Cunliffe -Owen Concoria

Go here and you will see a photo of a model of the building.
http://www.hampshireairfields.co.uk/co.html

Is this artist image the factory in question?

If you’re interested, you’ll find at http://sussexhistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=6622.0 an amount of information and documentation concerning the Concordia.

Sir Hugo C-O was Chairman of B-A Tobacco, largely Southampton-based. He entered Aero, with many others, 1934-36 (it was the dot.com bubble of the day), took a licence for those Burnelli lifting wings, then settled for sub-contract to Westland, the Seafire Design Authority. We (A.M/MAP) provided the vast shadow factory, so in 1944 he addressed what-to-do to hold onto it in Peace. Unlike the Ring of design parents established after WW1, he had enterprise, initiative and commercial risk-receptiveness, because he was a businessman. The Brabazon Committee, defining Civil Types in 1943/44, included a “feeder”, and funded (to be) Miles Marathon and DH Dove. Sir Hugo judged he could do better…and in effect sank the financial benefit of all his WW2 work into Concordia.

And was destroyed not by any inherent shortcoming, but by as is, where is C-47s at $50K. That outcome confirmed UK Aero in reliance on the State milch cow. I have struggled to find another* truly PV British commercial type: Prince, I hear you cry, 748…but one way or another – directed military procurement, local Authority relief on business rates – we subsidised everything.

(* Auster Agricola was said to have consumed the entire financial benefit of WW2 military Auster AOPs).

Or maybe less rivets judging by some of the dodgy stories handed down to me!

If you use the search button I think you will find more on Concordia and Cunliffe Owen. My mother worked at Cunliffe Owens’s during the war as a fitter. She proudly told us how she made some sort of wing boxes for Hurricane’s and repaired bomb doors for other aircraft. I think they did a lot of subcontract work.

They made 504 Seafires,the word was they were faster than the Westland built because they used more flat rivets!Thanks for the info chaps.

If you use the search button I think you will find more on Concordia and Cunliffe Owen. My mother worked at Cunliffe Owens’s during the war as a fitter. She proudly told us how she made some sort of wing boxes for Hurricane’s and repaired bomb doors for other aircraft. I think they did a lot of subcontract work.

If you worked at Ford’s Wide Lane factory you might find the photos on my pages about C-O interesting.

http://www.hampshireairfields.co.uk/co.html
http://www.hampshireairfields.co.uk/ah1900/cicuprod.html