversion of the Short Sunderland Mark V)
These were all produced in some numbers in due course, although the Tudor I and Tudor II never entered service. They were all too late to compete (for example) with the earlier and much more capable Douglas DC-4 which had been in service since 1942 and could carry more passengers further and faster.Phipp, 2007, p.20 The final report in December 1945 ignored all these interim types and called for the construction of seven new designs which would be required after the war:Phipp, 2007, p.21
Type I was for a very large transatlantic airliner serving the high-volume routes like London-New York, seating its passengers in luxury for the 12-hour trip. The Type I design developed into Air Ministry Specification 2/44.
Type IIA, originally a short-haul feederliner intended to replace the Douglas DC-3, was for a piston-powered aircraft, to Air Ministry Specification 25/43, as originally intended.
Type IIB was for an aircraft using the new turboprop engine, to Air Ministry Specification 8/46. This came about because Vickers favoured the move to turboprop power.Phipp, 2007, pp.79-80 There was some scepticism on the part of the committee, and in the end they decided to divide the specification in two, allowing the turboprop design to go ahead as Type IIB while at the same time ordering a "backup" piston design as the Type IIA.Andrews and Morgan 1988, p. 421 A parallel alternative specification 16/46 was subsequently raised to cover later changes.
Type III called for a larger four-engined, medium-range aircraft, to Air Ministry Specification 6/45, for various multi-hop routes serving the British Empire, the "Medium Range Empire" (MRE) routes. This was at one time two separate requirements, IIIA and IIIB, but these had merged again in the Final Report.
Type IV was a jet-powered, 100-seat high-speed transport, to Air Ministry Specification 22/46. This was added at the personal urging of one of the committee members, Geoffrey de Havilland, whose company was involved in development of both Britain's first jet fighters and jet engines. The Type IV could, if the whole concept of a jet airliner could be made to work, be able to replace the Type III outright and assume many of the duties of the other planes in shorter routes.
Type VA (initially Type V) was effectively the original Type II fourteen-passenger, feederliner aircraft to Air Ministry Specification 18/44 after the Type II had evolved into larger designs.
Type VB was an eight-seat aircraft as a de Havilland Dragon Rapide replacement, to Air Ministry Specification 26/43, added as a further split in the Type V requirement.
The normal method for government aircraft production was that an Air Ministry Specification was issued and aircraft companies tendered designs to meet the specification. It was customary then to order prototypes of one or two designs for evaluation (though at times aircraft were ordered "off the drawing board"eg the Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle ordered without waiting to assess prototypes (Buttler p75)). In some cases manufacturers brought designs to the Air Ministry and a specification was written for the design.eg the de Havilland Mosquito which came from discussions between de Havilland and Air Ministry resulting in writing of specification B.1/40 after placing an order for 50.(Buttler p79) This process did not allow for companies to propose solutions which were, in their view, better, neither did it necessarily reflect the requirements of the planned operator who may have wanted something different. Additionally, other government bodies such as the Royal Aircraft Establishment had input to the process and these often conflicted with the designers being given contradictory instructions. One example of this is the trouble that Miles Aircraft had with the Ministry of Aircraft Production in relation to the design of the Miles Marathon.Brown, 1970, pp.301-307 In 1944, the Ministry of Aircraft Production started the process for contracts for all of these planes with individual companies; this role was taken over by the newly created Ministry of Supply in 1945. The view of Sir Cyril Musgrave, the Permanent Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Supply, was that "Only I can order civil airliners!"Masefield and Gunston, 2002, p.214 This attitude was a source of considerable difficulties in this process.
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