Avro Ashton

The Avro Type 706 Ashton was a high altitude research aircraft, designed to provide a means of developing the internal pressurisation systems needed for post war jet powered airliners.

History
In November 1947 the Avro company followed conversion of Tudor Mk 4 G-AGST, a.k.a TT181, to Tudor Mk 8 configuration by submitting a tender to the Ministry of Supply for a new contract, which would cover the construction of a specialist research aircraft. Known as the Avro Type 705 Tudor Mk 9, this would, like the Tudor Mk 8, be powered by four Nene turbojets.

In fiction
An Avro Ashton, in its six-engined, Olympus testbed form appeared as the fictitious Phoenix airliner in Cone of Silence (1960), based on the novel of the same name by David Beaty, a former BOAC pilot. This concerned the takeoff problems of the Phoenix, and the subsequent accident investigation; it was based on two takeoff accidents to the de Havilland Comet.