January 1956: Turbulent times for Handley Page

Handley Page is synonymous with the UK’s aviation industry but bad timing and resistance to change would ultimately lead to its downfall in 1970.

Things looked different in the 1950s when the company was plotting its own route around the world of civilian and military aviation, but the cracks appeared in 1955 when it brought a new commercial airliner to the Farnborough Air Show.

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The root of the problem was the four Alvis Leonides Major piston aero engines used on the new Herald, an aircraft that Handley Page thought could challenge the Douglas DC-3.

In January 1956, The Engineer offered its reflections on Farnborough 1955 and looked also at the Twin Pioneer from Scottish Aviation, the company that acquired Handley Page’s final aircraft design and made it viable for years after the collapse of the Hertfordshire firm.

According to The Engineer, the Herald was ‘characteristically a British airliner in appearance’ and was constructed by dividing the airframe into subassemblies. This method, used with the wartime Handley Page aircraft, allowed for the maximum number of employees to work on one aircraft.