Handley Page Type B

The Handley Page Type B, retrospectively the H.P.2, was an unusual single-engined pusher biplane built at Barking at the commission of W.P. Thompson, a Liverpool patent agent who wanted an aircraft with pendulum stability, its mass mounted flexibly below the wings. It had no fuselage: a 60 hp Green four-cylinder water-cooled engine hung below the lower wing and drove a pair of pusher propellers by chains, with the pilot seated ahead of it and a biplane tail carried on two booms. The undercarriage collapsed on the first attempt to fly in late 1909 and a storm then did more damage, so Handley Page disowned it and nicknamed it The Scrapheap. Robert Fenwick, financed by Thompson, completed the repairs, and as the Planes Limited Biplane it flew on 29 November 1910, crashed a few days later and was rebuilt to fly again from Formby sands.