Armstrong Whitworth Apollo Armstrong Whitworth Apollo The Armstrong Whitworth AW.55 Apollo was a 1940s British four-engine turboprop airliner built by Armstrong Whitworth at Baginton. The aircraft was in competition with the Vickers Viscount but was beset with engine problems and only two were built. The requirement resulted from the Brabazon Committee's Type II design, calling for a small, medium-range pressurized aircraft to fly its less-travelled routes which became Air Ministry Specification C.16/46 for an aircraft able to carry 24-30 passengers over 1,000 mi (1,610 km) at a cruising speed of . The resulting design was the AW.55 Apollo, a low-wing cantilever monoplane with
Fixed-wing aircraft went into service with the German Luftwaffe and later in the war the British Gloster Meteor entered service but never saw action — top airspeeds of aircraft for that era went as high as 1,130 km/h (702 mph), with the early July 1944 unofficial record flight of the German Me 163B V18 rocket fighter prototype. In October 1947, the Bell X-1 was the first aircraft to exceed the speed of sound. In 1948–49, aircraft transported supplies during the Berlin Blockade. New aircraft types, such as the B-52, were produced during the Cold War. The first jet airliner, the de Havilland