Tabor was the first and only aircraft design produced by W.G Tarrant Ltd, a well-known developer and building contractor at Byfleet, Surrey, who had hired Walter Barling from the Royal Aircraft Factory to design a very large long range heavy bomber.
Construction used the Warren Girder principle in wood. The fuselage was a monocoque.[1]
The Tabor was originally planned as a biplane powered by four 600 hp Siddeley Tiger engines. As these were unavailable, however, the aircraft was redesigned to use six 450 hp Napier Lion engines to give a similar power/weight ratio, and a third, upper wing added[2].
The final design was a triplane bomber with a wingspan of over 131 ft (40 m) across. Unusually, the central wing had by far the greater span. Four engines were mounted in push pull configuration pairs between the lower and middle wings with the two additional engines mounted in tractor configuration between the middle and upper wings, directly above the lower pairs. With the end of the war conversion to a passenger aircraft was planned.
F1765 after its crash
The Tabor's maiden flight was from the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough on 26 May 1919. However while gathering speed, it pitched forwards onto its nose moments before take-off killing the two pilots. Later analysis suggested that the upper engines were so far above the fuselage that they actually forced the nose down when driven up to full power. The situation may not have been helped by the addition of 1,000 lb of lead ballast in the nose against the wishes of Tarrant[2].
