 | |
| Industry | Aviation |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1917 (as Gloucestershire Aircraft Company) |
| Defunct | 1963 |
| Fate | Merged with Armstrong Whitworth (1961) and Avro (1963) |
| Successor | Hawker Siddeley Aviation |
| Headquarters | , United Kingdom |
Key people | George Carter |
| Parent | Hawker Aircraft (1934) |
The Gloster Aircraft Company was a British aircraft manufacturer from 1917 to 1963.
Founded as the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company Limited during the First World War, with the aircraft construction activities of H.H. Martyn & Co. of Cheltenham, England it produced fighters during the war. It was renamed later as foreigners found 'Gloucestershire' difficult to pronounce. It later became part of the Hawker Siddeley group and the Gloster name disappeared in 1963.
Gloster designed and built several fighters that equipped the British Royal Air Force (RAF) during the interwar years including the Gladiator, the RAF's last biplane fighter. The company built most of the wartime production of Hawker Hurricanes and Hawker Typhoons for their parent company Hawker Siddeley while its design office was working on the first British jet aircraft, the E.28/39 experimental aircraft. This was followed by the Meteor, the RAF's first jet-powered fighter and the only Allied jet fighter to be put into service during the Second World War.