Issue No 21 THE AVIATION HISTORIAN 99
and the Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor at £40,000.
There would not be much in it. Indeed, the sum
of £80,000 had been tentatively allocated against a
unit price for the selected aircraft to Specification
15/38 out of a total of £375,000 put aside for civil
aircraft development in 1938.
In August 1938 a new department recommen-
ded by the Cadman committee — the Directorate
of Civil Aviation & Production, under Sir Francis
Shelmerdine and the new director of the DCRP,
Maj C.J. Stewart — made a technical assessment
of the four designs put forward for Specification
15/38. To simplify the assessment the pair
analysed the four designs by putting each “on
paper” with Bristol Taurus engines, a tricycle
undercarriage and using similar fuel tankages.
Predictably, performance and weights turned out
to be similar for the four designs, but the GAL.40
design edged into the lead on overall technical
merit. These were still only “paper aeroplanes”,
however, and Shelmerdine and Stewart were
very much in favour of getting Fairey into the
civil aircraft manufacturing business. Also, at the
first selection meeting on August 9, 1938, British
Airways’ Operations Manager, Alan Campbell-
Orde, made it quite clear that his airline would
find it difficult to place any orders with anything
but a large and experienced manufacturer.
The Air Ministry asked the four contenders
if they would be prepared to proceed with the
production of 20 aircraft if the whole cost of
prototype construction and development was
carried by the government — and, if not, whether
they would be prepared to do so if jigging and
tooling were also paid for. Fairey replied that
it would go ahead if the prototype costs were
covered, based on an initial run of 20 aircraft.
Fairey estimated that it would need a total of
£1,638,000, of which £160,000 would be paid for
prototype work and allowing £73,900 for each of
the 20 production machines.
Now for the proverbial spanner in the works.
It was agreed that two prototypes would be
required, but British Airways, which was now
involved in technical discussions regarding the
Specification, stated that it had a requirement for
only 12 such aircraft, rather less than the original
20 mooted. Furthermore, the airline claimed that
it was not in a position to place an order and that
the FC.1 was not suitable for its longer routes.
However, on November 12, 1938, following
Treasury approval, an offer was accepted by
Fairey, which agreed to proceed with construction
of the Fairey Commercial No 1 (FC.1). A sum of
£225,000 was allocated for the production of two
prototypes, plus £80,000 for each aircraft, plus
tooling support, for a total of 14 FC.1s, a revised
figure received from British Airways.construction begins... and ends
Fairey got off the mark straight away with an
excellent timber-and-fabric mock-up, which was
shown to the aviation press in early 1939. The
company’s founder, Richard (later Sir Richard)
Fairey, also saw other possibilities for the FC.1,
one of which was a military transport variant, the
FC.1M, which could be built in parallel with the
airliner. Fairey’s personal view was that it would
be essential for Britain’s armed forces to have
a modern transport aircraft in which to moveABOVE A promotional photo-montage of a model of the FC.1 “in flight” over a generic cloudscape. By this stage
the airliner has had a central fin incorporated but still has a deep cockpit window configuration. By the time work
on the mock-up started, a more streamlined windscreen arrangement with smaller windows had been designed.