Handley Page HP.88

Handley Page HP.88
Role	Research aircraft
Manufacturer	Blackburn Aircraft Limited
First flight	21 June 1951
Status	Destroyed
Number built	1

The Handley Page HP.88 was a British research aircraft, built in the early 1950s for Handley Page to test the aerodynamics of the Victor crescent wing design, and was intended to be a scaled-down version of that aircraft.

The single HP.88 aircraft was designed to Air Ministry Specification E.6/48 as an aerodynamic testbed for the proposed Handley Page Victor V-bomber.

To save time and cost it was decided to base the fuselage on the Supermarine Attacker. This was then changed to the Supermarine Type 510 which had already been redesigned with a swept wing. In the event, the many changes led Supermarine to give the design its own designation as the Supermarine 521. Detail design was contracted to General Aircraft (GAL) at Hanworth Aerodrome, but after GAL merged with Blackburn the work was moved to Brough Aerodrome and the design was given the Blackburn/SBAC designation YB-2. The aircraft was allocated military serial VX330.

The HP.88 had a 0.36 scaled-down equivalent of the Victor's crescent wing and T-tail with slab tailplane. However where the Victor had a high wing, the Type 521 set the wing low on the fuselage. Also, the Victor design continued to be refined, so the HP.88 was no longer representative of the Victor. The HP.88 wing featured inboard trailing-edge flaps, which badly affected trim when deployed. The tailplane was too small to counter the trim change, so a system was developed where the ailerons deflected upwards together to balance the trim forces. The system was wholly automatic with no pilot intervention, and in the event of any failure all surfaces would return to their normal positions.

...
Wikipedia