The Great War-Plane Sell-Off

The unusual story of Croydon's Aircraft Disposal Company and its aeroplanes 1920-1931

- or -

what to do with 25,000 redundant military aircraft, engines and spares!

by Arthur W.J.G. Ord-Hume

The signing of the Armistice in November 1918 ended a period of monumental growth in the war-goods manufacturing industries. Nowhere was this growth more marked than in aircraft-building. All over the country, shop-fitters, furniture-industries, piano-makers and shipbuilders had been geared up to turning out aircraft. We had begun the war with primitive aeroplanes and ended it with vast numbers of perfected fighting machines all built using taxpayer's money - our money! Now this vast programme had to be halted, a process that was far from straightforward. Their followed the enormous job of disposing of all this redundant property. The Government tried selling to the public through huge auctions, but there were few takers amidst the war-weary civilians for tanks, guns and aeroplanes.

Breaking up aeroplanes (many brand new) and burning them was an obvious solution - until MPs raised questions at Westminster on the issue of wasted taxpayers' money. There was also the matter of the huge store of engines and many tons of spares kept in London's Regent's Park. As aircraft disposal quickly turned into a National scandal and Parliament demanded action to halt the wastage, pioneer aviator Frederick Handley Page suggested forming a consortium to buy the lot from the Ministry of Munitions for sale abroad. After over a year of its own inefficient attempts at clearing more than 100,000 aircraft, the Government accepted. So was formed a unique business - The Aircraft Disposal Company. Taking over one of the supremely inefficient Government aircraft factories at Croydon, this fledgling business offered the Chancellor a way out of his problem. However, in offering serviceable aircraft at cheap prices, this company's success virtually killed off the British Aircraft industry. Few could trade in a market awash with low-cost aeroplanes.

This is the story of this unusual business and its curious ramifications. Besides almost bankrupting Handley Page, without it we might not have had a British light aircraft industry for ADC gave us the Cirrus engine that Geoffrey de Havilland ordered. From the Cirrus came the Gipsy... The Aircraft Disposal Company lasted barely 11 years, but its effects were far-reaching and it touched everybody in the aviation business.

144 pages fully illustrated with 177 photographs plus 26 drawings and facsimiles, many of which are rare and have never before been seen in print. There are two specially-produced three-view drawings of ADC's aircraft and, together with ADC's engines, their complete specifications.

SPECIFICATION

Binding: Hardback

Number/size of pages: 144/200mm x 270mm

Photographs: 177 mono - 26 line drawings

ISBN 1-904514-18-9

Price: £24.95/$38.00