Auster Aircraft Ltd

Auster Aircraft Ltd is created in March 1946 by renaming of the company Taylorcraft Airplanes (England) Ltd, installed in Rearsby, Leics, renamed, to avoid as well any confusion with the American firm Taylorcraft as not to have excise taxes more to transfer with this one.

Conceived starting from the Taylorcraft Auster Mk V of artillery observation, the Auster J/1 Autocrat was the first light civil aircraft to start production in Great Britain at the end of the war, some 400 specimens being sold with one taken hardly exceeding the 1000 Pounds Sterling. It was also at the origin of a prolific family of light planes of civil or military use. Because in spite of the marketing civil of the Auster OAP of the surpluses of RAF, one lives to appear as of 1946 the following models: J/2 Arrow, J/3 Atom and J/4 Archer. Put aside a monoplane of agricultural work (Auster B8 Agricola), a target drone (Auster B3) and a light helicopter (Auster B9) which did not exceed the stage of static tests, Auster produced only machines derived from a.O.P., therefore monoplanes with high wing out of cloth-lined wooden.

3868 planes were produced in Rearsby until 1960. In 1959, to try to modernize the catalog, it was decided to replace the English engines Cirrus Minor and Gipsy Major by Lycoming, then one planned to introduce three-wheeled landing gears. It was unfortunately too late to fight against the massive imports of light planes of American origin. Repurchased £.525000 by Pressed Steel Company in 1960, Auster Aircraft Company amalgamated with F.G. Miles Ltd to create a national pole of construction of light planes, General British Executive and Aviation Ltd (Beagle), which was to continue the development and the construction of the planes of the Auster family until 1968.

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