what is it?
The Bristol Type 170 Superfreighter Mk 32 was a larger, stretched version of the Bristol Freighter designed for Silver City Airways for use on the short air ferry routes to France.
How to recognise it: 2 piston engines with propellers · shoulder wing · fixed tailwheel (taildragger) · 32.9 m wingspan
base stats
Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).
fun facts
- First flew 73 years ago, in 1953.
- Top speed is 2.8× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
- Wingspan of 32.9 m: about 7 cars parked nose to tail.
- Fully loaded it can weigh as much as 3 African elephants (~6 t each).
piston: A car-like piston engine turning a propeller: simple and cheap, the classic small plane.
spec sheet
- first flight
- 1953-01-16
- introduced
- 1953
- status
- retired
- number built
- —
- role
- cargo aircraft, passenger aircraft
- origin
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- makers
- Bristol Aeroplane Company
- engines
- 2× Bristol Hercules 734
- crew
- 3
- passengers
- 20
- length
- 22.4 m
- wingspan
- 32.9 m
- height
- 7.6 m
- max take-off weight
- 20 t
- top speed
- 362 km/h
- cruise speed
- 264 km/h
- range
- —
- ceiling
- 7,010 m
- wings
- shoulder wing
- landing gear
- fixed conventional landing gear
Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.
family
Sources: Wikidata Q4969034, Wikipedia: Bristol Superfreighter (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.