Avro Athena

The Avro 701 Athena was a British advanced trainer built by Avro in the late 1940s to replace the North American Harvard in the Royal Air Force, but it was bought only in small numbers because the competing Boulton Paul Balliol was preferred. It was designed to Air Ministry Specification T.7/45 for a three-seat turboprop trainer, an all-metal low-wing monoplane with a side-by-side cockpit, and the specification was later replaced by T.14/47 calling for a Rolls-Royce Merlin 35 piston engine. The first prototype, with an Armstrong Siddeley Mamba turboprop, flew at Woodford on 12 June 1948, and the Merlin-powered Athena T.2 first flew on 1 August 1948. Fifteen production aircraft were ordered and the RAF used them from 1950 for armament training at Manby.