Beaufighter - The Whispering Death! (Updated)

foreign hello and welcome to World of warbirds I'm Brian Pierce [Music] design and development so as Tom Jones might say It's Not Unusual for us to say that our featured warbird was a development from a previous aircraft it's probably the norm but this time the bow fighter was actually a third generation evolution in order to try to not get too Lost In The Weeds I'm going to try to keep the evolution simple I'm gonna try firstly although we have spoken of Bristol engines many times we have never talked about the Bristol airplane company and that is a shame that will be corrected fourth width it is one of the oldest Aviation companies in the world having been founded in February 1910 by Sir George White his son Stanley and his brother Samuel Sir George White was the chairman of the Bristol tramways and carriage company and after running into and chatting it up with Wilbur Wright the year before white saw a business opportunity in this flying machine thingy the original name of the company was the British and Colonial airplane Company Limited white wanted to avoid using the Bristol name because at that point newfangled airplanes were risky and he wanted to keep the two concerns separate during the first world war the company did well and built a variety of scout and fighter aircraft During the interwar period the company changed its name to Bristol as it seemed the aviation wasn't just a passing fancy around that same time the company picked up the cosmos engineering company which was a bankrupt airplane engine company everything was now well placed for both sides of the company aircraft and engine for the push for re-armament in the mid-1930s it was at this time when Bristol released the Blenheim which was a midwing twin-engine medium bomber and although we don't hear about it much it was an incredibly successful aircraft which when it became obsolete in one way would slide into a different role and just keep on a trucking when they became outpaced of being a day bomber they switched to night or reconnaissance or Patrol or training and they weren't just operated by the UK they were used by the Finns the yugoslavs the Australians and the Canadians amongst others they were actually built under license in Canada by Fairchild aircraft where they were known as bowling Brooks over 4 000 examples of all variants were built so when an air Ministry specification for a land-based twin-engined torpedo bomber was issued Bristol decided that the Blenheim was a good place to start they stretched the design added length to the wings in the fuselage and added space for a semi-recessed torpedo to deal with the greater weight Bristol initially chose their Perseus engine and then up engine the aircraft with a Bristol Taurus engine the new plane was named after the Duke of Beaufort over 1 000 were built in the UK and 700 were built in Australia by the government's Department of aircraft production or dap as such these were known as dap or is it dap I don't know both words when they flew with the Royal Australian Air Force in the Pacific beauforts flew with the Royal Air Force Coastal command and the Royal Navy Fleet air arm operating as torpedo and conventional bombers and mine layers until 1942. following that they became trainers in 1938 leaders within the Bristol company had the foresight to decide that the RAF would soon be needing a long-range fighter aircraft which would be able to deliver heavy weaponry they decided to fund the project on their own and they put engineer Leslie fries in charge of it if that name is familiar yes he is the guy who came up with the slotted aileron which counteracts adverse yaw during turns it's pretty fundamental in aircraft design and bears his name the freeze aileron again instead of starting from scratch freeze decided to base the new fighter on The Proven design of the Beaufort so that many of the manufacturing jigs would be common he went as far as yanking a half-finished Beaufort out of the production line in order to create the new Fighters prototype and finally that brings us to prototypes freeze and his team decided that the slightly Pokey Beaufort needed more power if it was going to act like a fighter so they switched out the 1000 horsepower Bristol Taurus engines and swapped in 1500 Bristol Hercules engines these engines turned a bigger prop so the engines had to be moved midwing instead of underslung as was on the Beaufort so that there would be enough clearance with the ground as this design work was going on the RAF was also deciding that they would be needing a twin-engined heavy fighter they already were looking at the Westland whirlwind but decided that it might be good to have a backup with the Beaufort type fighter so although they thought that the Bristol model might be too fat they authorized the construction of four prototypes as the name Beaufort Cannon fighter was a bit of a mouthful it was decided to shorten it down to beaufighter so that's where the name comes from the huge engines with their extra power caused excessive vibration and so longer and more flexible struts were used to mount the engines which extended from out the front of the Wings this controlled the shaking but made the aircraft nose heavy so the Sea of G was moved back by shortening the nose actually the space in the nose of the Beaufort had been for a bombardier who was no longer needed in the fighter in the end the plane ended up looking somewhat stubby but with the two big engines and two big props way out in front I think it looks muscular the wings control surfaces landing gear and much to the fuselage was identical to those of the Beaufort as previously said the bomb aimer station was eliminated as was the rear Gunner's position this left the pilot in the cockpit and a navigator slash radar operator behind him under a small perspex bubble window so the Kick-Ass looking bowfighter had a kick-ass armament although it had no Bombay bombs could be carried externally four 20 millimeter Hispano cannons were located in the lower fuselage and these were fed by 60 round drums the radar operator had to crawl up to the front to change the ammunition drums this turned out to be a truly sucky job and the system was later changed to a belt feed system out on the wings were 6 303-inch Browning machine guns weirdly enough there were four on the starboard side and two on the port side to allow for the landing light which was also on the port side when all these guns were firing The Recoil could reduce the speed of the aircraft by around 25 knots in July 1939 the first prototype took its Maiden flight only eight months after work had started this crazy speed is explained by the use of so many Beaufort designs and components tinkering improved the design by stiffening the elevator controls enlarging the fin area and lengthening the main Oleo strut and landing gear to handle hard Landings with the other prototypes there was experimentation on different Armament configurations such as a dual 40 millimeter cannon replacing the 20 millimeter cannon guns and a bow fighter with a Bolton Paul built four-gun turret also due to anxiety over future engine Supply there was also experimentation with different power plants by installing some bull fighters With Merlin engines with the magical Mystique of the Merlin you'd think that those bows would be the best but no in-flight testing found that they were underpowered with a hard and tricky swing to the left on takeoffs and landings which led to many accidents they built about 300 merlin-powered bows and about a third of these were lost to accidents but failed experiments aside the air Ministry was very happy with the bowfighter and began ordering as many as they could get the construction of his many bull fighters as possible became a major goal with the ministry of aircraft production getting involved to help set up the subcontracting of the major sections of the aircraft and establishing other factories to perform final assembly one of these was run by the ferry Aviation company and the other was run by Bristol itself one reason for all the demand was that the Beau fighter was one of the few aircraft capable of carrying the early and heavy Airborne interception radar and still maintain a Fighter's performance putting together this speed power radar and heavy Armament the bow was almost accidentally a perfect night fighter in the end almost six thousand bullfighters were built and just like her older sister the Beaufort several hundred were built in Australia these bowfighters were built by the Australian Department of aircraft production and were known as the mark 21. operational history so the idea of developing the Beau fighter as a heavy fighter backup to the Westland whirlwind really panned out when the Whirlwind was canceled due to production problems with its Rolls-Royce Peregrine engines it's really too bad as the Whirlwind was a cool looking aircraft but luckily the aircraft had the bow and began equipping 25 29 219 and 604 squadrons with that in September 1940. in October the bow got its first kill when it knocked down a dornier do 17. soon after with the desperate need for a night fighter field modifications were made to mate radar sets with the bow as was said previously the aircraft type had the power to carry the heavy sets and also the space to place the bulky units this experiment was a great success and by the spring of the following year both Fighters were sometimes responsible for knocking down half of the luvatha bombers shot down with the other half being claimed by A.A both Fighters would continue in this role until the de Havilland mosquitoes took over night fighting duties in mid to late 1942. during this transition other jobs were being found for the bow such as attacks on shipping ground attack and interdiction usually in these episodes we hear about U.S aircraft being accepted by the RAF or other Allied Air Forces it says something about the bow that the United States Army Air Forces usaaf received 100 bow Fighters and use these to equip the 414th for 15th for 16th and 4th 17th night fighter squadrons these squadrons had trained on p-70 night Fighters which were converted Douglas a20 havx but they flew the British bowfighters until the Northrup p-61 Black Widow Fighters began arriving in very late 1944. even with the arrival of the black widows the usaaf would continue to fly their bowfighters in nighter operations until very very late in the war RAF Coastal command began to look very enviously at the beaufighter in 1941 as its beauforts and Blenheim aircraft were getting very long in the tooth in order to meet the increased range demands of coastal command the mark 1C was designed with long-range fuel tanks Coastal command 252 and 272 squadrons equipped with bullfighters were sent to Malta and did very well in June 1941 they claimed the destruction of 49 enemy kills and the damaging of 42 more in mid-1942 the Beau fighter Mark 6C arrived which was equipped with fittings for carrying an externally mounted torpedo in April 1943 these turbos as they were called sank their first two merchant ships off of Norway Rock bows were both Fighters that carried a variety of H vars or High Velocity aircraft Rockets mounted under the wings one very effective technique was sending a large formation of Beau fighters to attack enemy shipping with rock bows distracting the ship's a a fire with Cannon and Rockets while the turbos swooped in at very low level with Torpedoes for the coup de grass bullfighters performed long-range patrols of the Bay of Biscay hunting for ju-88 and a wolf FW 200 Condors who were in turn hunting for Allied Shipping the hunters had become The Hunted bull fighters also flew for the British eighth Army during the Western desert campaign in the ground support role bull fighters operated in Asia and the Pacific from mid-1942. this is where supposedly Japanese soldiers called it in quotes whispering death due to its quiet engines the reason for this quiet engine reputation was that the Hercules engines used sleeve valves rather than the noisy puppet valves and on the attack this reduced noise level was most apparent from the front of the incoming attacker one of George S Patton's favorite quotes was attributed to Frederick the Great but said in French in English this is audacity audacity always audacity this quote in whatever language certainly describes the action of group Captain Alfred Kitchener gatward DSO DFC AE who went by the name Ken gatward in the spring of 1942 it was ascertained by the Special Operations executive soe that the German occupiers of France held a parade down the chandelier in Paris every day between 12 15 and 12 45. the commander-in-chief of coastal command thought it would be a jolly propaganda Boon and a morale boost to the French if they dropped a French tree color or flag over the actor Triomphe in the middle of the occupier's little parade this slightly Wackadoo mission was presented to flight Lieutenant Ken goward who had already done plenty of low-level daylight attacks to see how he felt about taking a shot at it gatward and his Navigator Sergeant Gilbert George Fern were game and so planning for what became known as operation squabble began the idea was to fly at very low level down the chandelier ruin the parade by strafing it and if that didn't work then hit the kriegs Marine headquarters which was based in the former French naval Ministry ministers then the flag would be dropped in preparation they obtained two French flags and set them up with little iron weights so that they would fall properly then they tested the unfurling procedure with a little scientific experiment of throwing one of them off the hangar roof they simulated the flight with map study exercises of France and Paris and practice their low-level attacking by strafing a shipwreck in the channel they were as ready as they were going to be now the weather just had to play along and on the 12th of June 1942 they took off at 11 29 from RAF Authority Island the weather certainly looked iffy at the start as they lifted off in heavy rain and encountered ten tenths Cloud at two thousand feet with heavy precip all the way across the channel but when they crossed the French Coast 20 minutes later the cloud was beginning to thin out and soon they were zooming along in bright sunshine they skimmed over the suburbs of Paris and circled the Eiffel Tower at 12 27 hours they picked up a little light Flack and also had a bird strike in the right engine radiator they then turned for the chandelier turns out there was no parade but Fern released the first three color down the flare Chute over the ardu Triomphe gatward then switched to plan B attack and attacked the ministerial de la marine building hitting the building with 20 millimeter cannon shells and sending the German centuries running for cover Fern then drop the second tricolor it was time to get out of Dodge so gatward turned for home base and landed at 13 53 hours gatward was awarded the distinguished flying cross DFC and fern got the distinguished flying medal dfm I've looked but I can find no info on what happened to the flags that were dropped there don't seem to be any air-worthy bows left but there are several on display in Australia including one at the Australian National Aviation Museum near Melbourne there's a bowfighter displayed at the Royal Air Force Museum in London and another under restoration at the National Museum of Flight at East Fortune Airfield east of Edinburgh there's a bull fighter at the national museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton Ohio although this bow actually flew in combat in the southwest specific by 31 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force it is displayed as nightmare which was a usaaf bowfighter flown by Captain Harold osberger commander of the 415th night Fighter Squadron closer to me is a bowfighter serial number Rd 867 which is in storage at the Canadian Aviation Museum awaiting restoration I wonder if they'd let me see it

Channel: World of Warbirds

Views: 591,782

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Id: k6DdS3EQt1c

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 10 2023