Automotive	11-98
	Technical Feature

Students pull off a cunning stunt

Lou Reade watches the latest progress of an aeroplane whose design stretches back 30 years

Think back to – or even consult – the final year project you carried out as a student. For the older ones among you, the hand-drawn designs will be peppered with quaint references to foot-poundals and dynes. But no matter how inspired or professional, very few will have the makings of a full commercial product.

But one project from 30 years ago has moved with the times. Cranfield University is celebrating the completion of the A1-200, a specialist aerobatic plane that grew out of a specification put forward in 1968 by Neil Williams, then the UK’s top stunt pilot. Williams specified a plane that would compete with the cream of stunt planes of the time – most of them from Russia. For several years, the design – codenamed the A1 – was little more than an ongoing research project for students.

Professor Denis Howe, who oversaw the project back then and is still at the department, says: "Students in successive years have worked on the project. It’s been handed on from year to year, almost like a baton."

In these early days, Prof Howe admits that his main job was to manage the process and persuade supporters to come on board. For a long time, the project remained within the department as he struggled to attract outside interest. Seven years on, an aerobatics enthusiast, Alan Curtis, stepped forward with £20,000, allowing the drawings of the plane to make it into production at last.

The first version of the plane was a single seater with a 210 horse power engine. It was registered in 1978. A constant feature specified by Williams – which holds to this day – was a wing span of exactly 10m.

The second version boasted a larger engine, 270 hp, and improved controls, which would allow better manouevring – though Williams said the plane still needed to improve its ‘flick roll’ performance. Meanwhile the A1 MkII did the rounds of aerobatic shows.

But Williams was killed in 1977, after which the project languished. But the flick roll problem was eventually solved and in 1994, Cranfield began a part-time MSc course for British Aerospace employees. The three year course included individual research projects and group design projects – for which an extension of the A1 project was ideal.

This time, the design would incorporates a passenger seat, increase engine size and add a second fuel tank.

"The job was to modify the A1 MkII into a two-seat configuration," says Robert Jones, lecturer in air vehicle technology and project leader for the A1-200 at the college.

The group split into three competitive teams, which each looked at how the existing design needed to be modified in order to meet the new specifications. All the teams concluded that ‘tweaking’ would be no good – large scale modification was necessary.

This led to a set of ‘affordable’ modifications being proposed, which the teams could then work on. These included changes to the canopy, trailing edge flaps and electrical system. At the same time, another team looked further, at ‘major’ modifications – which would help the teams to get closer to the full requirements of the plane. These included a composite wing design and a composite fuselage.

Now that the A1-200 is finished and the students have graduated, a fourth version of the plane is in the pipeline – to be worked on by the latest intake of MSc students. The A1-400 needs a better ‘lateral response’, which means fitting a new fin and rudder – making them from composite materials rather than the existing aluminium alloy. The A1-400 project is much shorter – Prof Howe believes that it will be ready early next year.

He points to the "enthusiasm and drive" of the students that work on this project – and when you stand watching the fruit of their labours doing back flips and other aerobatic manoeuvres above you, you can understand why.

Differences between the A1 MkII and A1-200

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