The Tabor was the first and only aircraft design produced by
W.G Tarrant Ltd, a well-known property developer and building contractor at
Byfleet,
Surrey, which had been subcontracted to build aircraft components during the
First World War. In late 1917 Tarrant assembled a design team, led by Walter Barling, hired from the
Royal Aircraft Factory and
Marcel Lobelle, hired from
Martinsyde, to design a very large long-range heavy bomber, capable of bombing
Berlin. Captain Percy Townley Rawlings formerly of the RNAS was general manager of the department. The Tabor was originally planned as a
biplane powered by four 600 hp
Siddeley Tiger engines. However delays in development of the engines meant these would be unavailable and so 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. With the end of the war conversion to a passenger aircraft was planned. The monocoque construction gave a large open space within the fuselage described as the length of a
cricket pitch in
Flight magazine. The pilots were situated in the nose, with a partition separating them from the engineer's station and the engine controls mounted on either side of the opening in the partition. The fuel tanks were in the top and sides of the fuselage to maintain the clear internal space. The aircraft was built at Farnborough in a large balloon shed. Work on the aircraft had stopped at the end of the First World War, when it was no longer needed as a bomber. It was later completed with the design altered to allow it to be used as a commercial or transport aircraft. Tragically, her mathematical analysis was not heeded. The Tabor's maiden flight was from the
Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough on 26 May 1919. Wheeled out at daybreak the Tabor, with two pilots (Captain Frederick Dunn with Rawlings as his assistant pilot) and five others (Captain Wilson of the Air Ministry, Lt Adams in charge of engines, superintendent of the department at the RAE Mr Grosert, and two mechanics) was taxied around the landing field in a "mile-wide circle" using only the four lower engines. Satisfied with the behaviour of the aircraft the crew decided to take-off. The tail was off the ground but it was still running on the main wheels, intermittently lifting off. When the top two engines were started the aircraft pitched forward, burying the nose into the ground and injuring all on board with the pilots severely injured. Fortunately there was no fire as someone, presumed to be one of the pilots, turned off the engines. Rawlings died after reaching hospital and Dunn died of his injuries two days later. Later analysis suggested that the upper engines were so far above the fuselage that they forced the nose down when driven up to full power. The situation may not have been helped by the addition of of lead ballast in the nose against the wishes of Tarrant. ==Operators==