Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Company, or Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft, was a British aircraft manufacturer. It was established as the Aerial Department of the Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth & Company engineering group in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1912.

In 1920, Armstrong Whitworth acquired the engine and automobile manufacturer Siddeley-Deasy. The engine and automotive businesses of both companies were spun off as Armstrong Siddeley and the aircraft interests as the Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Company. When Vickers and Armstrong Whitworth merged in 1927 to form Vickers-Armstrong, Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft and Armstrong Siddeley were bought out by John Davenport Siddeley (1st Baron Kenilworth) and did not join the new grouping. This left two aircraft companies with Armstrong in the name. Vickers-Armstrong's (known usually as just "Vickers") and "Armstrong-Whitworth"

In 1935, J. D. Siddeley retired and Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft was purchased by Hawker Aircraft, the new group becoming Hawker Siddeley Aircraft. The component companies of Hawker Siddeley co-operated, but operated as individual entities.

Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft was eventually merged with another Hawker Siddeley company, Gloster Aircraft Company in 1961. In 1963 Hawker Siddeley dropped the names of the component companies from its products, the last Armstrong Whitworth product, the Argosy, becoming the Hawker Siddeley Argosy.

Aircraft

Date of first flight in parenthesis.

Armstrong Whitworth F.K.3 (1915)
Armstrong-Whitworth F.K.8 (1916) - "Big Ack" (1,200 built)
Armstrong-Whitworth F.K.9 (1916)
Armstrong-Whitworth F.K.10 (1917) - "Quadriplane" (8 built)
Armstrong Whitworth Tadpole
Armstrong Whitworth Siskin (1919)
Armstrong Whitworth Awana (1923)
Armstrong Whitworth Atlas (1925)
Armstrong Whitworth Ape (1926)
Armstrong Whitworth Argosy (1926)
Armstrong Whitworth Atlanta (1932)
Armstrong Whitworth A.W.19 (1934)
Armstrong Whitworth Scimitar (1934)
Armstrong Whitworth A.W.23 (1935)
Armstrong Whitworth Whitley (1936)
Armstrong Whitworth Ensign (1938)
Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle (1940)
Armstrong Whitworth A.W.52 (1947)- flying wing, prototype only
Armstrong Whitworth Apollo (1949)
Armstrong Whitworth Argosy (AW.650 / 660) (1959)
Armstrong Whitworth AW.169 - proposed design for Operational Requirement F.155 high altitude supersonic interceptor
Armstrong Whitworth AW.171 - supersonic VTOL flying wing
Hawker Sea Hawk - produced as part of Hawker Siddeley Aircraft
Gloster Meteor NF.11 - produced as part of Hawker Siddeley Aircraft

Baginton - Coventry Airport

In 1954 Baginton was the largest all grass airfield in the UK and at that time was in fact one of the few large grass airfields still in operation without any runways, in 1950 Sir W.G. Armstrong Whitworth aircraft Ltd were concerned about the unsuitability of the airfield for test flying their faster modern aircraft and to this end they offered the sum of £250,000 to the Coventry airport council to put down modern runways, the offer was not acceptable to A.W.A as the Corporation could not offer any adequate return for the expenditure, and went so far as to say that they would not expect the A.W.A company to have any return from the users if built at the companies expense, due to the the result of this unreasonable request was the reason that A.W.A moved their test flying facilities out to Bitteswell. It is ironic that some four years later the airfield committee had been offered the same amount from the Government to put down runways to bring the airfield up to modern standards. The then airfield manager was Mr F.R.Midgley. It seems that politics even in the fifties was such that planning at the airport was to be delayed by the wrong decisions and to hold up the airport for another ten years before a proper runway could be put down.