Henry Folland walks out of Gloster

Henry Folland was a stonemason’s son from Cambridge who became one of Britain’s great fighter designers. At the Royal Aircraft Factory he led the S.E.4 and S.E.5; at Gloster he drew the Grebe, Gamecock, Gauntlet and finally the Gladiator. When Hawker took over Gloster, he expected his designs to lose out, and in 1937 he left and bought the bankrupt British Marine Aircraft company at Hamble, on Southampton Water, which had been set up to build Sikorsky flying boats under licence.

Spitfire tails and the Folland Frightful

War made Folland a subcontractor. Hamble built parts for Blenheims, Beauforts, Mosquitoes and Wellingtons, and 15,000 of the 22,000 Spitfire rear fuselages. Of some 45 projects Folland proposed, only one of its own designs flew: the Fo.108 engine testbed of 1940, so ungainly it was nicknamed the Folland Frightful. Twelve were built. Ill health forced Folland to step down in 1951; he died in 1954.

Teddy Petter’s light fighter

His successor was W. E. W. Teddy Petter, designer of the Lysander, the Canberra and the Lightning, who joined in 1950. Petter calculated that modern fighters were becoming too expensive to build in numbers and set out to make a small, cheap, simple one. The Midge demonstrator flew on 11 August 1954, three weeks before Henry Folland’s death; the Gnat followed on 18 July 1955. The RAF did not want it as a fighter, but Finland, Yugoslavia and India did, and on 31 July 1958 Major Lauri Pekuri became the first Finnish pilot to break the sound barrier, in a Gnat.

Sabre Slayer

India bought the Gnat with a licence for Hindustan Aeronautics, which took over assembly and then production. In the wars with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971 the tiny, hard-to-see Gnat drew Pakistani F-86 Sabres into vertical fights, and it is credited by many sources with seven Sabres in 1965 alone. Indian pilots called it the Sabre Slayer. HAL developed it into the Ajeet, first flown in 1975. Gnats and Ajeets together came to 449 aircraft.

De Rode Pijlen

At home, Folland turned the Gnat into a two-seat advanced trainer, first flown on 31 August 1959. The ministry hesitated over whether so small a company could handle the order, and the RAF contracts came only after Hawker Siddeley bought Folland in 1959. 105 Gnat T.1s were built at Hamble, the last delivered in May 1965. The Yellowjacks and then the Red Arrows flew them until 1979, when the Hawk replaced them. Hawker Siddeley dropped the Folland name in 1963.

Fabrieken

• Hamble works · Hamble-le-Rice, Hampshire — Former British Marine Aircraft factory with slipway to Southampton Water
• Chilbolton airfield · Chilbolton, Hampshire — Flight test of the Midge and Gnat

Mensen

• Henry Folland · founder and designer (1889–1954) — Designed the S.E.5 and Gloster Gladiator
• W. E. W. Teddy Petter · managing director and designer from 1950 — Designer of the Midge and Gnat
• Lauri Pekuri · Finnish Air Force major — First Finn to break the sound barrier, in a Gnat, 1958

Records en primeurs

• First supersonic flight by a Finnish pilot, Gnat, 31 July 1958