The Blackburn Beverley came into its own thousands of miles from home, as two men who operated the aircraft tell Dr Kevin Wright.
It was an aircraft that would never win a beauty contest, however the Blackburn Beverley’s remarkable short-field performance meant it had a key role in the RAF for more than 11 years.
In 1946, the Air Ministry issued a specification for a tactical transport, capable of operating from small airfields. General Aircraft Ltd (GAL), designers of the wartime Hamilcar cargo glider, devised the GAL 60 ‘Universal Freighter’ and was awarded a twoprototype contract in 1948.
Blackburn Aircraft saw the aircraft’s potential and acquired the company on January 1, 1949, intent on finding production work for its underutilised plant at Brough, on the north bank of the River Humber near Hull.
The prototype GAL 60, WF320, was disassembled at GAL’s facility in West London and taken to Brough by road for reassembly and testing in October 1949. It first flew on June 20, 1950, with Blackburn re-designating the prototype as the B.100.
The second airframe, WZ889, was described as the GAL 65, and known by Blackburn as the B.101. This was a substantial redesign of the original aircraft with four new Br…
