Avions Gloster : beaux livres - histoire, types et technique

Gloster Aircraft Company

The Gloster Aircraft Company had its foundation in 1917 and in 1934 the company was taken over by Hawker Aircraft, though it continued to produce aircraft under its own name. In that same year the company produced the famous Gladiator biplane.

Having no modern designs of its own in production, Gloster undertook manufacture for the parent company Hawker. During the Second World War it built more than 6,000 Hurricanes and Typhoons.

The Gloster Meteor was the first operational Allied jet fighter aircraft of the Second World War, commencing operations in mid-1944, only some weeks later than the world's first operational jet, the German Messerschmitt Me 262. In 1945 a Meteor gained a World Airspeed Record of 606 mph.
Meteors remained in service with several air forces and saw action in the Korean War.
In 1952, the two seat, delta winged Gloster Javelin was developed as an all-weather fighter that could fly above 50,000 feet.

In 1961, the company was merged with Sir W.G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Limited to form Whitworth Gloster Aircraft Limited. Following re-organisation, the firm became part of the Avro Whitworth Division of Hawker Siddeley Aviation in 1963, and the name Gloster disappeared.

This well-illustrated book describes the story of Gloster and its aircraft.

Gloster Aircraft Company (Images of England)

Today it is difficult to imagine that the parishes of Hucclecote and Brockworth once were home to one of Britain's major manufacturers. Gloster Aircraft Company, with its forebears H.H. Martyn & Company and Gloucestershire Aircraft Company, produced some 10,000 aeroplanes between 1917 and 1963.
It also provided employment for countless thousands of local people. During World War II alone it employed 14,000 men and women working at the main factory and at 40 sites dispersed in Gloucester, Cheltenham, Stroud and other more distant parts of Gloucestershire.

Gloster designed a number of outstanding fighter aircraft which were built in large numbers; it also produced many prototypes which failed to win orders and very many more projects which never left the drawing board.
By chance the company was chosen to design and build Britain's first jet aircraft and followed by building 4,000 jet fighters for the Royal Air Force and a dozen air forces around the world.

Gloster finally became the first victim of a programme of political and economic stringency which has since decimated British aircraft manufacturing companies. This album portrays some of those people who worked 'up at the 'drome for GAC' and the works of their hands.

Gloster Aircraft Advertisements 1921 - 1959

This compilation of British aviation industry advertisements comprises the listings for Gloster Aircraft from 1921 to 1959. It is one of a series of compilations providing a unique source of reference for researchers, enthusiasts and anyone interested in the timelines of British aviation industry companies.

The advertisement images are reproduced at one per page and without any accompanying narrative. Each item includes the source title and original date of publication.

Gloster Gauntlet

The Gloster Gauntlet was a British single-seat biplane fighter of the RAF, designed and built by the Gloster Aircraft Company in the 1930s. It was the last RAF fighter to have an open cockpit and its penultimate biplane fighter in service. It was also Britain's most successful and popular inter-war fighter aircraft.

This book offers a complete and comprehensive history of the development and service of the plane, plus scale plans, photographs and drawings from pre-war technical manuals, scale plans, rare b+w period photographs, superb colour illustrations of camouflage and markings and walk-around colour photographs of the sole surviving examples. A rarely documented aspect of pre-World War II aviation history.

Revised and expanded version of the material published in Bristol Bulldog & Gloster Gauntlet (August 2005, ISBN 9788389450043).