BE.2c Reproduction

"When we took possession of the BE2f restoration project we decided to build a reproduction BE2f and also two reproduction BE2c’s- one each of early and later style. The main differences being in the engine, inlet and exhaust, landing gear, fin, centre section, bracing wires and wing profile."

For this project we do have most of the original drawings and also a lot of photographic reference pictures of remaining examples of original planes to fill in the gaps. This model was built by over a dozen different companies based all around the UK and we have drawings from several of those companies showing various differences in some of the componentry, most of which are pretty minor but any difference needs to be cross referenced with all the of the other components that are interacted with- even the size of a bolt hole or the thickness of a bracket can cause problems. There is also the possibility that there were alterations during production and in the field that were not documented and updated on drawings. An obvious example of this is in the area of armaments. The BE2c was not originally designed to carry weapons and therefore many types of gun mounts were retro fitted- some of these were almost home made inventions.

We have decided on a Renault powered aircraft produced by William Beardmore and Co. for the earlier model BE2c. This has skid type timber landing gear, a full length chord centre section, spliced cable bracing wires, a triangular fin and RAF6 profile wings. Essentially the fuselage is identical to that of the BE2f and the later BE2c with a few minor alterations around the controls and some of the wing mounting areas are altered between the BE2c and BE2f. We have therefore been able to production line some of the componentry that we are building in an attempt to speed up the process. As yet the later type plane has not got a designation though we are building it with A RAF1a engine, ‘V’ type landing gear, curved large area fin, streamlined bracing wires and RAF14 profile wings. There have been many challenges in this build and it has been very helpful to have an original plane to hand even though it has been altered from its original state somewhat over the years. We very much look forward to seeing these planes fly in the not too distant future.