The Bristol Type 188 was designed and flown by the Bristol Aeroplane Company and was part of the British programme to develop a supersonic airliner. It was aimed at Mach 3+ and was built of stainless steel, and so was potentially by far the fastest aircraft ever to come out of a British factory. The one that remains is at the Royal Air Force museum at Cosford The 188 started as military, but then was partly sponsored by the Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee which first met in 1956. If you worked at Filton in 1964 you may remember the two Type 188 aircraft, which had finished flying and were stored in the paint shop. When Concorde prototype 002 needed painting, one day the 188s weren't there any more. The Government wanted to use them for target practice on the gunnery range at Shoeburyness in Essex, but later one turned up undamaged in the RAF Museum at Cosford, but by then, the Concorde was a genuine Mach 2 aeroplane whereas the Type 188 only ever got to Mach 1.88. So what could have happened to the other 188 that flew? Geoff Scharenguivel was at a company you may not have heard of called Great Central Aircraft and this is his story, which deals with the days when Iran was ruled by the Shah, who was deposed not long after. In those days the British Government ran the aircraft industry as a public/private partnership, not very efficiently but essential to maintaining The Empire. Everyone in the industry was very aware in those days of the politics and the security around what they did, and Geoff seems to have been active in both those fields. He had a private life too, which got well mixed up in the rest of the action.
About the Author: James Alford was educated at a Catholic grammar school in the London area and after national service in Cyprus in Army Intelligence he studied aeronautics at Imperial College. He worked for Blackburn Aircraft in Kensington and then the British Aircraft Corporation at Filton, Bristol, where he married and settled. Following the failure of the Concorde to gain large-scale orders from world airlines, he moved into civil engineering, elected MICE, moved to the new Avon County and left early when Avon was dismantled, in order to run a small-holding for a few years, while also volunteering at aviation museums, and doing some amateur acting. He now lives comfortably on high ground overlooking the Bristol Channel and drives a Land Rover