AVRO 504J

(Monochrome Photograph - Showing an AVRO built 504J fitted with a 100 hp (75 kW) Gnome Monosoupape rotary engine and the modified cowling devised by the RFC. The cowl had additional large cut-outs to aid cooling of the more powerful engine.)

By mid-1916 production of the 504A was held up for lack of 80 hp rotary engines. Major Guy Livingstone of the RFC Training Brigade located a supply of spare 100 hp (75 kW)Gnome Monosoupape engines and arranged for two trial installations to be made in 504As.

The most practical of the two was test flown and approved by General Salmond, then drawings were prepared by the Air Department so that RFC training units could install the engines themselves.

A set of the drawings was also supplied to Avro and the company in turn incorporated them into the standard machine with the new designation 504J. Existing and subsequent orders for 504As were then amended to specify Js.

A.V. Roe & Co. Ltd. Hamble

(Monochrome Photograph - The Avro Factory at Hamble, with the Avro 523 and the two Type 529 twin engine prototypes on the new airfield in 1917.Unfortunately, they did not succeed in obtaining any orders for these machines.)

With the expansion of aircraft production at Manchester, Alliott's mind had also turned to the creation of a large new factory with an attendant garden city for it's employees, on the lines of those pioneered by earlier entrepreneurs.

To this end he purchased 300 acres of land plus a mile of fore-shore at Hamble on the Solent at Southampton where he built the factory. Unfortunately only 24 houses were completed before the Government placed restrictions on the use of building materials. However, at the end of 1916, he did move the office staff to the new facility and Hamble became the main experimental design and construction centre for Avro experimental prototypes for the next twelve years.