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Painted in oils on canvas. 2000. 500mm x 600mm. |
‘Masterwork III’In 1940, with the Master II now in full production, the Ministry of Aircraft Production suddenly decided that stocks of Bristol Mercury engines would not be sufficient to meet all of its requirements. Once again, the Phillips & Powis team had to adapt the original Master design, this time for the American Pratt & Whitney radial engine – and so the Master III came about. Then the Ministry discovered that, after all, there would be enough Mercury engines - but decided to go ahead with both designs. Eventually, over 600 Master IIIs were built, all at the ‘shadow factory’ near Swindon. The final development of the Master design was the target-towing Martinet, which went into production in 1942 and continued until 1945, by which time over 1,700 had been built. Thus, with a total of some 5,000 aircraft, what began as a private venture between Phillips & Powis and Rolls Royce in 1937, developed into an unequalled range of RAF training aircraft that proved to be one of Berkshire’s most important contributions to the war effort. ____________________
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