Description of BRISTOL FREIGHTER
The Bristol Freighter was a British cargo aircraft capable of carrying both passengers and freight. Its payload was 18 tons.
It was built in the aftermath of the Second World War following the work of the Brabazon Committee, a think tank charged with defining the types of aircrafts that would be needed once the war was over. The latter decided to build the Avro Tudor airliner, the De Havilland monoplane and the Vickers Viscount turboprop. However, he rejected the Bristol Type 170 and it was equity capital that finally launched the project.
There were two versions: the Wayfarer version could carry about 30 passengers and the Freighter version was used for both freight and passenger flights.
214 models were produced, more than half of them for military customers such as the Royal Air Force or the Argentinean Air Force, which placed the first significant order. In addition, the Royal Canadian Air Force used them to transport material between its NATO bases in Europe. The Bristol Freighter also took part in the Berlin Airlift in 1949.
It was the businessman Sir Freddie Laker who made its name by making numerous flights to connect the two banks of the English Channel. The aircraft could accommodate two cars, loaded from the front, and passengers seated in the centre cabin. With Silver City Airways, the journey lasted half an hour.
Finally, Bristol Aeroplane built the Superfreighter in the 1950s, which took part in the Indochina War.
The Bristol 170 Freighter retired in 1999, having flown for at least twenty different countries. The Reynold Alberta Museum in Wetaskiwin currently exhibits a model of the aircraft.
