Fairey's Unlucky and Forgotten Bomber | Fairey Hendon

the fairy hendon is unique amongst the family of fairy aircraft aside from their very first the f2 prototype of 1917 the hendon would be fairies only other twin-engined aircraft and their sole foray into heavy bomber design in 1927 the air ministry issued specification b1927 this called for a twin-engine knight bomber that could carry a 1500 pound bomb load over a range of 920 miles at 115 miles an hour it also specified that the bomber should be able to climb from ground level to 10 000 feet in 30 minutes fairy submitted two designs in december of that year both of the designs were very similar with the exception that one would be powered by bristol mercury radial engines and the other by rolls-royce liquid-cooled v-engines along with fairy the air ministry also received submissions from avro hadley page and vickers but fairy's design was the most advanced all of the other submissions were traditional biplane designs whereas fairy was proposing an all-new metal framed monoplane the man who led the design team p a rally had been responsible for the design aerodynamics and testing of fairy's striking long-range monoplane and there is no doubt that those aircraft influenced the decisions he made when designing the hendon the air ministry was interested in the proposal and after discussions about the general layout equipment weapons and crew positions a contract was placed in october 1929 for the production of a radial engine prototype the design of fairy's new bomber had a number of new features and it also had a somewhat curious wing design the large cantilever wing had a very deep cross-section when compared to a lot of other designs and the center section of the wing was built integrally with the fuselage this center section was built up around two main steel spas with each of the upper and lower spa booms consisting of square tubing the wing sections further out from this were braced by a system of tubes arranged into pyramids a fairy design by the way and these were supported by bracing wires the fuselage itself was also built from steel tubing with the rear section being built as a warren truss and the whole aircraft was supported by a large fixed undercarriage that was housed in a pair of streamlined fairings though the aircraft clung to tradition in some ways the fabric coverings of the wings and fuselage being the best example it also featured several innovations among these was the complete internal stowage of its bomb load most bombers at the time either had their armament suspended beneath the wing or had a hybrid system with a small bombay but the hendon carried all of its bombs internally now it didn't have one large bombay as you would expect but rather a series of bomb cells 10 large bomb cells spanned the wing and the fuselage between the engines and behind these were six smaller cells three on each side the large cells were designed from the outset to be large enough to accommodate one of the new 1000 pound bombs and the hendon was to have a total carrying capacity of 2548 pounds though innovative this arrangement came with a compromise it shared the available space of the wing's center section with the fuel tanks the hendon had two large 250 gallon fuel tanks each located behind the engines in the thick center section of the wing it also had a pair of smaller gravity-fed gallon tanks directly behind the engine but the main point is this if the aircraft carried a full fuel load it could not carry a full bomb load if the full 2500 pound bomb load was taken it would only have a range of 680 miles conversely if the full fuel load was taken then the bomb load was reduced from 2500 pounds down to 1600 pounds but the range of course went up to 950 miles so it was a bit of a balancing act another new feature was an aluminium catwalk that ran between the tail and nose bomb aimer and gunner positions this meant that all crew members were free to move to different positions whilst still in flight which when it came to combat survivability was a huge bonus as it meant that crew members could tend first aid to each other or a gunner's position could be replaced to facilitate this catwalk the pilot's cockpit was offset to the port side which also had the added advantage of providing a good view of the ground during taxiing takeoff and landing the cockpit also had its own new feature a fully enclosed canopy which considering the historically depressing state of british weather would have come as a relief for the pilots speaking of pilots and crew a couple of sources conflict on the nominal crew complement of the production model the prototype had a crew of four but this was later changed when it went into production and the majority seem to agree that it was designed to finally operate with a crew of five two pilots of whom the second acted as a navigator a radio operator who also acted as the dorsal gunner a tail gunner and the bomb aimer who also operated the nose gunning position this last crew member is where some sources seem to conflict with a few suggesting that the co-pilot would also act as a bomb aimer but for me that just doesn't make sense to have him running well crawling to and from the nose all the time so i'm going to go with the five crew layout as the more probable outcome construction of the prototype was somewhat delayed as fairy was still making up its mind on the final wing design initially the air ministry had been skeptical of its practicality and although ferry had convinced them with the help of the royal aircraft establishment they had to finance several wind tunnel tests before reaching a final decision in january of 1930. because of this the prototype known as k1695 was not completed until november several months after the prototypes built by vickers and henley page had already flown although initially designed to be powered by mercury engines the aircraft was completed with two 525 horsepower bristol jupiter engines instead it finally took to the skies on the 25th of november flown by norman macmillan and in fact this was to be the last aircraft flown by the famous test pilots before he moved on from the company all went reasonably well though the aileron and rudder controls felt heavy there was some longitudinal instability and quite a bit of care was needed to land such a sleek aircraft especially as it didn't have any flaps it was not long after this that ferry ran into a stroke of luck their competitors prototypes were encountering various problems and the air ministry decided to delay the competitive evaluations by nine months fairies good luck meant that when their aircraft decided to overrun the aerodrome runway on landing and crash they now had sufficient time to repair and improve it there had been some airflow disturbances buffeting and premature stalling behind the count engines and as a result of this the jupiter engines were replaced by rolls-royce kestrel v12s around this time the control cables were replaced by rods and the slide dihedral in the tail plane was removed the canopy was removed from the cockpit and a second cockpit was installed in tandem though this whole arrangement would later on get its own large canopy again during this period of time the prototype was modified several times and it looks slightly different in almost every photo i can find the rebuilt prototype flip again in november 1931 and the following may it arrived at madelsham heath for contract trials after these were completed it went on for performance and armament trials with a number 10 bomber squadron of the raf the report on the hinden was not unfavorable but the hanley page hayford was preferred because of its more conventional handling characteristics and so orders are placed for the hayford not the hendon to go into production fairy was undeterred and the aircraft went back for further modifications in the meantime the raf at farnborough had at ferry's expense completed small-scale wind tunnel tests with different ailerons and hinge gaps the hope being to reduce control loads without affecting its rate of roll in consequence of this the prototype was fitted with revised ailerons and servo tabs for the elevators and rudders before being flown back to modelshim for further testing this time the report was more favorable though it still tended to land heavily at slow speeds with the vickers wellington and armstrong whitworth whitley bombers still pretty far off and with the hayford already showing its obsolescence the air ministry's interest in ferry's bomber began to grow and an initial order of 14 aircraft was placed in the spring of 1934 these would be known as the hendon ii this would be followed by further orders later that year and in 1935 though they would eventually be cancelled a new specification was drawn up to cover the change to the kestrel engines and a list of other modifications which included the re-introduction of an enclosed cockpit to the rejoice of all a rotating front turret and slipstream deflectors for the other two gunner positions production hendons were built at ferry's new factory at heaton chapel in stockport they entered raf service with number 38 squadron at the end of 1936 amongst them was the original prototype which had been upgraded and modernized to comply with the new specification 38 squadron was based at mildenhall which had one of the largest raf airfields at the time due to the tendency of the hendon to float down the runway due to its lack of flaps this was certainly not a coincidence and the pilots were advised to land with plenty of room to spare despite its proclivity for hurtling off the airstrip only two hendons were written off in accidents one of these was an interesting case in november 1938 a dual control hendon serial k5094 was crashed by a pair of leading aircraft men who had decided it would be a great idea to take it out for a joyride at night shortly after the unauthorized takeoff one of the pilots accidentally pulled the throttle all the way shut and the aircraft promptly stalled and crashed thankfully it was only about 150 feet in the air the two men weren't seriously injured and they had plenty of time to contemplate their actions during their 12th month detention after the subsequent court martial aside from rebellious crewmen the hendon saw little excitement during its brief service life number 38 squadron began to take delivery of the new wellington bombers in november of 1938 and they ceased flying the hendon at the beginning of 1939 most were struck from the list and scrapped but four examples were delivered as ground instruction machines to a radio school at raf cranwell if the prototype had been delivered faster and if fairy had been taken more seriously from the outset the hendon could have distinguished itself during the early to mid 1930s however fate was mostly unkind to what was for its time in 1930 a pretty modern aircraft and its poor history is perhaps the main reason why ferry never pursued building bombers again as always thank you all very much for watching and i'll catch you all next time [Music] you

Channel: Rex's Hangar

Views: 94,010

Keywords: royal air force, air show, world war ii, fairey aircraft, fairey hendon, fairey, fairey bomber, forgotten airfraft, forgotten bomber, flying failure, fairey hendon bomber, experimental bomber, uknown aircraft, military aviation, history, world war 2, ww2 documentary, RAF, Rex's hangar, Air Ministry, Handley Page, Vickers, hendon air show, hendon air pageant, forgotten aircraft, bomber, aircraft development, cantilever wing

Id: 3mmVXHBWTnc

Length: 11min 56sec (716 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 25 2022