Gloster Aircraft since 1917

Although most renowned for its series of seaplane racers for the Schneider Trophy Contests and for fighters like the Gamecock and Gladiator, the Gloster Aircraft Company ran the gamut of design ingenuity, even though no type was ordered into quantity production. By chance the company was chosen to produce Britain’s first jet aircraft, the E.28/39, and followed its success with the ubiquitous Meteor and the all-weather, missile-carrying javelin, of which some 4000 were built. 

This revised edition of Gloster Aircraft since 1917 describes the company’s formation and development in the face of a diminishing need for military aircraft and provides some fascinating insights into the manner in which it struggled to surmount the engineering and financial problems of the four decades of its existence before succumbing to the economic and political paper era. Pressures of the post-1957 Defence White Individual chapters on Gloster aeroplanes reveal many new details of their construction, development and operational history. Comprehensive appendices give year by year production figures, UK and export sales, air racing successes and record achievements, hitherto unpublished information on more than 100 Gloster projects with many three-view drawings, allocation notes on 5000 Gloster aeroplanes and much other new information. 

The author, who is an ex-Gloster engineering apprentice, was personally involved in many aspects of the design, production and marketing of the aircraft and other products of the Hucclecote production lines during his 23 years’ association with Gloster Aircraft Company.