Aircraft General Standards (AGS) were issued by the Directorate of Technical Development of the Air Ministry from the 1920’s and persist until the current day. AGS relating to fasteners were often substituted by British Standards, eg British Standard A or the AS Standards of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors (SBAC). In Australia the Department of Aircraft Production was established in 1939 to initiate the production of the Bristol Beaufort bomber. As part of this effort a number of documents, useful today, were generated transcribing AGS into equivalent British or more current AGS revisions. These particularly focus on fasteners and rivets.
AGS_Rivets_AGS500_substitutes_AGS259_260_261_397_730_972_DAP_Australia
AGS_Screws_British Standard_substitutes_AGS_SD14_Government_Aircraft_Factory_Australia
Other Aircraft manufacturers have generated charts over the years to assist in the substitution of AGS with BS or SBAC parts.
Hunting_Percival_Obsolete_Standards_opt
De_Havilland_Dove_hardware_specs_opt
AGS are listed in sequential number, eg AGS 500, AGS 501 even though the number does not generally group common parts together nor does it follow a specific chronological order. Where there is a revision of an AGS it is described as ‘Issue 2, Issue 3 etc with an amendment date’. Some AGS comprise a number of pages where one page may be Issue 2 but a subsequent page is revised to Issue 15. In this respect a revision is identified by a number in the suffix, eg AGS500/5, being AGS 500, Issue 5. It is not possible to accurately reflect in the file title all the revision history in a particular AGS, so all material found on a particular AGS is recorded here. In other words one file may incorporate a number of versions of the same AGS, but these are all recorded to allow a historical design to be understood within the context of its time. Most of the AGS listed here is located in the Archives of the ANAM Moorabbin Air Museum and was used by the Australian AID from the late 30’s to mid 60’s.
Brown Bros Engineering of the UK were significant suppliers of AGS and their catalogue provides a detailed summary of these parts.
The work to locate and digitise historical AGS continues and where you have copies of any old AGS please use the Contact button to arrange scanning and sharing.
Modern revisions of AGS are available from http://eatsc.saeitc.org/standards/
AGS