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The Planet Satellite was a British light aircraft of the late 1940s. Designed to exploit new technology, the aircraft was abandoned after two crashes although the innovative fuselage was later incorporated into a helicopter prototype.
The Satellite was a futuristic looking four-seater aircraft built of Elektron, a 90% magnesium alloy, in a true monocoque 'teardrop' shaped fuselage with no internal reinforced structure.Middleton 1983, p. 528. The wings were also skinned with sheet elektron. The UK manufacturing rights for Elektron were owned by F. A. Hughes and Co., which had acquired the license in 1923 from IG Farben in Germany. Hughes & Co. had been fully owned since 1947 by Distillers Company Ltd., (makers of Gordon's Gin and Johnnie Walker Whisky), who decided to finance the Satellite: a partnership established the Planet Aircraft Company, which operated as a subsidiary of a liquor company.Middleton 1983, p. 530.
The Satellite was powered by a 250 hp de Havilland Gipsy Queen 31 mounted amidships driving a two-blade Aeromatic "pusher" airscrew in the tail, Air Progress, November 1978, p. 18. with cooling air drawn by a fan through a flush slot on the roof of the fuselage.Orde-Hume 2021, p. 62 Other notable features included a 'butterfly' V-tail and a retractable tricycle undercarriage with some Elektron components, with the nosewheel retracting into a reinforced keel made of solid Elektron that ran the length of the underside of the fuselage.Middleton 1983, p. 528.
Breaking with conventional design and manufacturing conventions, Heenan declared in the July 1948 Aviation News issue, that the 400 drawings made were in stark contrast with the standard of approximately 3,000 drawings required for a project of that complexity.Middleton 1983, p. 529.
Built in the Robinson Redwing factory at Purley Way, Croydon, Surrey in 1947, the first prototype was taken to Redhill Aerodrome in 1948. The sleek light aircraft appeared at the S.B.A.C. show at Farnborough Airshow in September 1948 and received the registration G-ALOI in April 1949.
The manufacturers had already begun the production of a second prototype but having already invested £100,000, and facing a likely cost of a further £50,000 to redesign the Satellite, chose to wind down the program with no further attempts to fly the Planet Satellite.
The second prototype, registered G-ALXP was abandoned but the completed fuselage was incorporated into the Firth Helicopter FH-01/4, (also designed by Heenan) built in 1952 at Thame, Oxfordshire. The Firth Helicopter was abandoned without flying. It was presented to the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield in 1955.
The single "flying" Satellite languished at Redhill until 1958 when it was unceremoniously broken up.Middleton 1983, p. 531.
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