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 GEODETICS
THE BASKETWORK
BOMBER
When further work on airships was abandoned in this country in 1930, the master of light structures moved to Weybridge.
BNW: "I transferred to aeroplanes. At that time their structure consisted of a rectangular skeletal framework, the outer skin being doped fabric supported on a complicated and otherwise useless wooden framework shaped to produce a streamlined form, but with the disadvantage of adding considerably to the weight of the basic structure.
With the knowledge of geodesics gained from the gasbags of R.100 in my mind, it occurred to me that I could not only abolish the wooden falsework, but could at the same time enlarge the internal skeletal structure to full streamline dimensions, by forming its members as geodesics in the surface of both wings and fuselage, thus getting a much lighter, stiffer and stronger structure than ever before".
The first production aircraft so constructed was the Wellesley long-range monoplane bomber that held the World's Long Range Record for over ten years. Then came the outstanding Wellington, one of the truly great aircraft of all time. Over 11,000 were made and fulfilled many roles.
After the Wellesley's success a senior Air Staff officer had said, "it (the Wellesley) will only encourage that fellow Wallis to go ahead with geodetic construction".
BNW: "The Wellington proved such a success that our works were full up with work and Pierson (Wallis's partner) and I had nothing else to go on with. We shouldn't have been allowed to put it into the shops if we had, so I was just at liberty to think of what I wanted and I thought of what would be an engineer's way of stopping the war'.
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