Avro Anson

The Avro Anson was a British twin-engine, multi-role aircraft that grew from the Avro 652 airliner into a maritime reconnaissance aircraft for the Royal Air Force in the mid-1930s. The Avro 652A prototype first flew on 24 March 1935 and beat the de Havilland DH.89 in evaluation, after which Air Ministry Specification G.18/35 was written around it and an initial order for 174 aircraft was placed in July 1935. It entered RAF service in 1936 but was soon obsolete as a front-line combat aircraft, and it became a main multi-engine aircrew trainer of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, serving the RAF as a trainer and communications aircraft until 1968. A few new civil Avro 19 aircraft followed the war, and production ended in 1952 with 11,020 completed, including 2,882 built in Canada by Federal Aircraft.