The Air Navigation and Engineering Company Limited was formed in 1919 when the Blériot & SPAD Manufacturing Company Limited was renamed. The company was based at Addlestone Surrey.
The Blériot aircraft company had opened a factory at Addlestone during World War I to make SPAD and Avro aircraft. One of the first products was a cyclecar designed by Herbert Jones and W.D. Marchant called the Blériot-Whippet.
In 1922 the company built a 10-seat biplane airliner (the Handasyde H.2) on behalf of the Handasyde Aircraft Company Limited. The company built a number of light aircraft, the first designed by W.S. Shackelton was the ANEC I, flying in 1923. The aircraft were built at Addlestone then roaded to Brooklands for flight testing. The company stopped producing aircraft in 1926 and closed in 1927.
The ANEC I and II, designed by W.S Shackleton , were amongst the earliest ultralight aircraft; they were very small, wooden, strut braced high-wing monoplanes. The first ANEC I, registered G-EBHR, first flew at Brooklands on 21 August 1923. It was the first aircraft with an inverted engine, a 696 cc Blackburne Tomtit, to fly in the United Kingdom.
The ANEC I was designed to the rules of the 1923 Lympne light aircraft trials, principally an engine capacity limit of 750 cc, and the two aircraft completed that August took part. The main prizes were for fuel economy and the second ANEC I G-EBIL, flown by Jimmy James, shared half of the £1,500 prize with an English Electric Wren for flights of 87.5 miles (141 km) on one gallon (4.54 L) of petrol. He later reached an altitude of 14,000 ft (4,267 m) in it. G-EBIL was evaluated by the Air Ministry in 1924, briefly carrying the RAF serial J7506. Afterwards it was modified with a wingspan greatly reduced from 32 ft to 18 ft 4 in (9.75 m to 5.59 m) and re-engined with a 1,000 cc Anzani engine for entry in the 1925 Lympne August Bank Holiday Races, designated the ANEC IA.
Only one more ANEC I was constructed. It was built in Australia by George Beohm, who went on to design the Genairco Biplane, and Horrie Miller.
E. W. Beckman, the owner of the aircraft, intended to enter it in the Low-Powered Aeroplane Competition held at Richmond in December 1924, but it was not completed until the following year. The first of the two built in the United Kingdom in 1923, G-EBHR, was exported to Australia in the second half of 1924.
The ANEC II was an enlarged version of the ANEC I built for the 1924 Lympne light aircraft trials competition. This aircraft was the only one built. Following the revised competition rules, it was a two-seater and its more powerful 1,100 cc Anzani inverted V twin-cylinder had the greatest capacity allowed. The wing area was increased by 28% to accommodate the extra weight by a 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m) span extension. It was also longer by almost the same amount. Engine problems kept it from flying in the competition and out of the Grosvenor Trophy race that immediately followed.
After the abortive Lympne entry the A.N.E.C. II was certificated, registered G-EBJO and sold to G L P Henderson who fitted a 32 hp Bristol Cherub and modified the undercarriage to strut type to improve ground clearance. ’BJO was then sold to Norman Jones who raced it in various events before selling it in 1929 to Allen Wheeler. He flew it extensively before himself selling it in 1931, by which time it was in a sorry state minus engine, undercarriage and instruments, to Jimmy Edmunds – a friend of Richard Shuttleworth – at Old Warden for £8. During all this time the aircraft was flown as a single seater from the rear cockpit.
Six months later Edmunds had completed a rebuild and ’BJO was then based at Old Warden until January 1935. After that it passed through three more private owners until the registration was cancelled in 1937. The remains of the aircraft were then stored at Old Warden until a rebuild to the post Lympne configuration was undertaken by Don Cashmore (who also built the Cygnet replica).
Filmed at the Shuttleworth Flying Festival of Britain Airshow 2021.
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