hello and welcome to season 2 of Rex's hanger season 1 was very well received and many of you have been asking for a followup as apparently binge watching or binge listening to aviation history is something that a lot of people enjoy and here I was thinking that I was the only one so here it is now I had planned to release this a bit later in March or possibly even in April around Easter but a couple of my planned long videos for this month and next month have unfortunately been forced to be postponed for reasons beyond my control so I thought I would put this up now by way of constellation season 2 covers videos I produced early in 2022 but it only covers the aircraft overview videos and none of the special videos that I started doing like the one covering weird and obscure concept aircraft now if you would like to also have those included in future Seasons where a season would literally cover all videos released within a certain time frame let me know and I'll make adjustments accordingly but for now enjoy episode one The Beard more inflexible out of all the weird giant aircraft built in the 1920s and 1930s the beard more inflexible is perhaps one of the most obscure at least in terms of readily available Source material the beard more inflexible also known as the rawar 6 can trace its Origins back to the end of World War I Adolf Carl rawu had worked for Zeppelin during the war though famous for their giant airships the company was already looking at diversifying their aircraft portfolio as early as 1913 and were expanding into the design of heavier than air aircraft during the war robach had been involved with the design work of the massive arplane bombers and following World War I he designed the Zeppelin staren E420 which was an all metal for engine airliner unfortunately this aircraft was to be scrapped in 1922 as it violated the terms of the Treaty of Versailles following this robach founded the robach metal Aircraft company and began designing even more aircraft carefully evading the Treaty of Versa by having the aircraft designed in Germany but built in Copenhagen around the same time as this the British Air Ministry was beginning to recognize the importance of all metal aircraft especially for larger designs they issued a specification that called for the design of a large all metal experimental transport a contract was soon awarded to William beardmore and Company which was based in Scotland beardmore had built aircraft under license during World War I but they were primarily involved with ship building locomotive and engine construction as they lacked aircraft design expertise themselves beardmore was tasked to work with robach on the design of this new experimental aircraft beardmore would outline and dictate the aircraft's specifications based on the air Ministry specification and robach would then work on the main design once this was completed it was licensed to beardmore in 1924 and construction of the aircraft began in what was rapidly becoming practice especially with large aircraft designs the aircraft was tested in the Royal aircraft establishment's wind tunnel at farra the tests proved very promising and this was down to the fact that despite its large size the inflexible was of a fairly simple and conventional design construction of the inflexible was not exactly a rapid ofair however hampered by material shortages and registration delays the aircraft was not completed until mid 1927 and then it had to be packed down and transported for testing this presented its own issues due to its vast size the aircraft was disassembled and transported by sea from Glasgow to ipswitch however once it got there further transport was delayed once again as it was found that they would need to build a specialized vehicle with steerable axles to get the aircraft from IP switch to mam Heath Airfield once it finally arrived another problem arose as it was realized that the inflexible wingspan was larger than any hanger opening that they had available eventually a series of wheeled trolleys were built that allowed the aircraft to be stored in the hanger sideways in its final assembled State the inflexible made for an impressive sight it was a shoulder Wing troto monoplane of all metal construction a very futuristic design for 1927 it had a length of just over 23 m a wingspan of 48 M greater than that of a b29 super Fortress and a maximum height of 6 and 1/2 M like many early monoplanes the inflexible wings were rather box-like the center Wing section was formed by a wing box that was bolted onto the fuselage attached to each outer section of the central Wing were the outer wing sections which were supported by Wings spars a cable was used to keep the huge Wings in tension during flight this cable ran from the wear ring Spar to the lower fuselage the Curious wing tips look like somebody put the final section of the wing through a photocopier set to 25% but in fact they are balance horns that were used to reduce control surface flutter a suitable precaution as the inflex aerons Spann the outer half of each Wing's trailing Edge due to their immense size the wings were also designed to carry the entirety of the aircraft's fuel load 2,482 L of fuel split between four large wing tanks the wings were clad in the same metal that was used to make the rest of the aircraft which was Jamin a strong lightweight alloy of aluminium that is increased in strength by the incorporation of copper manganese and magnesium the fuselage was rectangular in shape and consisted of two sections that were bolted together that made for easy maintenance disassembly and transport at the rear of this fuselage were the large vertical and horizontal stabilizers to help better control its movement a Servo tab trailed behind the rudder and the aircraft's elevator spanned the entire width of the horizontal stabilizer powering the inflexible were a trio of 35 L 12 cylinder Rolls-Royce Condor 2 engines which had an output of 670 horsepower each like everything else about the inflexible thus far these engines were big weighing 628 kilos each and they drove a large two blade fixed pitch propeller the radiator for the nose engine was located below the fuselage and the other two engines had their radiators mounted between the engine nay cell and the fuselage itself the inflexible was a heavy Beast it had an empty weight of 11.3 tons and a maximum weight of 16.7 tons this heavy load was supported by two huge main wheels and a steerable tail wheel the wheels themselves were a bit of an innovation specifically developed by Dunlop and with a diameter of 2.2 M they were some of the largest Wheels fitted to an aircraft at the time originally they had been designed as the more traditional wireframe spoke wheels that were common on many aircraft at this time but the inflexible heavy weight buckled them and a new sturdier pair were made from aluminium and steel each wheel was supported by a large shock absorbing strut that extended from the rear of the engine nay Cel with the wheel itself being supported by an A-frame mounted to the lower fuselage next to the wheels was another Innovation necessitated by the sheer size of the aircraft a hydraulic braking system designed by a young and relatively unknown engineer by the name of Kurt tank who would go on to design such aircraft as the wolf 190 ground testing of the inflexible began at the beginning of 1928 but before its first flight it was decided to extend the length of the existing martle shim Heath Airfield by another 400 yards as there were doubts that such a large heavy aircraft could take off on the current air strip it would be an unnecessary precaution however as the aircraft took to the skies for the first time on the 5th of March 1928 within the limits of the original Airfield length it was flown by test pilot Jack noes and he flew the inflexible for around 15 minutes taking it up to an altitude of 1,4 Ft he reported that the aircraft had been St and easy to control although it did feel a bit sluggish follow-up testing confirmed that the aircraft was indeed underpowered only reaching a maximum speed of 175 km an hour this prompted the discussion for a replacement of his engines though this was never to happen the low power also meant that the inflexible handled poorly at slow speeds or in less than ideal weather and that was something that hurt the raf's interest in the project during the course of 1928 the inflexible made a few different public appearances in flights though the pilot was strictly advised not to attempt any kind of aerobatics despite capturing public interest with its all metal frame and Innovative features the aircraft failed to secure any production contracts and by 1929 its flying days were over beardmore was already having Financial struggles after World War I and the failure of the inflexible to secure contracts along with various other misfortunes LED them to closing their aircraft development Branch by the end of 1929 the inflexible had proven the feasibility of all metal designed aircraft but the Wall Street Crash and subsequent Great Depression put a stop over all thoughts of modernizing British aircraft until the mid 1930s the inflexible was used for static testing in melam Heath in 1930 the engines were removed and placed into storage and after the static tests were completed the wings fuselage and various components were used for corrosion testing which basically gave the people in charge a fun excuse to let let the airframe sit outside in the British drizzle and slowly rot away the remains of the aircraft was scrapped in 1931 with the only surviving item of the inflexible being one of its giant Landing Wheels which can now be found on display in the science museum in London I mentioned at the start of the video that there was a small amount of source material for this particular aircraft uh my two primary references for this were a book called beardmore Aviation 1913 to 1930 by Charles McKay and British prototype aircraft by Ray St evant I think I was able to borrow a copy of the former and I own a copy of the latter just in case you wanted to know where I found the information episode two the fairy Swordfish the fairy swordfish is one of the most if not the most famous biplanes to take part in the second world war in an age of sleek monoplanes and the first stirrings of the jet age it looked comically out of place but this Plucky little aircraft craft went on to earn a great name for itself the development of the swordfish can be traced back to the fairy s930 and the tsr1 the s930 was imaginatively named after the air Ministry specification for which it was built this specification called for a torpedo bomber and reconnaissance aircraft Ferry submitted two designs to the air Ministry in October of 1930 of which one was produced it was an unequal span B plane design with a fabric covered fuselage comprised of stainless steel tubing and strips it was powered by a liquid cooled Rolls-Royce Castrol V12 engine that gave 525 horsepower this engine wants to feature steam cooling based on earlier experimental successes with the condensers located on the upper Center section of the engine its Armament consisted of a 7.7 mm Vic machine gun in the port combing which was operated by the pilot and a 7.7 mm Lewis gun on a fairy high-speed mounting for the rear Gunner and it could also carry various payloads under its lower wing this aircraft was given the serial s176 and flew for the first time on the 22nd of February 1934 taking off from the Great West Aerodrome this prototype was initially tested as a land plane having a divided undercarriage fitted with low pressure tires and a tail wheel but after these tests it was converted to a float plane in this configuration it featured a 30 and 1/2t long Central float and a pair of stabilizing Wing floats taking off for the first time in this guys in January of 1935 overall its water handling characteristics were well received but there was criticism of some of its Airborne handling the feedback from Pilots about controlling the aircraft described it as heavy but positive at allit low speeds however they had to constantly apply corrective Rudder due to the lack of a Rudder bias gear during this time and indeed before the other progenitor of the Swordfish the tsr1 was also being worked on surprisingly this new aircraft was completed yearly a year before the s930 aircraft has flown for the first time the reason for this was that the tsr1 at the time designated F1 1875 had originally been designed as a private Venture for the Greek navy it had been designed to meet a variety of requirements but unfortunately Greek interest in the project had gradually diminished Ferry then decided to approach the air Ministry with this design proposing it as a solution for the need for a spotter reconnaissance aircraft This Plane first took to the skies on the 21st of March 1933 at the time it was powered by a 14 cylinder Sidle Panther radial engine that gave out 625 horsepower however in June of that year this was swapped out for a 635 horsepower 9 cylinder Bristol Pegasus radio engine and it was then that the aircraft was redesignated as the tsr1 the s930 and the tsr1 prototypes looked somewhat similar in appearance the main difference being that the tsr1 had a radial engine and a spatted undercarriage unfortunately the tsr1 was to be lost in an accident during its testing Chris stanland the test pilot was putting the aircraft through a series of spinning tests initially the aircraft could not be persuaded to spin but on the or third attempt it changed its mind and decided to enter an incredibly nasty flat spin keeping the nose almost on the horizon itself after attempting and failing to regain control stanland attempted to bail from the aircraft however the lateral motion merely threw him into the rear Pilot's seat after this moment of aial leap frogging he was then able to properly bail out and safely got clear before this unfortunate mishap the air Ministry had recently issued a new specification dubbed s153 3 which was a combination of specifications s930 and m130 calling for the development of a two seat torpedo bomber and spotting aircraft though the tsr1 had been lost in its accident the test results had been very promising and so a second prototype was developed as the tsr2 with this aircraft representing the birth of what was to become the fairy Swordfish the tsr2 had some minor external changes compared to its predecessor it had an additional Bay in the fuselage which necessitated lengthening and it also had spin recovery Stakes ahead of the leading edges of the tail plane for obvious reasons the upper Wing now had a sweep back angle of 4° to compensate for the lengthening of the fuselage and the fuselage itself though was similar to its original design with fabric covering steel strips and struts the tsr2 was powered by a more powerful version of the Bristol Pegasus engine that powered the tsr1 and it performed its first flight on the 17th of April 1934 once again flown by stanland initial contract trials went on for 2 months and then the Prototype was flown to melim for further testing then Rae farra for catapult trials and then HMS courageous for deck Landing tests after this the aircraft had its spattered landing gear replaced with twin floats for water tests at hamul this began on the 10th of November 1934 on the 1st of January 1935 it then went to f sto and then in February it crashed during tests at the torpedo trials unit at gosport this was not the end for the tsr2 Prototype uh it was rebuilt after this and the aircraft would carry on as a development aircraft for the air ministry's directorate of technical development as for the test reports themselves the results were mostly favorable the elevators and ailerons were remarked as being light and effective at all speeds and although the rudder itself felt quite heavy it too was effective there were some criticisms however some aspects of its stalling Behavior were less than desirable especially when it came to the rudder and it had quite a slow spin recovery time despite additional measures being taken the aircraft also exhibited some instability when diving with an AR center of gravity post examination adjustments were made to the range of elevator movement and subsequent testing and reports at melim deemed the aircraft to now be acceptable the production version of the tsr2 was given the name swordfish by the air Ministry and an order was placed in Spring of 1935 for three pre-production aircraft and a production batch of 86 swordfish Mark 1s in this new specification the Bristol engine now powered a three-blade metal propeller instead of the two blade propellers that were tried on the original prototypes power output was still 690 horsepower but its performance of course would vary depending on the aircraft's configuration the swordfish had a maximum speed of 147 mph at 5,000 ft in its spotting configuration or 143 mph when loaded with a torpedo its range was 624 m without the torpedo or 522 miles with it and the flight endurance would either be 6 and 1/2 hours or 5 1/2 hours following the same pattern in terms of overall dimensions the Mark 1 had a length of 35 8 in a wingspan of 456 in and a maximum height of 12' 4 in like the prototypes the Mark 1 had a forward firing 7.7 Vicor gun that was operated by the pilot and the Gunner would operate another 7.7 vickas or Lewis gun depending on exact model that was on a fairy high-speed mounting in terms of suspended Armament it could carry one 18in torpedo or 1 1500b sea mine under the fuselage alternatively the swordfish could also carry up to 1,500 pounds worth of bombs or death charges on Wing racks the swordfish began to reach squadrons of the Fleet air arm in July of 1936 with number 825 Squadron of the aircraft carrier HMS glorious taking delivery of the first units to replace their existing complement of fairy seals by the outbreak of World War II the Fleet air arm had 13 operational Frontline swordfish squadrons of those 13 12 were operating with five aircraft carriers HMS Arc Royal had for squadrons courageous had two Eagle had two glorious had two and Furious had two in addition to this there were float plane variants of the swordfish that operated at Sea with two catapult flight units though serviceable and indeed they would go on to ear distinction during the war the float plane variant of the swordfish still had a couple of problems they struggled to taxi well in the water with wind speeds more than 20 mph and a 1936 report of the pre-production float plane tests commented Ed that the aircraft took a long time to get up to speed and that during this time the propeller picked up a lot of water aside from some general Fleet protection and Convoy escort missions the swordfish would not see much in the way of active service until the arrival of the Norwegian campaign despite this delayed start the swordfish would go on to quickly rack up a number of great firsts for the Fleet air arm on the 11th of April 1940 swordfish from number 816 and 818 squadrons took off from HMS Fury ious and embarked on the first coordinated torpedo attack to be launched from an aircraft carrier rather embarrassingly their targets a group of Cruisers that were meant to be mored in Trondheim weren't actually there just a pair of Destroyers but they carried out the attack nonetheless and scored a hit on one of the Destroyers the rest of the strike being hampered by shallow water a few days later on the 13th of April a float plane swordfish catapulted from HMS War spite scored the fleet airarms first ubot kill of the war the aircraft had been launched to provide spotting for the operations at navik piloted by Pilot officer FC rice and with Lieutenant Commander WM Brown as the Observer the swordfish provided excellent spotting for war Spite and her Entourage helping them sink seven destroyers rice and brown then bombed one of the Destroyers themselves which then either sunk or was scuttled later before spotting the u64 sitting at anchor they scored at least one direct hit on the submarine with the bombs and it sank almost immediately during the following fortnite around narvik and the local Waters the swordfish would see continuous action often in bad weather and under the threat of colliding with Norway's aggressive Coastal terrain that same month back on the home front the swordfish began to be involved with M laying operations under RAF Coastal command a task that they would actually become quite famous for in the beginning these operations were limited to 812 Squadron but by the end of May four squadrons were involved in this work M laying by day and By Night targeting German held Port Waters and also bombing the ports themselves by day their targets were expanded to oil storage Logistics Depots and Invasion barges after the fall of France when a German invasion of Britain seemed to only be a matter of when not if over in the Mediterranean swordfish would perform another British first upon Italy's entry into the war the first British Air Raid against Italy was made by swordfish in an operation that could have been described as comedy had the situation been less depressing nine swordfish from number 767 training Squadron carrying appropriated and prefused frenched bombs flew from the south of France to raid Genoa on the 14th of June speaking of France the swordfish would also feature prominently during the controversial attack on merel cabir and I apologize if I pronounce that wrong um aircraft flying from HMS Arc Royal torpedoed and severely damaged the battle cruiser Dunkirk in what became a practical demonstration that torpedo bombers could strike accurately and effective against Capital ships at Harbor this demonstration would be repeated with much enthusiasm a few weeks later during the famous knight attack at Toronto swordfish flying from HMS illustrious carried out the attack on November the 11th 1940 after a couple of operational delays success was dependent not only on surprise but constant photographic reconnaissance on the target which lasted almost up to the last hours prior to the attack the swordfish achieved almost complete surprise attacking with a mix of bombs and Torpedoes the result was one Battleship sunk two more heavily damaged two Cruisers heavily damaged two destroyers damaged and two auxiliary vessels sunk the operation was so successful that Japanese would use reports of the attack to help with their own planning of their own torpedo attacks upon P Harbor swordfish operating out of Malta would distinguish themselves in another way in enemy comat rating the aircraft would be no match for enemy escort Fighters and so they timed their flights so that they would arrive over the convoys by the cover of Darkness despite no more than 27 swordfish operating out of Malta at any one time they managed to sink on average 50,000 tons of shipping every month over a period of 9 months the swordfish featured in two of the war's more famous Naval events at least in terms of the European war in May 1941 swordfish were in involved in the attack on the German battleship bismar after being engaged by HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Hood bismar was attacked from swordfish operating out of the carrier HMS Victorious the weather was not in their favor for the initial attack with very poor visibility but a single torpedo hit was confirmed a few days later the swordfish had another go at the battleship and scored at least two more torpedo hits damaging the battleship steering though they did not outright sink the bismar the contribution made by by the swordfish during the battle can certainly not be discounted the other Naval event that featured them was on the February the 12th 1942 in what would become known as the channel Dash this did not go quite so well for the swordfish six aircraft from the rebuilding 825 Squadron their carrier Arc Royal having been sunk the previous November were called upon as the only available torpedo bombers to attack the German heavy Cruisers that were racing through the channel to their home ports led by lieutenant Commander Esmond the swordfish Were Meant to have fighter cover but their escorts did not appear in the poor weather conditions of a 700 ft Cloud base and 2,000 yard visibility despite this they pressed on approaching in two subf flights of three aircraft the first went in under heavy anti-aircraft fire and was set upon by German Fighters that tore them to Pieces the second subf flight was seen going in for the attack but was never heard from again all surviving members of this attack would be decorated and Luke tenant Commander Esmond was pousy awarded the Victoria Cross the first member of the Fleet air arm to receive such honors this marked the last time that swordfish would be used for torpedo attack improvements in anti-aircraft Gunnery and the complete performance superiority of enemy Fighters rendered them far too vulnerable and they were withdrawn from this role completely the swordfish would continue to be used in the anti-submarine role though as a hunter and as a killer with some being equipped with ASV radar and the others with depth charg the mark 2 swordfish arrived in 1943 it had a strengthened lower wing with a metal Underside this allowed it to be equipped with armor piercing rockets on the underwing rails in the same year the Mark II also arrived which in addition to the modified lower wing was designed with built-in anti-shipping radar from August 1942 swordfish played an important role in escorting the Russian convoys on one of these convoys swordfish from the carriers Striker and vindex totaled over 1,000 operational hours of Submarine Patrol in just 10 days by the spring of 1943 Rockets were becoming regularly used and the first successes with the new weapon was scored on the 23rd of May when a swordfish from 819 Squadron operating from the escort carrier Archer used Rockets to sync U 752 800 M west of Ireland by the end of the war swordfish were responsible for sinking 14 new boats the last operational Squadron equipped with swordfish number 836 was disbanded on the 21st of May 1945 despite its Antiquated looks and slow speed the fairy swordfish had operated successfully throughout the entire length of the war even out living aircraft that had been designed to replace it several swordfish survived to this day but only one of them is the famous Mark 1 model luckily this Soul Survivor is also airworthy and has been regular flying since 2008 episode 3 the locked model G over the years loed has produced many many aircraft but today we're going back in time to look at the first the one that started it all and that means going all the way back to 1912 Alan loed was one of three brothers all of whom shared a passion for Aviation between 1910 and 1912 Allan worked as both a mechanic and then a pilot mostly dealing with the Curtis Pusher aircraft it was not to be a pleasant relationship however the Curtis Pusher proved to be recalcitrant and downright dangerous to fly and Allen crashed twice in this aircraft the second crash almost cost him his life when an unstable rain soaked underpowered Curtis Pusher failed to reach sufficient height to clear a set of telegraph wires luckily for Alan he would only suffer minor injuries despite the aircraft being completely wrecked but having survived two crashes in Curtis pushes in 9 months he was no longer keen on the idea of flying a relatively light aircraft with a heavy engine mounted behind the pilot thus whilst working as an instruction and exhibition pilot for the international aircraft manufacturing company he drew up the concept for a tractor B plane that would become the first aircraft to Bear the locked name speaking of the locked name back then it was spelled differently l o u g h e a d it being a Scottish name but Allan would eventually Tire of people mispronouncing his surname as lad and would have his name changed to resemble the phonetic spelling and this would also become reflected in the company name as well Allan began work on what was to become the locked model G in Chicago he had begun Milling some of the first wooden Parts when it became apparent he would not be able to complete the task on his own he joined up with his brother Malcolm and relocated the work to San Francisco during the evening and weekends the two brothers worked on their aircraft in a rented frame garage on the waterfront it was designated the model G as it was their seventh design though it would be the first to reach completion initial progress was slow alen and Malcolm continued to work as automobile mechanics but their income was not sufficient to cover all the costs of construction especially the cost of purchasing an engine and so it became necessary for the brothers to find Outside financing luck worked in their favor here both of them had worked for many years for many of the top Automotive specialists in the San Francisco area which meant they were acquainted with some rather wealthy individuals in this field they were soon able to convince several people to invest in their idea with a total investment of $4,000 required to complete the model G and so the ALCO Hydro airplane company was formed with the funds in place the brothers were able to continue their work purchase the engine and thus the model G was born for the time it was a relatively Advanced concept it was a 3 Bay tractor biplane design with an unequal wing span the upper Wing had a span of 46 ft and the lower wing had a span of 36 ft the aerons were mounted between two wings and cruciform tail surfaces hinged as a unit on a universal joint at the tail a 3in1 control Arrangement was used with the wheel operating the rudder and the stick to which the wheel was attached operating the elevators and the ailerons accommodation was made for One Pilot and a passenger in Tandem open cockpits though this would be expanded upon later to allow for a second passenger as well the aircraft was completed as a float plane in 1913 and at this time it was powered by a six-cylinder Kirkham engine which came with a very recognizable horseshoe shaped radiator however this would not be the engine with which the model G would take flight the engine was found to be unreliable and and after just 15 minutes of running time on the ground its crank case decided to split understandably the locky brothers especially Allen who had already experienced unreliable aircraft returned the engine to Kirkham in the unwarranted hope of obtaining a refund in its place they would use a Curtis o V8 engine which would put out about 80 horsepower initially retaining the radiator that had been used for the kirkum engine the model G was launched onto San Francisco Bay for its first flight on the 15th of June 1913 Alan Loi took the controls and took to the skies for a brief flight after observing that the aircraft seemed sound and unlikely to fall out of the sky he briefly landed to pick up his brother and they embarked on a 20-minute cruise over the bay flying over alcatra Island and the surrounding Coastline after this a third flight was made with a passenger RL Coleman but stronger weather and rough Seas ciled a fourth flight that afternoon as the water was beginning to grow far too choppy for the float plane to handle later on in that summer the model G would suffer some minor damage when Allan hit a levy at San Mato was carrying out a charted flight the damage to the aircraft included a broken propeller and a torn Pontoon and the model G was transported back to San Francisco for repairs during these repairs the old horseshoe shaped radiator was swapped out for a more conventional one and after repairs were complete the model G was put into storage for a time as alen's brother was traveling abroad later on the brothers saw the Panama Pacific Exposition as an opportunity to recoup their investment and maybe even turn a tidy profit the exposition was held to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal but San Francisco also took it as an opportunity to showcase their recovery from the destruction of the 1906 earthquake the demonstration of new pioneering aircraft developed in that very City would definitely Aid in this demonstration the locki brothers together with the help of capital provided by a Mr Meer bought their model G out from the other investors of the ALCO Hydro airplane company together they put in a bid for the concession of flying passenger flights at the exhibition initially the brothers were disappointed as they were underbid by Bob Fowler who won the concession for flights and demonstrations when the exhibition opened in February of 1915 however in a stroke of luck for them and Misfortune for Fowler his aircraft would be destroyed in an accident and the locked model G would be used instead in 50 days They Carried 600 passengers for 10-minute Joy rides earning a profit of $44,000 from the total income of just over $6,000 alen and Malcolm invested this profit and formed the Lockheed aircraft manufacturing company which they organized at Santa Barbara with other investors the model G was taken there by Road from San Francisco and in its new home it continued to earn income for its owners by flying Joy rides and charter flights it was even used to make the first aircraft crossing of the Santa Barbara Channel carrying two passengers 60 mi in just under 1 hour eventually time in use would take its toll on the model G by 1918 it was beginning to show signs of serious age and wear and with advancements made in aircraft design there was no reason at the time to restore this historic aircraft and so the first locked aircraft was scrapped the final bit of profit being earned when its Curtis engine was sold off to a new home over the years Loy would go through a series of name changes buyouts disasters and Transformations they would go on to produce several stunning and famous aircraft over the course of the 20th century but it's always good to remember the humble roots of where these Aviation Giants first began episode 4 the Gloucester tc33 the Gloucester Aircraft company is perhaps remembered most for its pioneering fighter aircraft one of the most famous being the gluster meteor however for a brief period of time they also dipped their toes into developing larger stranger aircraft and this of course means going back to the period of 1925 to 1935 when everyone was getting in on the big plane bandwagon at the end of the 1920s the British Air Ministry was looking to replace the handling page Clive and the vickas Victoria and so they issued specification c628 this specification called for a bomber transport capable of carrying 30 fully armed troops or their equivalent in cargo or Bombs over a distance of 12200 Mi submissions would be received from Gloucester Handley page Vicor and Bristol though it appears that the Bristol design never made it past the drawing board the aircraft submitted to the air Ministry were quite varied in design as each manufacturer had interpreted the specification slightly differently at Gloucester Henry falland chose to interpret the ministry's requirements as that of a transport first and and as a bomber second gluster had the aircraft designed in late 1930 and construction proceeded throughout 1931 the Prototype aircraft designated j9 832 was completed by the end of that year and was ready to roll out in early 1932 to a casual Observer at a distance the design may appear to be relatively simple but in fact it featured several Oddities and Innovations its Dimensions were both impressive and unorthodox it was an unequal span B plane but with a Twist the aircraft's lower Wings had a greater span than the upper with the lower Wings being at 95 f 1 in compared to the upper wing of 93t 11 in these large wings were designed with lce spars and metal ribs with fabric covering the outer sections of the wings were swept back by 7° and had parallel cord aerons in connected by cables curiously the wings had no stagger meaning that neither was further forward or after compared to the other to provide stability the wings were fitted with handly page automatic slots that were mounted on the Leading Edge of the upper outer Wings the lower wings were mounted in a midwing position but their Center sections had a significant anhedral to keep inboard ends of The Spar clear of the fuselage this was so that the main cabin designed for carrying troops didn't force said troops to stoop like hunchbacks on account of a pair of pesky Wings spars that would have been shoulder height without the anhedral of the wing the tail control services were also arranged in a not so normal configuration it was set up as a cesco plane which is when One Wing usually the lower is significantly smaller than the other the fins and Rudders had all metal framing with a fabric covered skin and the Rudders themselves were notable for being quite large in proportion to the aircraft being over 9 ft tall the upper tail plane was positioned above the fuselage and the smaller lower tail plane was positioned on the bottom as it was not directly attached to the fuselage the upper tow plane was fixed to it using a series of small but sturdy struts the fuselage of what was now being called the Gloucester tc33 was an 80t long all metal structure with oval-shaped internal Framing and a metal skin the pilot co-pilot and Navigator enjoyed the luxury of a fully enclosed soundproofed and heated cabin which could not be said for all large aircraft designed at this time behind this was the main cabin which was designed to accommodate 30 troops or 12 medical stretches for transportation duties this cabin was 27 8 in Long 7 ft wide and it too was also soundproofed and heated when operating as a cargo transport Freight could be loaded into the aircraft via two different Hatches the first was a large hatch in the floor of the cabin individual loads of up to half a ton in weight could be hauled in using a mechanical hoist which for strength was mounted to a beam that was integral to the main structure of the cabin the second hatch was a smaller opening mounted in the roof which could allow small cargo to be lowered in Via a crane or by hand along with the pilots and Navigator the aircraft also carried two defensive Gunners one in the nose and the other in the tail the defense came in the form of two single 303 caliber Lis machine guns unlike the command crew and passengers the Gunners would not have the luxury of soundproofing or heating as both of the Gunning positions were situated in open mounts access to the front gunning position was through a small door in the Pilot's cabin that was located below and in front of the co-pilot the rear gunning position was accessed via a gang way that led through the rear fuselage after of the main cabin if the aircraft was to be used as a bomber rather than a transport provision was made for a bomb load of approximately £3,500 these bombs were supposedly to be carried on racks mounted underneath the main fusel Arch but there doesn't seem to be any record showing that this aspect of the Prototype was ever tested when fully loaded the aircraft was expected to have a weight of approximately 28,8 180 lb or around 13 tons a not inconsiderable amount of weight and the power to lift this weight was provided by four Rolls-Royce Castrol supercharged V12 engines two being Castrol 2s and the other two being Castrol 3s they were installed in tandem pairs within a set of streamlines Nels that sat between the upper and the lower Wings the krol two engines were mounted in The Pusher configuration and the krol 3s as tractors the two plade propellers driven by the krol 2s had a diameter of 11 ft and the blades driven by the krol 3s had a diameter of 12' 6 in these engines utilized evaporative cooling and a single steam condenser above the krol 3 engines provided cooling for each pair this had the benefit of saving quite a bit of weight to the tune of 250b as only six gallons of water was required for each engine compared to 14 required for a more traditional watercooled Arrangement control of this system was managed with a series of lights on the Pilot's instrument panel these lights would indicate the direction of water flow through the steam condensers though it sounds vaguely complicated it basically boiled down to one of two things if the flow of water was reversed the engines would have to be throttled back to cool otherwise they could just carry on despite its size and weight the aircraft possessed just two main Landing Wheels albeit they were huge clocking in with a diameter of 60 in to support the expected rough and heavy Landings on transport missions these wheels were attached to the fuselage by a triangular structure of steel tubing with shock absorbers mounted in the vertical sections and they had a wide track of 22' 6 in to spread out the load the TC 33 flew for the first time on the 23rd of February 1932 this was a slightly delayed event as in January it was discovered that the plane was too tall to move out of the hanger in which it had been built however after hastily digging some trenches for the massive Wheels to slide down into they got the plane out for testing flying the aircraft was one Captain Howard Saint and he quickly took the aircraft through a thorough test program the initial flights uncovered some problems that had to be addressed a notable amount of tail flutter was observed during flight with the elevators and large Rudders being the likely culprits balancing weights were tried in various forms and although the elevator flutter eventually settled down the rudder flutter persisted culminating in a rather terrifying incident as part of the test program the air Ministry had stipulated the testing of the aircraft in a terminal velocity dive from high altitude it was an unusual requirement at a time where aircraft was still considered to be relatively fragile and no doubt the cause for more than a little uneasiness on account of the pilot in one of these Dives when the aircraft was going above 200 mph the rudder pedals were vibrating so badly that in his effort to keep pressure on them Captain Saints broke the back of his seat with his exertions disaster was avoided thanks to his passenger who was the test Observer who moved to sit back to back with Saints to help keep him upright so that they could safely land after this incident it was found that the servo tabes of the rudder had bent over which caused the operating cables to slacken thankfully it was a relatively simple fix and after making some corrections to the design the Prototype was flown again and put through the same Dives but this time thankfully without issue later on that year the Prototype made a 12-minute demonstration flight as part of an RAF display at henden in October it then went for contract trials at MIM unfortunately for ler the mam report was not exactly a glowing result parts of the aircraft were well liked especially its updated controls and the Comforts provided by the heated and soundproof cabins definitely made an impression however the pilots could only praise its handling when unloaded once the aircraft was loaded with weight to simulate operational use its handling was abysmal particularly during takeoff it was painfully slow to get off the ground and in fact fully loaded trials were only conducted when the wind was blowing in a favorable Direction ultimately the mam test reports found the aircraft to be unsuitable for service with the Raf in its current state it technically satisfied nearly all of the requirements of their specification but it was viewed as too slow and bulky for service use by 1933 the RAF was changing its demands to meet the rapidly changing requirements of a modern Air Force and the encroaching designs of the monoplane a eror forced gluster to abandon development of the project and in the end the only big cluster aircraft ever built would remain a one-of-a-kind design episode 5 the Yuna g38 the Yuna g38 was a striking site when first flown in 1929 it was perhaps the Pinnacle of Blended Wing aircraft design in the inter War period at least as far as success goes it was made during a time when some aircraft designers predicted that Blended wing or indeed complete flying wing aircraft would be the future with many passengers housed in these larger wings as opposed to a fuselage in 1929 this was not a New Concept for Hugo yunkers 20 years previously he had applied for a patent for a thick profile Hollow wi design that could be used as a large commercial aircraft way back in 1909 the standard design for aircraft at the time could be summarized as a flying crate as the old saying goes most aircraft were thin winged by planes that relied on a massive wires and struts which whilst effective was not the most aerodynamic of designs junkers rejected this way of thinking and wanted to bring forward the concept of a large caner lver metal Wing which as a result of its aerodynamically functional design and thickness would provide an optimal ratio of lift drag and practicability the first world war allowed yonas to partially realize his idea of an internally structured aircraft with all metal Wings removing the need for obstru wires and struts but he was limited in his designs by military specifications after the war he now had the experience and the manufacturing facilities available to realize his dream of a large commercial aircraft but this time he was limited by the Treaty of versailes in 1920 he began development work on the yunker jg1 which was a four engine or metal Transport Aircraft construction of a prototype began in 1921 with the outer wing and rear parts of to the fuselage being completed however when the Allied supervisory board inspected the factory they found this prototype during their investigations and they demanded work to be stopped and the aircraft scrapped under turd Hugo yunkers continued to draw up designs during the 1920s but it would not be until the end of the decade when he would make another serious attempt which would result in the g38 working in collaboration with design engineer Ernst zindel in 1927 design work began on Project G40 which was for a postal SE plane that could perform transatlantic flights yunas also developed a land plane variant dubb to the g38 and although the German Navy was more interested in the C plane yunkers preferred the g38 as he believed it offered more versatility and he was able to secure funding from the air Ministry for its construction from conception to completion work on the Prototype took just over 2 years and in November of 1929 the the first aircraft identified as d2000 rolled out of yuna's Desa plant for its maen flight when it took to the skies on the 6th of November 1929 the g38 was the largest L plane in the world the dominating aspect of the aircraft was of course the huge caner lever wing it had a Wings span of 44 M which puts it slightly wider than that of a b29 super Fortress it was built on a series of tubular frames and struts that were bolted together and attached directly to the fusel to make production maintenance and transportation easier the g38 wing was divided into a central section two intermediate sections and two outer sections covering the structure was the classic stressed and corrugated duraluminium sheets that were the whole Mark of many all metal aircraft built in Germany at the time not only did this metal provide strong and effective protection but it also served to absorb torsional motion exerted on the wing Not only was the wing broad but it was also in incredibly thick at the route where it met the fuselage it had a height of 1.9 M this is because it was not just designed as a lifting surface but as a functioning section of the aircraft's internal structure much like the Russian Kenan K7 which was covered in an earlier video the front intersections of the g38 wing was designed to House people and equipment at the front immediately adjacent to the fuselage and accessed via a passageway were a pair of Passenger cabins which offered commanding views through a series of curved Windows hopefully it came with a warning to passengers who suffered from vertigo or fear of heights as it also gave you a pretty good view of what was below the aircraft as well as in front of it further outboard from this cabin was the intermediate sections of the wing that mounted the engines the forward portion of each section housing one engine each these consisted of two yunkers l55 V12 and two L8 inline 6 engines the larger engines were mounted as the inward pair and the smaller as the outward pair together they provided the g38 with 1,971 horsepower with the more powerful engines driving four blade propellers and the smaller ones driving two blade propellers this gave the g38 a maximum speed of 225 km an hour and a cruising speed of 180 km an hour not only did this section of the massive Wing House the engines but it also housed them in what could be termed as the aircraft equivalent of a ship's engine room access was granted via a maintenance Corridor that carried on behind the wing passenger cabins and their relevant passageway and this allowed engine work to be carried out during flight certainly not something a lot of aircraft then or now could boast the corridor ran through most of the wing itself and allowed it to be accessible for inspection almost up to the very wing tips if the engineers were okay with a tight crawl behind the passenger and engine rooms that were on the Leading Edge of the wing separated by a double firewall and a lot of metal there was the main fuel compartments these consisted of two rows of fuel tanks with a passageway between them for inspection in W of this and again behind a double firewall were the storage cabins that contained the requisite luggage and cargo of the passengers and crew this being accessed by the fuselage there was also another luggage and Freight holder located on the underside of the fuselage like in more traditional commercial aircraft but the thick Wings allowed this space to be reduced for better overall cabin space the fuselage itself like the wing was constructed from tubil struts and girders covered with an all metal skin the pilots and co-pilots enjoyed an elevated position in a comfortable cabin just above the nose in front and slightly below them was a navigation room that also held two passenger seats right up in the front of the nose for those who were feeling extra adventurous behind the cockpit was the chief mechanics post from which the whole power plant and fuel systems can be controlled behind this was the crew cabin in Stewart's room where meals and drinks would be prepared and adjacent to this room was a small laboratory further behind this there were two more spacious passenger cabins and a smoking cabin the passenger accommodation was considered to be very luxurious and it was intended to compete with the standards found aboard the zeppelins which were at the time the pride of German commercial Aviation like many other yunker aircraft of the time the g38 featured control services that went along the full span of the trailing edge of the wing they were split into two sections this allowed them to be operated as flaps on the inner section and aerons on the outer section the tail control surfaces were arranged in a biplane sty configuration with three vertical Rudders this was done in response to the consideration of drag if a single large Rudder was used the drag force of the tail wi would have been too great to be manually counted all of the control surfaces were dynamically balanced to reduce flutter and reports from the test flight praised the g38 for its easily handling characteristics the controls of the g38 supposedly felt no more difficult than those of the much smaller yuna's f13 and g31 which said quite a lot for such a bulky aircraft speaking of bulk the g38 with its all metal design thick wings and four engines weighed quite a bit when it was completed at least for the standards of the time it had an empty weight of 13 tons and a maximum takeoff weight of 21 tons this weight was supported by by a main landing gear arrangement of four large wheels that were set in tandem pairs for improved comfort and ground handling these wheels pivoted on the horizontal plane and were kept in place by a series of Springs the landing gear was in a fixed spattered arrangement with shock absorbers built into the vertical frame originally this landing gear was covered by an aerodynamic fairing but it was at some point removed to save weight and then at another Point put back on for the sake of style this seems to go back and forth several times during the 1930s which makes dating any unknown photographs a bit of a pain after its made in Flight the g38 was purchased by the air Ministry with the intention of flying it with Lanza it was then put through a series of tests and demonstration flights which gathered much attention on the 30th of November 1930 test pilots Zimmerman and szinger set several world records for Speed and altitude was carrying a 5ton payload the flight tests concluded with around trip around Europe which did much to further Stoke enthusiasm for yuna's new aircraft and then it was officially delivered to L tanza it then began to run a commercial route between London and Berlin almost immediately after it began to fly this route however the decision was made to modify the g38 the recent press tours had so increased demand for the aircraft that a passenger capacity of just 13 was considered ludicrous the engines were upgraded going up to 4 L 88 to v12s which upped the power from 1,971 horsepower to 3,154 and all of them now drove four blade propellers the aircraft itself was retrofitted to expand the passenger cabins which increased carrying capacity to allow for up to 30 passengers and their cargo this refit was completed in the summer of 1932 and the aircraft took to the skies once more Lanza also commissioned the construction of a second aircraft which would be given the designation d2500 from the outset it was designed with the lessons learned from the first prototype it was built with a full two-deck fuselage and had its wing cabins expanded to allow for a total passenger capacity of 34 this new aircraft also had the added advantage of giving most passengers in the central fuselage a view of the outside world something that had been missing from the first prototype this aircraft entered service around the same time that the first finished its refit and together they they both went into commercial service the g38 soon earned a very strong reputation for luxury and comfort passengers were allowed to move about freely during flight and were catered For by well-trained staff though their passenger capacity was still somewhat small compared to their impressive scale the aircraft quickly became the pride of latanza and German aviation in 1933 the d2500 was given the name Marshall Hindenburg in honor of then president Hindenburg in 1934 both planes went back for another overhaul this time replacing all of their engines with inline six-cylinder jumo 4S giving a new Total power output of 4,023 horsepower the aircraft were also redesignated the first being g38a and the second g38 e unfortunately for the g38a it would not survive past 1936 it crashed during takeoff during a workshop flight at desel the result of of incorrectly connected cables the pilot survived but the extensive damage wrote off the aircraft it could actually be repairable however the cost of repairing it versus the gain from repairing it was not deemed worthy as the aircraft were already becoming somewhat obsolete by the mid to late 1930s compared to other more larger commercial aircraft that were coming on the field both in Germany and overseas the g38 would continue to fly commercial routes full of until the start of World War II then it would be repainted in Wartime camouflage and used as a military transport it worked regularly during the military campaign in Greece as a long-range Transport Aircraft for troops and supplies but on May the 17th 1941 it was also destroyed during a raid by British bombers there had been thoughts of a militarized version of the g38 for use with the lift waffer in fact junas had tasked itself to design such an aircraft under the designation k51 but it was never built at least not in Germany as early as 1928 Japan had shown interest in the g38 design and were indeed the first to approach junkers about converting the g38 for use as a bomber yunas licensed the design out to Mitsubushi in April of 1930 and sent a team over to Japan to overseas and support further development this was developed into the type 92 also known as the ke20 Mitsubishi manufactured six of these between 1933 and 1935 they were powered by four jumo 204 engines had a top speed of 200 km an hour and could carry up to 5 tons of bombs in addition to this they were also well defended for a bomber of this time mounting five machine guns in various positions and a 20 mm dorsal Cannon as well when first operated they were the largest offensive aircraft fielded by Japan and was shrouded in secrety but by the height of the second world war they were hopelessly Obsolete and were only ever used as transports sadly none of these aircraft survive today having all been destroyed in one form or another usually involving explosions but like the Italian caproni 60 they were recently immortalized in the studio gibli film The Wind Rises episode six the Boeing p26 the Boeing p26 more commonly known know as the peashooter was the first all metal fighter to enter production in the United States and is one of the most iconic fighter aircraft from the interwar period it arrived during a time of great transition in aviation development and as such it Incorporated both old and new ways of thinking its Origins can be traced back to 1931 with the Boeing model 248 the 248 started out as a private Venture by Boeing who were looking to develop a new type of fight using their own ideas as well as features that had previously been proposed by the Army aircore design work began in September of 1931 and by December of that year the Army became interested enough to fund the provision of some engines and equipment to build three prototypes this came as somewhat of a surprise for Boeing as they had been laboring under the impression that funding from the military would be almost non-existent due to the after effects of the Great Depression that being said the actual Financial contribution apart from the engines and the gear was limited to just $1,000 so it can still be rightly said that this almost completely remained a private Venture by Boeing at this stage the design and construction of these prototypes which would be designated XP 936 carried on throughout 1931 and into early 1932 the aircraft first took to the skies on March 20th of that year and then the three prototypes were dispersed for various testing the first plane went to rightfield for Army evaluation the second was flown to Anacostia for the Navy and the third went to self Richfield for service testing the results from these tests were quite excellent and the Army purchased two of the aircraft on a contract on June the 15th and gave them the new designation xp26 this was soon changed to the service designation of Yip p26 and then eventually to the p26 designation that would carry through its service life Boeing had originally envisioned a far more modern aircraft but their designers were frustrated by various external factors most of which involved penny pinching by Army staff as a result of this the design of the Prototype p26 was a compromise between technology budget and the competing camps of progressive and conservative military thinking the aircraft featured an all metal monoco fuselage which was definitely a modern concept compared to many other aircraft of the time most of which had a fabric covered fuselage of metal or wood framing however the rest of its design was less Cutting Edge the wing was wire braced as opposed to the caner lver wings that were beginning to appear on some other modern aircraft designs its 9 cylinder pratton Whitney engine drove a simple two-blade fixed pitch propeller the cockpit was open the landing gear was fixed and the aircraft was remarkably underg even by late 1920s standards having only a single 303 caliber machine gun though there was provision for a second the old school design did have some benefits however the wire bracing allowed for a lighter airframe and the wires produced less total drag than the rigid struts that you would find on a bip plane the fixed undercarriage added drag but this was offset by reduced weight and reduced structural complexity it also provided a strong Anchor Point for the wires on the underside side of the Wings the rear section of the undercarriage was a pair of tubular struts that attached to the front and rear Wings spars the flying wires were attached to the Apex of this Arrangement and the landing wheel pivoted around this Apex as well with the impact of Landing being taken by a shock absorber that connected the wheel axle to the front landing gear after testing was completed the Army ordered 111 production versions of the aircraft under the designation of p26a also known as the Boeing model 266 This was later increased to a total of 136 units with the additional aircraft being completed as the p26 B and the p26 C respectively to a casual Observer there appeared to be little difference between the p26 and the first prototypes however some significant changes had been made it was now powered by an improved version of the Pratt and Whitney wasp engine which provided 600 horsepower compared to to the 522 horsepower on the Prototype the internal Wing structure was revised to improve strength and sustained g-loads further improving its Nimble handling characteristics the p26 also had improved equipment being the first US military aircraft to be equipped with a two-way radio and it also featured Wing mounted flotation devices in the event of unexpected aquatic incidents the Armament had also been improved with a 50 caliber machine gun being added alongside the original 303 the p26 could also carry 200 lb bombs or 530b bombs the First Flight of the p26a took place on the 10th of January 1934 with the initial match of 111 units being delivered by the end of June that year it would go on to become the primary Frontline fighter of the army aircore until 1938 being operated by 22 different squadrons during this time early service life would prompt some design Chang to the p26 originally the early p26 had the Streamline headrest of the prototypes this was very well and good when it came to drag however it also meant that if the aircraft were to flip over on takeoff or Landing the Pilot's head would be the main point of impact after an incident when a pilot was killed in this very manner the decision was quickly made to raise the headrest by 8 in and to reinforce it giving it the signature hump that would become one of the p Shooter's most recognizable features this did not completely alleviate the risk to the pilot and as such the p26 was used mainly at airbases that had firmer runways often in the drier Southwestern States and in Hawaii another change to me made was the addition of flaps Army Pilots were quickly dissatisfied and sometimes downright alarmed by the P Shooters High Landing speeds primitive but effective s flaps were added they were powered hydraulically by a pump on the engine however the provision was also made for them to be manually operated in the event of engine failure which would require a Glide in landing these flaps were added to all p26a in service and were included in all subsequent models still being built at the factory in 1934 the additional order for a further 25 aircraft was placed two of these were completed as the p26 B and the rest as the p26 C the p26 B was the first to be built with wing flaps from the outset and it was also the first model to be fitted with a fuel injection system the changes to the aircraft LED Boeing to redesignate them as the model 266a the p26 C was also built with wing flaps as standard but at first they still featured the original fuel carburetors and only minor changes to the rest of the fuel system however after promising results from testing the p26 B the C variants were quickly converted to also feature the to the new fuel injection system some p26 aircraft 12 in total were built for export designated as the Boeing model 281 and indeed these would be the first to actually see combat one would be sold to Spain and the rest would go to China the Spanish aircraft would unfortunately be shot down before earning any distinction for itself but the Chinese aircraft had a little more success albeit after a rough start prior to the sale a demonstr at model was shipped over to China the aircraft impressed to the Canton government however it failed to get support from the cing Tang officials because of a fatal accident during a demonstration flight 10 Fighters were ordered by Canton and arrived in January of 1936 due to the political situation in the region during this time a topic that's complicated enough to give most historians a mild headache these aircraft would eventually wind up in the service of the central government after a series of defections from the Cantonese provincial Air Force all 10 aircraft would eventually wind up there being organized into the 17th Squadron of the third Air Group based near Nan King their previously white Air frames being repainted in the standard Olive camouflage used by the central government in this gu the 281 would get its first taste of aerial Combat on the 15th and 18th of August they would shoot down two Japanese bombers during the Battle of Shanghai and they would then shoot down a further sixth on the 20th with only one of the model 281s suffering minor damage for their trouble between August and October the aircraft would engage in various skirmishes however they were too few in numbers to make any significant impact and the lack of spare parts severely hampered their effectiveness after the first month due to this and the gradual emergence of more modern Japanese Fighters all model 281s would be retired by the end of 1937 the p26 had been withdrawn from Frontline service by the time America entered the second world war being replaced by the cerski P35 and the Curtis P36 some had been sold to the Philippines however and this is where they saw some heated action in the opening stages of the Pacific War a lot of these aircraft would be destroyed on the ground in the first Japanese attacks but two of them operated by the sixth Pursuit Squadron would become the first to shoot down Japanese aircraft shooting down a bomber and three zeros two of those zeros were shot down by Captain Jesus Vore who would be awarded the distinguished service cross and Oakleaf cluster for his exploits the last peashooters to see operational service would do so with the Guatemalan Air Force Guatemala had purchased some aircraft directly from the aircore when the first were being retired from service in 1937 and the rest were subsequently purchased from Panama during the second World War almost 20 years after first entering service the peashooter would see its last military operations during the 1954 Guatemalan coup despite not seeing a huge amount of combat during its operational life and despite being rather quickly eclipsed by more modern designs the peashooter has solidified itself as a favorite amongst many Aviation enthusiasts myself included a part of this can no doubt be attributed to its appearance being one of the most striking monoplane designs of the early 1930s much like the i16 it almost resembled a racing aircraft more than a fighter with its barrel-like shape and dominating radial engine the p26 also featured some of the most colorful paint schemes to Grace the inter War period there exact Origins are unknown but many US squadrons featured its own distinctive design the 34th Pursuit Squadron known as the Thunderbirds used red and white the 73rd Squadron used red and yellow and the 94th Squadron used red and blue two surviving peashooters both p26a can be seen today along with several beautiful replicas the two Originals had both served with America and had then been sold to Guatemala in 1943 one of these peashooters serial number 33123 has been restored to an airworthy condition and returned to the skies for the first time in 2006 episode 7 the Boeing YB 9 in 1930 the bomber squadrons operated by the US Army airp mostly consisted of slow biplanes designs like the Keystone B6 lb12 and the Curtis B2 were considered the norm but these designs were rapidly becoming obsolete change was on the wind and several manufacturers were pursuing the development of new monoplane designs and one of them was Boeing Boeing wanted to take the lessons learned from designing their model 200 monom male transport and apply them to a twin engine bomber the monom male was their first successful attempt at an all metal Calver wing and it also featured a semi monono fuselage which further improved streamlining if these same design principles could be applied to a bommer it could radically improve its performance and thus allow it to evade any potential fighter interception more easily today's video technically covers three different Boeing designs the model 214 the 215 and the 246 however they are all closely related under the same project the first two were developed together and then the 246 was developed afterwards and benefited from Lessons Learned in the development of the previous two models the first two of these aircraft were privately developed by Boeing at their own expense and the only thing that differed between them was the type of engine They Carried like the monom male and indeed like many new aircraft at the time these two aircraft introduced some Modern structural and aerodynamic Concepts but at the same time they also clung to some traditional ideas as well the model 214 and 215 would be some of the first big American aircraft to benefit from the use of wind tunnel testing these tests conducted by NACA in 1927 had led to the development of a new streamlined cowling for radial engines and tests also led to the design concept of mounting engines in the front of a single wing in a streamline Nel further proving that you can make bricks fly better if you stick enough curvy bits on them Boeing's new aircraft would also feature a type of retractable landing gear another product of wind tunnel testing though it was not completely retractable with part of the gear still exposed under the airframe it still resulted in a reduction of drag overall the design specifications for these aircraft are relatively similar with the exception of the different engines which also resulted in some different speeds and different weights so to keep things simple I shall quote the dimensions and specifications from just the model 214 it had a length of 56 ft a wingspan of 76 ft and an approximate height of 12 ft it had an empty weight of approximately £8,500 and a gross weight of 13,600 in its original design specification the 214 was powered by 2 12 cylinder liquid cooled Curtis conqueror engines specifically the GI 1510c variant these drove a pair of two blade propellers and gave the 214 a top speed of just over 173 mph a cruising speed of 147 mph and a range of 1250 Mi the aircraft would have a crew of five the bombarder who also acted as nose Gunner occupied a cockpit in the nose which was equipped with a bomb site and aiming window at the bottom and amount for a flexible machine gun around the top because of the narrowness of the fuselage the pilot and co-pilot occupied tandem cockpits immediately behind the bombarder instead of sitting side by side in a single wide cockpit as you would see on most other aircraft a radio station was located ahead of and Below them in the fuselage and a fourth cockpit for a rear Gunner was located on top of the fuselage behind the wing for its size the aircraft had a light defensive Armament just two 30 caliber machine guns that meant just one gun for each Gunner position and it also meant that on average this aircraft had one or maybe even two guns less than contemporary biplane bombers at the time the bomb load was also relatively light with 2,200 worth of bombs being suspended under the wings again several contemporary biplane bombers could carry a bit more than that at the time along with this smallish Firepower there was the total absence of consideration for the physical endurance of the crew for in spite of the great advance in speed over contemporary bumbers all cockpits on the model 214 and 215 were open cockpits which would have made for quite the Blustery experience at top speed the higher speeds would result in another Innovation however the new air speed increased the loads on the control surfaces and as a result of this Rudder Servo tabs were installed to assist pilots in operating the controls this was the first instance of this occurring on a completed American aircraft as design on the model 214 the tab was a small auxiliary service projecting after the rudder trailing Edge and on the model 215 it was a tall narrow surface running the full height of the rudder trailing Edge itself the 2115 would be the first aircraft built to completion it was completed in civil colors and markings and it flew for the first time on April the 13th 1931 achieving a top speed of 163 mph it was tested by the Army as as Boeing's property on a bailment contract under the designation of XB 901 results from the test were favorable and the 215 along with the 214 were purchased with a further order of five aircraft for service testing the basic aircraft design was given the standard Army bomber designation of B9 when purchased and the prefix y was added to indicate the service test status and so the aircraft could be known as the Boeing models 215 or 214 the XB 901 or the yb9 or the y1 B9 just to keep things nice and simple the model 214 originally powered by the Curtis conqueror engines was completed as a military aircraft following the favorable testing of the model 215 as the 215 had already been designated as the yb9 the 214 was given the designation y1 B9 and it made its first flight on the 5th of November 1931 the though faster than the model 215 when it first flew it was decided to change the 214 over to radial engines when testing was completed the model 215 had recently been refitted with the more powerful supercharged version of pratton Whitney's Hornet B engine and the performance Gap had narrowed as a result of this but the main concern was reliability the aircooled radial engines were lighter and more reliable than liquid cooled engines and they were less prone to the effects of damage from enemy fire the five aircraft ordered by the Army for testing would arrive as the Boeing model 246 which would then be designated as the y1 b9a the first aircraft flew on July the 14th 1932 and the last was delivered to the Army on March the 20th 1933 as originally delivered they were outwardly identical to the previous aircraft with a few minor exceptions they had the rudder tabs that were used on the model 24 14 and their control surfaces had metal instead of fabric coverings they also now used three blade propellers instead of two blade and Incorporated some internal structural and Equipment changes these aircraft had an even higher top speed of 186 mph making them all but impossible to intercept during military exercises in 1932 despite the increased speeds they still featured fully open cockpits and Gunner positions in most canopies had been designed at the time of their construction but for reasons unknown they were never installed while these aircraft are one of a group that revolutionized bomber design they were not the first monoplane bombers developed for the US Army they were preceded by the Douglas B7 series and the fuer xb8 while both of these designs featured retractable undercarriages their design Concept in general was older than the B9 both aerodynamically and structurally initial Army enthusiasm following the appearance of the model 215 brought unofficial Assurance of sizable production orders and Boeing believed they had a profitable future with their new aircraft however the risks involved in pioneering in a highly competitive industry soon became apparent when Glenn L Martin company brought out their own private design this aircraft was slightly newer in design than the Boeing and had better performance the Army was impressed and they awarded large production orders under the designation of B10 and b12 this would make the Martin B10 America's first mass-produced bomber this signaled the end of the Boeing yb9 of the five aircrafter that were in service with the Army airor two would be destroyed in crashes in 1933 and the remaining aircraft were phased out of service shortly afterwards with the last being withdrawn in April of 1935 episode 8 the yakovlev 2 for an aircraft that was produced in relatively small numbers the yakovlev yak 2 has a surprisingly complex history unfortunately not a huge number of photos exist of this aircraft and instead of repeating the same photo several times throughout the video I'm going to include some footage of the yak 2 as it appears in the game War Thunder hopefully it isn't too jarring of a change and you will still enjoy the video by the late 1930s Alexander yakovlev had become one of the best known aircraft designers in the Soviet Union but his Fame came from the development of sporting and trainer aircraft he was an ambitious man and he wanted to turn his attention to the development of military aircraft but there was just one problem with his plan Stalin during this time a lot of the major decisions on which Soviet weapons were adopted were personally made by Stalin for various reasons that usually included words like gulag or firing squad it was not advisable to go against Stalin's wishes and when it came to aircraft design his main desire was speed yakovlev was aware of this and with his experience of building racing aircraft he was confident in his Endeavors if he could produce a fast aircraft provided it looked like a practical warplane and was at least nominally intended to fly military missions Not only would it go into mass production but he himself would get into Stalin's good favor and so yakovlev began designing his brand new Fast aircraft and this is where I enter some uncertain ground when it comes to facts and Source material many sources conflict with another on at least one point when it comes to the design and development of the yak 2 prototype itself now after Consulting with a friend who knows a bit more about these things than I do I've decided to go with the two main sources that are in the video description below however if anyone out there has any other sources they can recommend mend for Soviet aircraft development please feel free to let me know in a comment now the Prototype yakovlev went with a twin engine low-wing monoplane design it was of a mixed construction with a twin tail fully retractable hydraulically powered landing gear and fully enclosed cockpits for a pilot in the nose and a navigator behind the wing the wing was made entirely of wood comprising of box bars and double-sided ribs and it was covered in a Ply skin the streamlined fuselage was a mix of wood and metal with the nose and rear fuselage built on welded steel tubing and the central section being made entirely of wood this Central section was made integral with the wing and was also skinned with plywood the rear fuselage was based on a truss of welded Ste tube bracing which was covered in Fabric and the whole Arrangement was attached to the central fuselage by 14 removable bolts the control services were made from a mix of aluminium wood and fabric the ailerons were operated by pushpull tubes and had no control tabs and the available trailing Edge inboard and outboard of the engines were occupied by all metal split flaps these were hydraulically operated and could be depressed down to a maximum angle of 55° in the tail the elevators and Rudder were a mix of metal and fabric again and were driven by cables interestingly the tail plane had all metal skin fins and ribs but the two main spars were wood not too sure what the exact reason for that was but there you go to Power this streamlined package yakovlev chose the klimov m103 liquid cooled V12 engine these provided a takeoff power of 960 horsepower each and drove a three blade variable pitch propeller the fuel was kept in four tanks that were housed in board and outboard of the engines and two more tanks that were in the center of the fuselage giving a total fuel capacity of 1,232 L this aircraft would come to be known as the ya a22 or simply the aircraft number 22 when completed it featured no military equipment and this was because yakov's aim was to build the fastest aircraft possible that looked capable of flying military missions rather than being designed with a specific role in mind now this is one of those statements in which The Source material conflicts so just bear that in mind supposedly yakovlev chose to label it as a reconnaissance aircraft the intention and I say intention was to have a 7.62 mm machine gun in the nose and another to be mounted often operated by the Navigator along with this provision was to be made for space in the fuselage to hold camera equipment and a small Armament of light bombs but all of this was hypothetical and never done and so the aircraft was delivered unarmed and unequipped for any kind of military duty this would cause problems down the line when it arrived in Moscow the Prototype caught a lot of attention it looked promisingly agile for a twin engine aircraft it had a length of 9.34 m a wingspan of 14 M it had an empty weight of 3,700 kg approximately and a maximum loaded weight of 5,100 kg its range of 1, km was a bit mediocre but its speed was very impressive being able to achieve 567 km an hour at an altitude of 4,900 M it took off for the first time from the Moscow Central Aerodrome in early February of 1939 its handling was praised by the pilot and news of the aircraft soon reached Stalin who allowed it to be flown in the MayDay flyover though in its current unarmed State the Prototype was a little more than a high-powered racing aircraft totally incapable of flying any military Mission it so impressed Stalin that the general secretary called for it to be modified as a fast bomber and put into immediate production as the bb22 it was then sent to the VVS for State Testing and this promptly put their test pilots and Engineers into a bit of an awkward situation Stalin had little interest in the actual details of aircraft design but he considered this new plane to be the best thing in the sky and it was difficult for test staff to explain to him that to turn the aircraft into a useful plane for the Air Force they would have to redesign almost all of it the high performance had been achieved by making a streamlined and beautiful aircraft something that could not be achieved in a militarized version that would have guns bomb racks radio equipment and defensive armor bolted onto it the aircraft would also be highly impractical to transport due to the wing being made in one piece which made it impossible to move by rail following further tests it was also found that the aircraft's original climb rate had been misrepresented the time to climb to 7,000 M had been given as 8.7 minutes but in practice it was 33 minutes as the engines were always overheating and the aircraft had to repeatedly level out to let them cool the VVS quickly recognized that the 22 was not a military machine however on the 20th of June 1939 resolution 171 was passed ordering it into production anyway now at the same time as this Vladimir petakov had created his aircraft number 100 which was a predecessor to the pe2 now this met the same requirements without the Myriad of problems faced by yakov's Design the key factor in this situation was Stalin's approval of Yakov who unlike his rival wasn't sitting in an nkvd prison cell in May yakov's team built a mockup of the bb22 and in June the VBS commission made its initial report it called for the bb22 to carry a bomb load of 400 to 700 kg and have a rear defensive gun it also asked yakovlev to rectify 72 listed defects on the original design and to present the modified aircraft for State trials on the 1st of August that year yakovlev addressed some of the more serious of these defects but most of them he ignored and never actually resubmitted the Prototype instead he just had 3,300 of the original drawings photocopy to speed things along and the aircraft went into production in September the first production version retained most of the original airframe with the exception of a redesigned Central fuselage that incorporated a Bombay to carry four large bombs or several smaller ones a fixed machine gun was installed in the nose and the Navigator was given a similar gun in a pivoting mount other modifications also included some repeated revisions of the engine cooling systems and the fitting of new propellers to increase its climb performance the first aircraft rolled out from Factory number one on New Year's Eve 1939 but arguments over the build standard delayed the first flight until the 20th of February having realized that yakovlev had received them VVS staff repeatedly demanded that the defects listed in their report should still be corrected however Factory staff building the aircraft were following yakov's instructions and built the planes to the design he submitted that same month the commission then recommended that the original production order of 50 aircraft be limited to 10 examples all of which were delivered for testing by mid-February around this time the service designation was changed from bb22 to yaku under a new scheme to honor aircraft designers further changes were now made to the design the biggest being yet another redesign of the central fuselage now the Navigator was moved right behind the pilot and the Bombay was now behind the rear Spar the main advantage of this change was that the rear canopy could be raised up on a hydraulic jack that could offer the Navigator's gun a better Field of Fire than before all manner of problems continued to plague the yak 2 during its production a VVS report bluntly stated that yak 2's built at Factory number one were deemed unsatisfactory there were problems with the engines overheating and maintaining power there were instances of tail flutter unreliability of the hydraulic systems and most worrying was the tendency for the bolts securing the engines to fracture and break the final VVS report showed that not only had performance sharply deteriorated but the number of uncorrected faults had grown to 183 and calls began to grow for production to be stopped after a VVS test pilot spoke out publicly about the problems a particularly Brave thing to do at the time Stalin ordered an investigation yakovlev promptly shifted all blame onto Factory number one and production was transferred over to factory number 81 the director of the factory tried to offload responsibility of the existing Yaks to the VVS but to no avail a factory one batch of 25 Yak 2os was supposedly so defective that they were actually unflyable Factory 81 did its best to rectify the more obvious problems and overall quality did improve but the ax never reached a standard acceptable to the VVS despite production reaching over 100 units at this time when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union many of the Yaks were destroyed on the ground which considering their history was probably for the best and there was one un fortunate incident of friendly fire when an I-15 shot down a yak 2 the aircraft being a somewhat uncommon sight in the sky itself the aircraft's biggest contribution would be to serve as an example of how political favoritism can breed disaster in the world of aircraft design itself aside from the main production versions two other prototypes were also explored the R12 was a reconnaissance version of the Act 2 and had been included in the original 1939 design program a single model was built and completed in June 1940 but yakovlev didn't submit the aircraft for State Testing due to the growing list of problems with the other models an added problem was that the poor design of the wire antenna limited the radio to only half of its wave bands the Y 2 cab which is the model featured in War Thunder was a prototype ground attack aircraft fitted with the Cav MV gun and bombing installation this comprised of a ventrol cannon pack and a special glazed nose for the bomb aiming equipment few details of this particular aircraft model survive as all prototype work was halted after the German invasion attempts to rectify the faults of the Act 2 would lead to the development of the yak 4 also known as the B22 Biz the main difference was the installation of m105 engines each rated at 1,50 horsepower the rear fuselage was redesigned and lengthened and various improvements were made to the engine mountings Cooling and fuel systems it replaced the actu production in November of 1940 total production of the act4 was about 100 units bringing the total number of the series aircraft up to 2011 the final 22 aircraft were delivered in April of 1941 but crws hardly had time to convert to the new planes before the war kicked off in June attrition was high mainly due to enemy attacks on airfields and teething problems with the new planes themselves and so despite what appeared to be a promising start in 1939 yakov's first foray into combat aircraft was anything but smooth he would of course go on to redeem himself with other designs during the war but that's a story for Another Day episode 9 the caproni ca90 the caproni ca90 was perhaps one of the the most impressive aircraft designed in the 1920s along with being one of the most obscure it represented to the culmination of Giani capron's Ambitions for building huge imposing aircraft from the day he founded his first company in 1908 caproni always leaned towards the development of large aircraft specifically bombers in World War I he developed several bomber designs the most numerous of which was the large and successful ca3 series after the war War he continued to develop larger and more advanced aircraft as well as some Curious Oddities like the Nova Plano that we looked at in a previous video in the mid 1920s caproni designed the ca79 which was a CES plane bomber the design proved to be a success though it was not built in numbers and caproni quickly moved onto larger cesco plane designs the next being the ca80 and the ca885 during this period he drew up over a dozen different design some were transports some were passenger liners and some were bomber designs as well a few of these designs were amongst the largest he had conceived up to this point and indeed a few of them were amongst some of the largest bip planes built at the time though they seem to have been mostly forgotten by history the ca79 for example had a wingspan of 33 M which was larger than all but two or three other designs at the time but caproni wanted to push this even further and designed the largest plane in the world the result would be the ca90 heavy bomber design work began in the late 1920s with most of the construction being carried out in 1929 to say this was a large biplane would be an understatement in fact today it Remains the largest land-based biplane ever built due to the size of the aircraft the entire framework was based on steel tubing rather than aluminium or duraluminium Framing and the main joints were machined from billets of chrome nickel Steel the fuselage was constructed of square sections and it also formed an integral part of the lower wing which unlike most biplane designs was seated at the top of the fuselage rather than at the middle or lower sections eight cylindrical fuel tanks were housed in this section along with 11 more in the nose and four more in a vertical Arrangement behind the Bombay the wings and most of the fuselage half of the cockpit were clad in Fabric and the rest of the fuselage and the nose was covered by sheets of corrugated aluminium when completed the scale of capron's latest creation AED those who saw it in person it had a length of 26.9 M and a height of 10.8 M like many of capron's recent designs it was a cesco plane with the upper Wing being smaller than the lower wing that being said the upper Wing was still huge having a Wings span of 34.9 M but it was dwarfed by the lower wing that had a span of 46.6 M the the upper Wing sat 5.7 m above the lower wing and as it was not directly attached to the fuselage it was supported by an array of thick struts and wire bracing the control surfaces were equally massive the aerons had a span of 22 M each the horizontal stabilizer had a span of 10.2 M and attached to it was a pair of 5 m wide elevators and a 5 m tall Rudder as something of this size had not really been attempted before even more attention than usual was placed on the aircraft's flight handling characteristics for obvious reasons all parts of the aircraft were subjected to rigorous tests by the experimental Department of the Milan Polytechnic Institute large control Servo tabs were fitted to the rudder and the aerons which allowed the pilots to operate the controls without the effort feeling like a workout at the gym this combined with the sensible layout of the cockpit controls meant that the entire aircraft could be safely controlled by a single pilot speaking of the pilot the ca90 had an open cockpit with the controls in a side by-side layout this cockpit was located just before the Leading Edge of the lower wing and on each side of the fuselage below the cockpit was a large door that granted access to the main fusel Arch it is not specifically stated anywhere how many crew members it had as a bomber but the design provisioned seven Gunner stations one in the nose one on the upper Wing one in a vent Central Gondola two in the upper fuselage and one on each side of the fuselage none of the source material indicates that the defensive armor was actually fitted to the aircraft but it was expected to have between 8 and 12 machine guns some in single mounts and some in pairs had they been fitted it would have represented a significant amount of defensive Firepower for this era a bit more is known about the weight and payload capacity though when empty the ca90 had a weight of 15 Tons and it could carry a useful load of a further 15 Tons as well giving an approximate maximum weight total of 30 tons however depending on what safety standards were adhered to it could theoretically go up to 35 tons at a stretch the 15 Tons of useful weight would be made up of fuel people and bombs all of the bombs were carried in a bomb bay behind the cockpit and the bomb racks could accommodate 850 500 250 and 100 kg bombs for for a total bomb load of 8,000 kg now an aircraft of this size and weight needed a strong undercarriage to support it and like everything else about the ca90 this Tobe was massive with the four main wheels of the landing gear having a diameter of 2 m the landing gear had a very wide track to facilitate landing on rough ground and the impact was absorbed by suspension mounted on two struts that connected the gear to the lower wing and another pair of struts also connected the gear to the fuselage itself self the ca90 was powered by six engines arranged in tandem pairs earlier on in his career caproni had subscribed to the idea that more engines translated to better safety but after lessons learned from his eight engined novap Plano and other designs he realized that too many engines impaired the safety and simplicity of an aircraft by increasing the difficulty of control however in 1929 he would still need more than a few to lift 30 tons of plane into the air the engine that caproni selected was the powerful 57 L w16 isoto fraschini asso which gave 1,000 horsepower this gave the aircraft a total power output of 6,000 horsepower and is why the aircraft is also sometimes known as the caproni 6000 one pair of engines was mounted on each side of the lower wing above the landing gear strut and the third was mounted in a central gondola on struts between the wings The Pusher engines drove a four blade propeller and the tractor engines drove a two-blade propeller they were all water cooled the front engines had their radiators mounted behind the propellers and the rear engines on the wing had radiators attached to the wing support struts whilst the central rear engine had its radiator suspended below the engine Gondola in terms of performance the ca90 had a documented top speed of 205 km an hour a landing speed of 90 km hour and a ceiling of 4,500 M though not the fastest aircraft in the world world it was still fast for a bipe of this size and it could boast an operational range of 1,400 km whilst carrying an 8,000 kilo bomb load on the 13th of October 1929 capron's giant bipe took off for the first time flown by test pilot Dominico Antonini it was the largest L plane in the world and almost the largest plane in general but the dnia do10 just beat it in total wingspan Antonini immediately praised the aircraft's handling claiming that the massive plane had surprisingly light and balanced controls and that it felt no more difficult to fly than an ordinary passenger aircraft he would continue to fly the ca90 for all of its tests and had no difficulty setting multiple load altitude and endurance records perhaps the most impressive of these records was when he got the bomber to carry a 10,000 kilo load at 3,200 M for 3 and 1/2 hours the test flights also allowed caproni to demonstrate the versatility of his new aircrafts though nominally designed as a bomber it could easily be converted to a number of auxiliary roles removing the Bombay would allow the large fuselage to be readily adapted for commercial use as a transport for passengers Freight or mail in this Skies it would have an estimated range of at least 2,000 km and the aircraft was expected to be capable of transatlantic flights with the provision of some additional fuel tanks this argument was also supported by the rapid advance ments in engine technology Capron stated that if engines of 1,500 or 2,000 horsepower became readily available the aircraft would only need three or four rather than the six currently which would of course save weight and improve efficiency it was also hoped that the aircraft could cut into the flying boat Market from the outset the fuselage was designed to be watertight so that it could be converted into a c plane when needed however not enough documentation exists to expand much further further on this there was a plan drawn up for the ca91 which was a dedicated SE plane and as that design shared the same wings and engines as the ca90 it would be safe to assume it was a direct result of that line of thinking after its first flights the aircraft was considered a technical Triumph not only for Italy but for the world of aviation in general since it demonstrated that even land planes could reach huge Dimensions without increasing the difficulty of taking off and Landing yet despite this only one would be built and it would never see production or Commercial Success the ca90 was a victim of two things timing and politics the current head of the Italian air Ministry did not subscribe to capron's fondness for heavy bombers in fact he was not infused with the idea of large- scale bombing in general the idea of heavy bombing was still relatively young some people saw it as a gimmick some viewed it in the same manner as we view nuclear weapons today a weapon that should should not be used and some thought that lighter bombers in larger numbers was the way of the future whatever The Minister's own opinions may have been caproni knew he wouldn't be able to sell his plane as a bomber his attempts at marketing the ca90 as a commercial Venture were also a failure a proposal was made to convert it to carry up to 100 passengers over long-distance International routes but the onset of the Great Depression perid to any consideration of the idea in Italy the same situation unfolded when an attempt was also made needed to market the aircraft to the United States the design was promising but the money just didn't exist and so the largest by plane ever built would remain a one-off by the time the world had recovered from the Great Depression and the transatlantic Roots were beginning to grow Aviation had moved on to all metal monoplanes and flying boats in terms of biplane design nothing of this scale would ever be attempted again and despite being the world's largest biplane the ca90 was largely forgotten but like several other large and obscure planes of recent note it recently re-entered the public view when it was depicted in the studio gibli film The Wind Rises episode 10 The Blackburn kabaro the Blackburn T4 known more commonly as the kabaru was a particularly large biplane that was designed in the early 1920s it was developed during a time of great activity in the field of naval aircraft design World War I had demonstrated how air power could influence the course of the war at Sea and the first use of aird dropped Torpedoes against large ships proved that the aircraft could be used as an anti- capital ship weapon in 1922 the British Air Ministry issued specification 1622 this called for a longrange torpedo bomber it had to be capable of carrying a large 21-in torpedo over a range of 800 Mi two aircraft manufacturers would submit designs to meet the ministry specification Avro and blackbird burn Avro were working on a twin engine design but Blackburn designer fa Bumpus wanted to build his aircraft around a new prototype engine one that was being developed by D napia and Sun the engine which was dubbed the napia Cub was a very large very experimental design it was a liquid cooled engine that featured 16 cylinders in an x pattern which comprised of four Banks of four cylinders it weighed over a ton had a total displacement of 3,000 681 cubic in or just over 60 L and It produced 1,000 horsepower at 1800 RPM the engine had already flown successfully in 1922 in the AV 549 Elder shot and Blackburn were confident that it could serve well in their own design carrying a 21-in torpedo in 1922 was no easy feat they weighed on average 1 and 1/2 tons and it was hoped that this single powerful engine would allow them to keep the design more simple and thus cheaper than an equivalent design that utilized two smaller less powerful engines Bumpus submitted his design and the ministry awarded a contract for the production of two aircraft prototypes at the end of 1922 work began on the first cubu in 1923 at blackburns Olympia works during its construction the plane was shrouded in secrecy and it was not until August 1924 that select members of the press the air Ministry and some international government representatives were invited to inspect the aircraft for the first time when it first rolled out of the hanger the cubu would have been quite the sight to behold being one of the largest single engine aircraft in the world at the time it was built around a central fuselage that comprised of a tubular steel structure and this structure was then CLA in a mixture of stressed Fabric and your aluminium panels the fuselage which was no less than 11 ft deep at its forward end occupied almost the entire gap between the wings but tapered sharply towards the rear it was built integral with two tubulous steel girders which projected out on each side these girders were used to mount the two separate undercarriages that were required to support the heavy structure above they also formed the front and rear spars of the bottom center section of the lower wing from which two more spars rose up at a diagonal angle to connect to the fuselage this formed a very rigid support structure for the enormous proportions of the front fuselage which of course was dictated by the size of the cabaro engine the two undercarriages were each fitted with a pair of wheels that had a diameter of 4 ft each and they were spaced well apart with an unobstructed space for the fitting of the 21-in torpedo the rear fuselage was supported on a bungee sprung tail skid this was braced to the Bottom by two slanting struts and to the Top by two others lying parallel and external to the sides a biplane tail unit was chosen for at the time they were still in high favor due to their structural advantages it was equipped with two normal fins with balanced Rudders a large Central Rudder horn balanced elevators and variable incident tailplanes the two main wings of the aircraft were massive at least by the standards of single engine aircraft of the day and they both had a span of 88 ft they maintained a constant cord of 11' 6 in and had a slight dihedral to maintain lateral stability One Source also stated that the outer section of the Wings also had a slight sweep back but from the photos I've seen and the aircraft drawings I think this may not have actually been the case to reduce the hang of space required to store an aircraft of this size the outer panels of the wings were hinged to the center section and could be folded back for storage in terms of overall dimensions and performance the cabaro had a length of 54 ft a height of 19' 4 in and of course as mentioned earlier a wingspan of 88 ft it had an empty weight of 9,632 lb and a maximum takeoff weight of 19,20 lb when carrying the torpedo when loaded it had a maximum speed of 115 mph and an absolute ceiling of 11,800 Ft its operational range would differ depending on its configuration but with maximum payload it had a range of 1,800 M and an endurance of 10 hours the cabaro was operated by a crew of four a pilot a navigator a bomb aimer who also served as a Gunner and another Gunner the pilot and Navigator sat side by side in an open cockpit ahead of the Leading Edge of the upper wing and over the rear part of the engine in front of the Pilot's wind screen was a curved radiator conforming to the rounded shape of the nose and it provided a convenient way of warming the cockpit in cold weather All crew members were in direct communication with each other a hatch in the floor of the cockpit gave access to an enclosed cabin below that housed the bomb AER this this cabin was lit by Port holes and equipped with wireless equipment a chart table and the floor of the cabin Incorporated a window for the bomb AER it also provided prone positions for two Gunners firing through rotating trap doors in the fuselage adjacent to the lower wing route the rear Gunner position could be accessed by a passage that led off from this cabin it was housed in an elevated Gun Ring On Top of the rear fuselage that gave a wide field of fire over the tail units the napia Cub engine dominated to the front of the aircraft though it was built in an X Arrangement it was not completely symmetrical the upper Banks were closer together than the lower Banks being inclined 26 and 1/4 de to the vertical whereas the lower Banks lay 26 and a/4 de to the horizontal this feature enabled the designers to enclose the upper portion of the engine completely within the nose with only the lower cylinder blocks and part of the exhaust being exposed despite its size and complexity the Cub could be cold started in under 2 minutes thanks to a 5 horsepower gas starter that was installed in the engine bay after the initial inspection the kabaro was painted in RAF colors and given the serial n166 it flew for the first time in the summer of 1924 at this point the aircraft was still kept fairly secret and the first flight was not publicly shown it was flown by flight liutenant Bowman who had become well known as the cheap test pilot for Hawker in later years he was chosen as the test pilot because he had previously flown the a Elder shot which had also been powered by the experimental napia Cub engine later on in August the aircraft would perform a public demonstration flight at brow Bowman took off into an 8 knot wind and according to one onlooker the aircraft floated into the air in half the available distance of the air strip the praise was not limited to those on the ground either Bowman reported that the aircraft felt very easy to fly which considering it was flying at a maximum load weight of 9 tons including a torpedo was High Praise indeed during this flight Bowman put the kabaru through a series of slow and fast runs and climbing turns before conducting a very gentle Landing that the plane achieved in under 100 yards following this the cubu then went to melam Heath for official performance trials only one change was made during this time and that was the replacement of its two-blade wood propeller for a three-blade adjustable pitch model a second cover was built in 1924 and given the serial number n167 it first flew in 1925 and was almost identical to the First with the exception that the radiator was of a different shape and that it was fitted with a metal three blade propeller from the outset it made a brief appearance at the henden RAF display on the 27th of June 1925 where it dwarfed all other aircraft it greatly impressed onlookers during the main fly pass with its huge size and massive engine provid providing a symphony of noise that drowned out all others despite impressing the public the press and several prominent members of the air staff the coveru would not go into production later in 1925 the air Ministry abandoned its specification for a large bomber to carry the 21-in torpedo and at the same time they put more focus on twin engine aircraft due to their higher reliability in response to this Blackburn made detailed design studies for twin engine versions of the cubu that would be powered by by the Rolls-Royce Condor engines however none of these were built and the two kabaru prototypes finished out their days as experimental platforms the first prototype was written off after its Port undercarriage collapsed in 1925 but the second one carried on for another year being used as a test bed for the experimental beard Mo simoon 8 cylinder engine episode 11 the Sab 17 the Sab 17 was the first all metal aircraft developed in Sweden it was also to be the first aircraft built by Sab who had only been formed on the 2nd of April 1937 but before we talk about this aircraft it's worth taking a brief look at the general and very confusing state of the Swedish aviation industry at this time as it directly relates to the development of this particular aircraft throughout 1936 and 1937 questions and answers were being put forward on how to form a modern Swedish aircraft industry in early 1937 representatives for some of the leading companies which had expressed an interest in building up an aircraft industry were summoned to a meeting with the Prime Minister these men represented the arms manufacturers NOAB and bers the got ofen Shipyard already an aircraft manufacturer and asja unwilling to disclose any preferences or appearances of favoritism it was decided that the best solution would be the formation of a new company however this too was also fraught with difficult choices before a final decision could be made a third solution was presented NOAB and asja joined forces early in February and presented government with a joint alternative the idea was that NOAB would form a subsidiary Sab and then Sab and asj together would then form a new joint venture called the United aircraft Works which would be known as AFF AFF would be responsible for development and deliveries while construction and Manufacturing was to be split between the two companies there's a lot more to it than this very brief summary and there's a couple of other companies and subsidiaries involved as well but I did only want to cover this briefly to explain the relationship between sa and asja specifically and keep the video more focused on the aircraft speaking of which in 1938 the Swedish Air Force was looking for a new reconnaissance aircraft and with storm clouds gathering over Europe there was a growing need to modernize the Swedish military ass assets two designs would be submitted one by AFF and the other by asja directly asja had not been comfortable with the design submitted by the AFF design office and had made a parallel design of their own this also included a response to the new requirement that the aircraft could be built as a light bomber without an excessive amount of redesign to improve their development work asja had argumented its engineering staff by hiring 48 American designers and Specialists between 1938 and 1939 however their stay in Sweden would be shortlived as they were called back to the us at the outbreak of war in Europe nevertheless their input was valuable and significantly aided the design process in August AFF submitted the two designs and was awarded a contract to develop and build two prototypes of the asja design which at the time was known as the L10 and the Prototype would be given the designation p7 the sudden departure of the American designers and engineers in 1939 and 1940 caused development delays as asja and Sab moved to fill the gaps often with inexperienced Personnel however the prototypes were completed by the spring and the first aircraft now known as the sub 17 took to the sky for the first time on the 18th of May 1940 the two aircraft were almost identical except for a difference in engines the first prototype was powered by a swed built NOAB Bristol Mercury 12 of 800 horsepower and the second aircraft would be powered by a pratton Whitney twin wasp which produced 1,65 horsepower the aircraft was designed as a midwing or metal canera monoplane it boasted several Advanced design features including flush riveting to reduce drag it also housed a roomy high visibility canopy for a crew of two a pilot and an observer who also acted as a navigator and rear Gunner for maximum strength the central fuselage was designed without any cutouts for the undercarriage the landing gear and the tail wheel was still fully retractable but instead of being housed within the fuselage or the wing it instead retracted against the wing and was protected by a streamlined metal covering that was fixed to the Gear itself this covering was a dual purpose as not only did it protect the gear from the elements but it also acted as an air break during a dive bombing attack the S 17 was also designed to have the landing gear replaced with floats for landing on large bodies of water and Sweden being Sweden home to mcen snow the aircraft could also be equipped with retractable Landing skis the aircraft's Armament consisted of two 8 mm machine guns mounted in the wings and one 8 mm machine gun on a flexible Mount at the rear seat in terms of payload it could carry up to 700 kg of bombs racks were provided under the wings and the fuselage had an internal Bombay that could accommodate one 250 kilo bomb or 850 kilo bombs earlier versions of the aircraft were also equipped with a special mechanism that lowered an externally carried 500 kilo bomb free of the propeller Arc though Innovative this feature would not last as the Advent of the Sab bt2 bomb site would soon make dive bombing obsolete in fact dive bombing would be rapidly discouraged when the first production models arrived as it was discovered that their wings had a nasty habit of falling off during a dive the wings were of course promptly strengthened but the aircraft were only ever cleared for shallow dive bombing during their service life in the Autumn of 1940 sa was awarded contracts for 174 aircraft all of them being the reconnaissance version that was to be dubbed the S7 a year later that order was increased to 262 units of which one batch was to be built as light bombers designated as the B7 the this batch was then increased again to become the major part of the order by the end of the following year developing the Prototype had been a complicated Endeavor but completing the production versions quickly made that feel like a spring picnic first of all production was complicated by the problems of engine availability initially the aircraft was planned for the pratton Whitney twin wasp this version was designated at the b7a in the Swedish Air Force the twin wasp engine however did not become available in suitable numbers until 1943 1944 and therefore the first version of the aircraft to go into production was the b17b powered by a Swedish built Bristol Mercury 24 engine but there's more in 1941 the Air Force was able to produce some Italian engines which produced 10,40 horsepower and this was then used to power the b17c the twin wasp powered b17a thus became the last version to go into production despite being the first designed all in all the the first production aircraft would fly on the 1st of December 1941 and the last delivery took place in Autumn of 1944 shortly after this the wings started falling off during the service trials for diet bombing and production had to be halted whilst they were strengthening and redesigning the wings in terms of dimensions and performance I'll qu the figures for the b7a to keep things simple it had a length of 9.8 m a wingspan of 13.7 M and a height of 4 m it had a relatively light empty weight of 2,600 kg and a loaded weight of 3,970 kg it had a maximum speed of 435 km an hour a cruising speed of 390 km an hour and a range of 18800 km from 1942 the Sab 17 would be fielded by six light bomber and reconnaissance wings of the Swedish Air Force but due to Sweden's neutrality they would not see any combat during World War II in the final phase of the war it was feared that German troops in Denmark and Norway would not obey Germany's order for total surrender in Sweden the Danish Brigade First organized in 1943 had been trained to use the B17 and were put on alert for deployment but the order to fly never came from Denmark due to the rapid advances in aviation technology the aircraft were retired from Frontline service in 1948 however they would get a second lease of life with the Ethiopian Air Force between 1947 and 1953 the Ethiopian Air Force which had been organized by Swedish officers at the request of Emperor Hy salassi eventually purchased a total of 47 sub 17 A's in three batches the aircraft proved to be ideal for the rugged conditions in Ethiopia in the late 1950s a number of fairy Firefly aircraft were acquired from Canada in order to modernize the Air Force but these aircraft finished their service in Ethiopia well before the sub 17s which which was still an operation in squadrons in the 1960s even in the 1970s a few aircraft were still operating with Ethiopia after more than 25 years of service starting in 1951 the airboard released a number of Sab 17as to serve as several registered Target Towing aircraft for the Swedish armed forces the aircraft was still owned by the airboard but were operated by private companies eventually a total of 20 sub 17s were on the Swedish civil register two sub 17 SE planes are also in several use between 1949 and 1951 one target Towing plane was sold to Austria in 1957 and 2 years later two more similar aircraft were also sold to The Finnish Air Force several models survived to this day including a pair that are kept at the Swedish Air Force Museum with one of them still being in an airworthy condition episode 12 The tev ENT 4 since the earliest days of Aviation Russia has has never shied away from Big designs in the 1920s and 1930s tupelov developed a series of large and impressive aircraft some would become the foundation of the Soviet bomber forces some would become passenger liners and some would become impressive tools for propaganda today we're going to take a look at the first of tupelov's giants the ent4 also known as the TV1 in the early 1920s the Soviet Union had no heavy bombers in its Air Force Russia had fielded some impressive examples in World War I but they had all been retired by 1921 and their designer eigor Sikorski had immigrated to America this left somewhat of a vacuum in the ranks of Soviet designers and when the need for an experimental heavy aircraft arose in 1923 the Soviet Union initially looked for an international solution it approached the British aircraft industry in the hopes of purchasing the designed work for this new aircraft but but the cost quoted was exceedingly High and the delivery time was exceedingly slow it was then that the Soviet Army and Air Force considered a proposal from a relatively young name in the aviation World Andre tupv by 1923 tupv had designed three aircraft though none of them had crashed exploded or otherwise behaved in a manner Unbecoming of an airplane they were unassuming and unimpressive Designs this however was about to change ke to establish themselves in the industry tupv and his design Bureau had put forward an offer to design this new aircraft for the Army and Air Force and also have the Prototype ready within 9 months the offer was quickly accepted and work began on the 11th of November 1924 the Prototype which was designated ent4 being tb's fourth design was built on the design principles established by his earlier projects it took a lot of inspiration from the technology pioneered by Yugo yonas featuring an all metal skin of corrugated duraluminium with steel used for the ribs frame and undercarriage this rather annoyed Hugo who had viewed the Soviet Union as a potential customer rather than a competitor and he tried to sue the design Bureau and tupelov personally for infringing on his patent however this attempt was unsuccessful as pretty much every other manufacturer was now doing the exact same thing the Prototype was completed by the 11th of august 19 1925 and after knocking down some walls of tev's Workshop all of the relevant parts were taken for assembly at moscow's Central Airfield at Kinka when assembled it represented the first all metal bomber to be completely developed and built by the Soviet Union a considerable achievement considering the shortage of skilled workers poor working conditions the complexity of the aircraft's design and the equal complexity of sourcing high quality materials it was also the first Soviet aircraft to be wind tunnel tested however no photographic evidence of this exists as many of tev's archives were put to the torch when the Germans Advanced on Moscow in 1941 the ent4 was Russia's largest aircraft built up to that time and only a handful of other aircraft in the world were bigger it had a wingspan of 29.6 m a length of 17.3 M and a height of 5.1 M the wings were constructed in sections two Central sections and outer sections these were fixed in place by casing bolts and allowed for easy maintenance and transport of the aircraft itself the fuselage followed the same principles and was constructed in three sections the first encompassed the nose the second went from the cockpit back to the fifth Spar in the fuselage and the third went all the way to the tail the Prototype was powered by a pair of napia lion 2 engines which were rated at 450 horsepower these were fed by 10 fuel tanks that were housed in the central Wing section that had a total fuel capacity for 2010 L though devoid of any military or navigation equipment the Prototype was relatively Hefty with an empty weight of just over 4 tons and a maximum weight of 6.2 tons ordinarily this was designed to be supported by an undercarriage fitted with two 1.25 M diameter Wheels but when it was first completed the Prototype was actually mounted on a pair of yuna's skis instead it took off for the first time on the 6 of November 1925 following this flight and some modifications to improve its handling characteristics the aircraft went through an initial test program that it passed with flying colors after this it went for State trials and between June and July of 1926 it completed 25 test flights and was evaluated as a first class aircraft it was then given a simulated bomb load of 1 ton and flew for 12 hours covering 2,000 km a similar test was also made with a 2ton bomb load which was carried for a flight of 4 hours and 15 minutes the commander-in chief of the VVS was thoroughly impressed with tup Lev's new aircraft and it was ordered into production as the tb1 or heavy bomber type 1 during this time it was also decided that further development of the aircraft's power plant was required originally the plan had been to upgrade to a more powerful engine supplied by Lorraine Dietrich but in April of 1927 this was changed to the newer BMW V1 which could give up to 600 horsepower with the plan to manufacture them as the Soviet licensed built m17 engine in the future meanwhile a second ent4 was being built this time as a fully militarized prototype it was powered by BMW v1z engines had three defensive turrets outfitted with Lewis machine guns and was completed with a suite of radio and camera equipment it was completed in the summer of 1928 and made its first flight on the 15th of August that year with the flight test program concluding in March of 1929 almost 5 years elapsed from the completion of the first prototype to the first arrival of production models of TB ons this was due in part to the problem of acquiring suitable Factory space to produce said planes acquiring suitably powerful engines in large numbers and acquiring metal of suitable quality to facilitate the actual construction of the aircraft itself self however by the end of the 1920s the Soviet Union was now producing high-grade Alloys in enough volume to reduce its dependence on imported allies and the tb1 was then able to enter for serial production compared to the prototypes the tb1 had a slightly reduced wingspan of 28.7 M it now has an empty weight of 4 and 1/2 tons and a maximum weight of 6.8 tons it was also more powerful the licensed built m17 V12 engines produced 680 horsepower each and drove a pair of fixed pitch two blade propellers the fastest production models of the tb1 reached a top speed of 207 km an hour which was more than enough for the pilots seeing as the aircraft was built with an open cockpit though nominally designed as a bomber the Soviet leadership quickly realized the potential of the tb1 as a tool for propaganda its excellent range and endurance made it the perfect candidate for a series of record setting National and international flights after a couple of successful but shorter local flights Stalin proposed an InterContinental flight be attempted New York was selected as the destination but instead of flying West from Moscow to New York via the Atlantic it was decided to go East instead Not only was this the safer route avoiding the giant body of water that was the Atlantic but extra propaganda value would be gained from the extreme distance and the added bonus of the aircraft visiting prominent Russian cities along the way two aircraft were stripped of their military equipment and prepared for the journey with the second being a backup on the 8th of August 1929 pilots shestov bolotov and their crew took off from Moscow in their ent4 renamed strana soatov or country of the Soviets not long after this the decision of preparing a second aircraft soon bore fruit as an emergency landing in the Omsk region of Siberia damaged the first 15 days later the second aircraft renamed like the first took off and began its Epic Journey the journey covered multiple legs sometimes as a land plane and sometimes fitted with floats for the Bearing Sea and the Gulf of Alaska the crew were constantly fighting with engine problems but only one major mishap occurred that slowed them down for any period of time an engine failure near the illusion Islands but thorough planning meant that a spare engine was soon fitted despite there being no specialist equipment on hand to do so on the 3rd of November the the aircraft landed in New York and was greeted by thousands of excited people it was the first tupf design to be seen in America and the conclusion of this journey thrust Soviet Aviation into the Forefront of the world scene the global point-to-point distance flown was 2,242 km or 13,200 Mi over a flight time totaling 137 hours though in reality the actual travel distance was considerably longer due to the VAR in legs of the journey the &t 4 would make headlines again 5 years later in 1934 the ship Chosin had become trapped in ice far north of the bearing straight 104 people were on board and they had Provisions to last out the winter until the spring Thor came however the ice began to crush the ship in February forcing them onto the ice itself an impromptu Landing Strip was prepared and the first aircraft to land on the scene was an ent4 over the next week it performed the largest aerial rescue in the world up to that time with all 104 people being safely evacuated from the ice in its military gu over 200 of the TB 1s were produced though compared to later production numbers this sounds quite small for the early 1930s that represented a significant achievement when it came to producing large aircraft in the Soviet Union as a result of this many TB 1s were either modified or built specifically as test beds for new technologies and ideas perhaps the strangest of these ideas was the use of so-called parasite Fighters vsf mistro and I apologize if I pronounce that wrong worked at the VVS scientific and Research Institute he proposed that long-range bombers should have Fighters mounted on its wings connected by a special sort of Link together they would take off with all engines running and then the fighters would throttle back until they were needed this would greatly increase their range of escort Duty and would allow the bomber to bring its own Defenders deep into enemy territory the fighters would then detach from the bombers SWAT their opponents out of the sky and then link back onto their Mothership for a ride home this idea was well received and an ent4 was specifically modified to carry a pair of ent5 Fighters the concept of releasing aircraft from the mother ship was proved during a series of test flights but the project was eventually cancelled in 1940 most ly as the result of Stalin's purges which led to the arrest of vak Mistro's greatest supporters despite its large size the tb1 was also considered as a c plane after the successful Flight of the ent4 from Moscow to New York some 55 TB 1s were modified to become the tb1 p with their undercarriages being replaced with floats these were used for Coastal patrols especially in the Far East and TB ons operated in the northern regions fitted with skis the tb1 served with the VVS until finally being retired in 1941 between the mid 1930s and 1948 about 90 TB ons would be stripped of military equipment and operated as the G1 cargo aircraft likewise many of the TB 1p float planes were also converted for transport use during the second world war some of these aircraft were amongst the first in the world to test the use of cargo parachutes dropping Ates of military supplies artillery pieces and even small tanks on some occasions though unfortunately no photo record of this exists though not the largest of tup leves designs by a long shot the ent4 was perhaps the most significant it provided the basis of a hugely successful propaganda aircraft it formed the foundation of the new Soviet bomber forces and it tested a dozen revolutionary technology Concepts that would be improved upon during the second World War remarkably one example of this aircraft still survives today a G1 transport that is displayed at the elenos Aircraft Museum in Russia episode 13 the tarant to bore near the end of World War I Britain had developed and built the Hanley page v500 a heavy bomber designed to be able to bomb Berlin though it would never get the chance to do so the Armistice being signed on the very day of its Maiden Mission the development of the Hanley page had spurred on others to design something even bigger enter Walter George tarant he had founded WG tarant limited it was a well-known Woodworking and building contractor based at B Fleet in Su during the war they had supplied numerous structural components to other aircraft manufacturers and had patented a method of constructing Wings spars that featured wooden lattice webs in 1917 tarant wanted to move from producing aircraft components to building a complete aircraft himself self he took out a patent for ltis braced circular girders that would be used in large aircraft construction and assembled a small design team he was joined by Marcel Lael a Belgian aeronautical engineer and whh Barling from the Royal aircraft Factory together they drew up the design for a very large 4 engined biplane bomber towards the end of 1917 initially it was planned for the aircraft to be powered by four of the then in development 43 and 1/2 l Sly tiger V12 engines which were expected to produce around 600 horsepower however it soon became evident that the tiger engine was plagued by delays and in fact it would ultimately be a complete failure and so the decision was made to use six of the 450 horsepower napia lion engines instead due to this change in engine number a third wing would be added to the aircraft the central Wing being of the widest span and the upper and lower wings of smaller but equal Span in this new configuration two pairs of Tandem engines would be installed between the lower and middle wing and two single engines would be mounted between the middle and the upper Wing the four tractor and two Pusher engines would all drive two blade fix pitch propellers to support the added weight additional Center section struts ran diagonally from the upper Wing through the central Wing before connecting to the central lower fuselage in effect creating a huge and hopefully very strong strong Warren truss strength would definitely be needed for Not only was tarrant's aircraft now going to be exceedingly tall but it was still designed to carry a very heavy bomb load no exact figure was given for a maximum total bomb load but the designers had intended for it to carry approximately 20 230 lb bombs So based off that it would have a total payload capacity of around £4,600 the bombs themselves would have been carried under the central Wing section of the lower wing due to the truss structure connecting the wings this heavy load would be spread throughout the entire Wing structure rather than putting all of it just on the lower wing and the fuselage the fuselage itself looked very sleek and modern for the time thanks to taran's patented design method it was a streamlined monoco constructed of ltis web circular fuselage frames and covered with 2 to 4 mm of ply attached to the rear of the fuselage was a traditional bip plane tail unit it comprised of two tail planes the lower of which had a horn balanced elevator and the upper had a trimming surface that could be operated by a hand wheel in the cockpit a second elevator was mounted in the tail plane Gap but I cannot find evidence as to whether this had a balancing horn like the lower one did it would not surprise me as pitch stability was of prime concern when designing the aircraft especially after adding the additional two engines so high above its Center of Gravity the aircraft would be supported by two massive undercarriage structures each of these carried a trio of 5ft diameter wheels that were mounted on a common axle each wheel assembly was attached by struts directly beneath the engine that mounted the interplane struts as such the impact from Landing was distributed between the three wings and their support structures to increase stability on landing and ground handling the landing gear had a very wide track of over 31 ft at one point it seems that the construction of the aircraft was halted though this cannot be completely verified some news article Snippets from 1919 and 1920 claim that construction paused after the end of the first world war but many other sources mention nothing of the kind either way it seems that the construction of the aircraft was completed around the middle of spring 1919 due to the considerable height of the aircraft it was decided to complete its final assem assembly in a huge balloon shed at farra with the Finnish aircraft being moved in and out of the hanger sideways on a specially built pair of railway tracks taren's prototype bummer was complete by May of 1919 and it was given the serial designation f765 to a public onlooker at the time it must have looked almost ridiculously big the aircraft had a maximum wingspan of 131 ft 3 in a length of 73 2 in and a cons considerable height of 37 3 in for comparison that makes it taller but shorter than the caproni 90 which was the largest bip plane ever built the aircraft had been completed to accommodate a crew of six which included two pilots however no record shows of any designed Gunner imp placements though it can be assumed that one would be in charge of bomb aiming and at least another would be an engineer of sorts to manage the six engines the cockpit was open and the rest of the crew could access the fuselage by a pair of hatches below the nose for reasons that were about to become painfully obvious no performance statistics were ever recorded but the tabour was wind tunnel tested by both the Royal aircraft establishment and the national Physics laboratory it was estimated to have a maximum speed of just over 110 mph a service ceiling of 13,000 ft and an endurance of approximately 12 hours unfortunately the reports of these authorities conflicted something not ideal when you're trying to find out if your new expensive prototype will fly or not with the Rae suggesting that the aircraft was excessively tail heavy and the Physics laboratory suggesting otherwise a proposal was put forward to add 1,000 lb of lead ballast into the nose to counteract this supposed heavy tail but tarant strongly disagreed with this believing that the Rae report to be incorrect however the ballast was added anyway though it is not clear known whether tarant or the two test pilots assigned to the aircraft were ever made aware of this decision on the 26th of May 199 the aircraft was made ready for its madeen flight at the controls were captains FG dun and PT Rawlings who were accompanied by four crewman after completing the lengthy process of starting the six engines which required the use of a large Gantry and perhaps the largest hux starter ever built Dunn carried out a number of trial taxiing runs before starting his takeoff run to begin with he opened up the four tandem engines mounted between the lower wings and when the aircraft was at sufficient speeds to lift the tail he opened up the two upper engines as well at this point Witnesses saw the aircraft tip over onto its nose its undercarriage collapsing and coming to rest tail up with the front of the nose and the fuselage completely crushed immediately following the crash a catastrophic fire was avoided by the quick thinking of either one one of the pilots or the crew who engaged the master cutof switch unfortunately both of the pilots would succumb to their injuries but the rest of the crew escaped with the only major injury being a broken leg sustained by one Captain TM Wilson who was flung through the rear section of the fuselage on impact a subsequent investigation would conclude that the direct cause of the accident was the sudden increase of thrust by the upper pair of engines which caused the aircraft to violently pitch over these engines were mounted 28 ft in the air and it was strongly suspected that the 1,000 lb of nose ballast was unknown to the pilots otherwise they would never have applied so much power especially as the aircraft was running a light load with minimal Fuel and no simulated bomb load a second aircraft had been planned possibly as an attempt to develop the to bore into a commercial aircraft in the new post-war era but it would never be built it was deemed inherently unstable and the only way of rectifying it which included removing the upper wing and engines and replacing the four main engines with more powerful ones was too expensive to justify and so the Tabor would become WG tant's first and only 4A into aircraft design no surviving parts of the aircraft survive today but it certainly serves as an example that bigger is not always better episode 14 The Bell ym1 the the Bell Aruda could best be described as an expensive mix of Innovations and Oddities during the mid 1930s the idea of the heavy fighter was taking hold bomber technology was advancing at a terrific pace and although many subscribed to the idea that the bomber would always get through many also thought that fighter protection would remain a necessity as a result of this heavy Fighters would be contemplated by many nations as both bomber escorts and and bomber hunters in 1936 this very concept was being considered in the United States development of the Boeing B17 was underway and an operational requirement was issued for a longrange escort fighter two manufacturers would submit designs for this requirement locked and Bell the Bell aircraft Corporation was a new player on the highly competitive field that was the American aircraft industry and the company needed to make a name for itself the two competing manufacturers were awarded preliminary design contracts and both submitted their proposals to the Army aircore by the deadline of March the 15th 1936 Bell's proposal was the Xfm 1 which would become known as the Auda at a casual glance it resembled a medium bomber more than a heavy fighter and many people in fact referred to it simply as a bomber Hunter rather than a fighter at all it had an all metal structure that was built around a pair of supercharged Allison v710 engines and a power ful offensive Armament the wings were of box Spar Canter lver Construction and comprised of Central and outer sections the front and rear of the fuselage were joined at the front Spar of the wing for added stability and the rear section was of a semi monocot construction the V12 liquid cooled Allison engines put out 1,90 horsepower each and they drove a pair of three blade Pusher propellers they were arranged in such a way that the forward section of each engine Nell could be dedicated as a gunner compartment albe it's a fairly noisy one Speaking of Gunners the proposed Armament by 1930 standards was well impressive it was to be equipped with a pair of forward firing 30 caliber machine guns which was fair enough but it was also equipped with a pair of 37 mm automatic cannons these would be mounted in a pair of flexible cones that were on the front of each engine to cell each of these would house a gunner however their primary purpose was to to feed the guns rather than fire them though they could still do that in an emergency the aircraft featured an Innovative Fire Control System developed by sper instruments which would allow the navigator to operate the Cannons remotely with the Gunners making minor corrections to their aim in essence what bell had designed was a flying anti-aircraft battery that could engage enemy bombers beyond the range of their own defensive guns in a pinch it could also be used as a sort of fighter bomber and could carry up to 20 30 bombs in Bays installed in the wings but this was considered more as an afterthought it had a relatively Meek defensive Armament which came in the form of two 50 caliber machine guns that were mounted inside blisters on the rear part of the fuselage the Auda had a crew of five a pilot a co-pilot and Navigator a radio operated Gunner and two dedicated Gunners the aircraft was designed to provide excellent frontal visibility a plexiglass enclosed cabin extended from the nose all the way after the Navigator station and the engine cells offered good visibility for the Gunners as well there was however a notable set of blind spots in the early design the aircraft lacked any dorsal viewing ports or defensive Armament and the direct rear visibility was almost non-existent though this would be somewhat rectified later on for now it remained an otherwise completely ignored design floor after a wooden mockup had been built and basic wind tunnel testing had been completed construction of the Prototype began in May of 1936 work was completed by the end of summer in 1937 and on the 1st of September it would take off for the first time when completed the Xfm 1 had a wingspan of 69 ft 10 in a length of 44t 10 in and a height of 13' 7 in this combined with its mass gave it both the looks and the feel of a medium bomber it had an empty weight of 13,400 lb and a loaded weight of 1,333 lb not exactly a featherweight its twin Allison engines gave it a top speed of 270 mph a cruising speed of 244 mph and a normal operating range of 800 mil unfortunately things would immediately begin to go wrong during takeoff the port engine backfired and blew in the air ducts as well as the intercooler another incident occurred during the second flight this time during Landing when the starboard undercarriage refused to lock and thus collapsed upon impact the aircraft was subsequently repaired and after 10 more test flights where it proved that it could take off and land without trying to kill the test pilot it was accepted at right field for further testing on the 21st of October it then went to langle field for further testing in 1938 where it made itself increasingly unpopular with the ground Crews responsible for keeping it in a flying condition what had looked good on paper was quickly becoming a nightmare in practice and the Auda became plagued with all sorts of maintenance problems the engines for example were usually considered reliable and easy to maintain however when installed in The Pusher configuration aboard the Auda they had insufficient cooling systems that failed to counter the lack of prop wash that helped call the engines otherwise as such they overheated incredibly easily to the point that the aircraft could not taxi on it Zone and had to be towed from The Hanger to the runway if it was any kind of distance the Armament though powerful proved to be both lackluster and dangerous the 37 mm cannons had a low muzzle velocity proved difficult to aim and had the unfortunate tendency of filling the engine to cell holding the Gunner with smoke this all reduced the effective range of the auda's guns meaning that if it were to successfully hunt and shoot enemy bombers it would probably be doing so within the range range of their defensive guns which leads on to the next problem it was about as maneuverable as a brick the eruda suffered severe flight limitations it couldn't make imman turns fly inverted or even complete basic rolls it also took extreme offense to any sort of pitch input when under power with even the slightest movements requiring immediate correction less the aircraft continue moving in the original input Direction perhaps the worst of its flaws was the electrical system it featured an independent auxiliary power unit this powered the aircraft's electrical systems as well as both the fuel pumps and the engines yeah I can think you can see where I'm going with this if said power unit were to fail and fail it did then the Unlucky pilot would have no fuel pressure and thus no engines and also no hydraulic pressure for the gears or for the flaps this happened on more than one occasion and Ben Kelce who did many of the first test flights was very lucky that he could either land the plane safely or his crew could restart the Apu before the plane lost total control despite repeated attempts at killing the pilots hotboxing the Gunners and driving the ground crew to tear the Xfm 1 was put on display alongside several other aircore prototypes including the Bell XP 39 at the bowling field exhibition in January of 1940 during this time a new version of the aircraft was being built back in 1938 not long after the first prototype was completed the war department had given a contract for 13 more aircraft for service testing nine of these would be completed as the yfm 1 these were powered by improved versions of the Allison engines that produced around 1150 horsepower and many changes were made to address the long list of deficiencies with the first prototype the engines were now housed in modified cowlings and the air intakes were moved into the wing Leading Edge in an attempt to address the overheating issue the engine supercharges were now built into the Nels themselves and propeller Spinners were also added the issue of defensive blind spots was finally Revisited the fuselage was lengthened and redesigned with a periscope being fitted under the nose that detect threats from the underside along with this the side blisters were replaced with hatches and the machine guns were repositioned in ventral and dorsal hatches near the wing trailing Edge to provide a better overall Field of Fire the first yfm 1 made its Maiden flight on the 28th of September 1939 three of the delivered aircraft would be completed as the yfm 1A which had a nose wheel underc Carriage added to improve its takeoff and Landing characteristics unfortunately this rather backfired as they quickly developed a horrific nose wheel wobble this was only solved after numerous tests involving a car fitted with the auda's nose wheel as a sort of Frankenstein testing unit unit despite the Litany of problems only two aircraft would be lost in accidents with only one fatality being recorded from the second that being said losing two aircraft from a batch of just 12 still doesn't represent a glowing safety record and the 13th was never completed further development of the eruda was discontinued for various reasons it was slow it was unreliable and it was becoming increasingly expensive the Romania aircraft served operation Al in a squadron for a period of time but this was shortlived in January of 1942 the nine remaining airworthy planes were dispersed to various training schools throughout the country some would be used by mechanics as instructional airframes and some would be flown by pilots who wanted another odd plane to add to their log books the failure of the Auda could have been a serious disaster for Bell had their other design the P39 era Cobra not succeeded eventually all of the eru ERS were scrapped and no examples of this strange aircraft survived to this day as far as first aircraft go Bell certainly chose to go with different rather than safe episode 15 the Vicor vime the Vicor vime was one of the most iconic bombers developed during World War I and it went on to become one of the most iconic aircraft of the inter War period in July of 1917 the British Air board made the decision to cancel all existing orders for experimental bombers this was done as somewhat of a knee-jerk reaction to a German raid on London the previous month as they felt that none of their existing projects were ambitious enough for retaliation cancelling all of your major bomber projects during a global armed conflict may not have been the wisest decision and thankfully sanity prevailed when the control of the technical department convinced them to place an order for 100 Handley page 0400 bombers along with this orders were also also placed for some other Handley page bomber prototypes as well as some examples from Vicor Vicor had been experimenting with the concept of twin engine aircraft since the beginning of the war their first prototype dubbed to the efb 7 and designed to carry a one pound gun was one of the first twin engine military aircraft fly when it first took off in 1915 it never went into production however as its original gnome engines were in short supply and The Replacements were too underpowered it was then redesigned designed into the second aircraft the E fb8 which was smaller than its predecessor and was only armed with a single lowest gun although neither aircraft was produced Beyond a prototype their designer Rex Pearson gained valuable experience from their development this paid off in 1917 when it was suggested that vickas should attempt to develop a heavy bomber around the Hispano szer engine of which there was a surplus and it should be built to the same specification as the Hanley page zero series Pearson met with major JC banan of the airboard at their headquarters and rapidly Drew up prototype proposals on some scrap paper not long after this some actual detailed designs were also drawn up and the construction of the Prototype began in Earnest the first prototype was completed in less than 4 months and was designated the Vicor FB 27 it was designed to accommodate a crew of three a pilot and two Gunners its hasano szer engines produced 200 horsepower each and it was designed to carry approximately 2400 lb of bombs with an endurance of 3 and 1/2 hours it flew for the first time on the 30th of November at Joyce green piloted by Gordon Bell and following several successful flights it went to mam Heath for official trials in January 1918 during these trials it impressed officials by lifting a greater load than the handy page bomber despite having less powerful engines unfortunately these engines suffered from persistent mechanical problems and the Prototype was taken back to Joyce screen for modification work in April as a side note it was around this time that the aircraft was also officially named the vime mechanical problems and bad luck quickly became a bit of a recurring theme for the vimme during its development three more prototypes were built during 1918 and of the four total only one wanted to behave in a way that didn't endanger the pilots and the crew the second prototype appeared in early 1918 it was powered by a pair of liquid cooled Sunbeam Maui engines and produced 260 horsepower along with the new engines it also differed from the first prototype by having new elevators ailerons and tailplanes and it also had a different P covering on the fuselage it was tested at Joy screen in April and it was found to have issues with its engine cooling systems despite this it then went to maral Sham Heath for further testing where it was promptly written off in a crash due to engine failure the third prototype arrived not long after the second and it was powered by a pair of Fiat a12 bis engines that put out 300 horsepower each again this aircraft featured several structural improvements over the first prototype it had new engine to cells the nose of the fuselage was redesigned it featured centrifugal fuel pumps powered by air screws and its wings had a greater dihedral of 3° at melim it suffered test delays as the air screws powering the fuel pumps had a habit of cracking and then the tests were abruptly cut short when the aircraft took off with live bombs for a trip to the bombing range stalled during takeoff and then promptly exploded when it crashed the fourth prototype was powered by the Rolls-Royce Eagle Mark 8 aside from some modifications to the Rudders its airframe was virtually identical to that of the previous prototype however its fuel load had been greatly increased it now had a fuel capacity of 452 Gall compared to just 92 Gall on the original prototype albeit this did come at the cost of the internal Bombay unlike the previous two planes this one actually did quite well at trials it was able to fly at over 100 mph near the ground with a loaded total weight of 12,500 lb and its fuel load gave it an endurance of 11 hours a fifth prototype had also been planned powered by the new Liberty engine however this was curtailed by the cessation of Liberty engine deliveries and the destruction of the Prototype during a hang of fire in 1919 despite some of the prototypes boiling their engines or exploding Vicor had received an initial order for 150 aircraft back in March of 1918 this order was quickly expanded by a further 200 units and Counting contracts with other firms this order would grow to over 1,100 various units by the end of the conflict large scale production of the vimme was undertaken by Vic Morgan Westland and the Royal aircraft establishment and several other smaller firms during 1918 priority was placed on the production of anti-submarine variants of the vimme designed to carry two Torpedoes and once this order was completed then a night bumber was to be produced however by the signing of the Armistice vicar had only Built 13 aircraft and only one vimi had reached France though it was never used operationally with the outbreak of Peace there was of course a drastic reduction in orders however some production still continued and the final total built under wartime contracts came to 112 aircraft these aircraft varied in power plant arrangements and bomb carrying capacity however the majority were completed with the Rolls-Royce Eagle engine some were completed with the Fiat engines but a number of these were also later converted over to the eagle the production vime much like the Prototype followed a lot of the conventional design trends of the time it was an equal span B plane with a wire braced Wing structure the front fuselage was constructed of steel tubing and the rear fuselage was mostly of wood with steel end fittings the tail was also a biplane and the Rudders and aerons of the aircraft were aerodynamically balanced by extensions that were forward of the hinge points after some light tweaking the Rolls-Royce Eagle engine suited the vime perfectly which would have been a refreshing change after the earlier prototypes mishaps and on one test flight the vimi hit a top speed of 112 mph like the Prototype it had a crew of three and the two Gunners each operated a single 303 caliber Lewis gun one in the nose and one mounted on a scarf ring in the center section of the fuselage the first bomber Squadron to receive the vime was number 58 Squadron then based in Egypt the first aircraft arrived in July of 1920 and they replaced the squadron's existing complement of Hanley page bombers in 1921 number 45 and 216 Squad also based in Egypt were equipped with the vimme and those operated by 216 would become famous for operating the Cairo Bagdad air mail route back home the vimes operated by dlight of number 100 Squadron were the only twin engine bombers in service with the RAF by 1922 they would form the foundation of number seven Squadron which would fly Vimy until being replaced by Vic's Virginia in 1925 in 1924 Britain's homebased bomber strength would triple with the formation of number nine and number 58 Squadron the original 58 Squadron in Egypt being renamed to number 70 during the 1920s the vime would see service with eight RAF squadrons often having their service live extended with reconditioned engines and parts and indeed when the eagle engines themselves wore out they were sometimes replaced by relatively less worn out Bristol or Armstrong Sly engines within training units the vime would carry on its military service through a large part of the 1930s along with being used as a flight training aircraft it was also used as a parachute trainer though its career with the RAF was considered uneventful the vimme would be immortalized by a series of successive longrange flights the first of these was the non-stop crossing of the Atlantic that was flown by John oock and Arthur Brown the vime selected was the 13th and last to be manufactured at Vic's crayford Factory before production was moved to waybridge for this flight it was given to engineer Maxwell Müller for modification all of the military equipment was removed and replaced with extra fuel tanks this took the total capacity from 516 to 865 Gall and would give an Optimum range of 2,440 Mi it was given special radio equipment an intercom for the pilots to communicate more easily and an improved heating system allock and brown took off at 1:45 p.m. on the 14th of June 199 from St John's in Newfoundland nearly 16 hours later they would land in a bog near Clifton in Ireland from the beginning it was anything but an easy flight the added fuel load made to take off a perilous affair with the vime just clearing the Treetops on its way out from St John's 4 hours later things became considerably more dangerous when the wind-driven electrical generator failed which deprived them of heating and radio contact freezing and unable to easily communicate they then had to fly through thick fog which made navigation temporarily impossible they then had to endure snow storms that drenched them and threatened to ice up the plane and then a good portion of the journey had to be managed with a broken trim control the altitude flown varied depending on the weather temperature and how much control OK had on The Battered vime at one point they lost control of the plane in a particularly nasty patch of cloud and dropped down from 4,000 ft in a descending spiral wock regained control at the last moment and pulled the aircraft a level a mere 65 ft above the waves despite the atrocious weather the vime arrived not far off from its intended destination unfortunately it was partially wrecked during Landing Brown and orok thought they were landing on a green field but in fact it was a green bog thankfully their seat belts held and they weren't flung from the impact their Journey had covered 1,890 Mi 15 hours and 57 minutes of flight time with an average speed of 115 mph the next famous flight to involve the vime was initiated by the offer of a $10,000 prize by the Australian government the prize was to be awarded for the first flight by Australians from Britain to Australia the conditions were that it had to be completed within a time frame of 30 days and it had to be done before the end of 1919 six competitors entered into the race but it would be the vime that claimed the prize once again again the vime was selected and suitably Modified by Maxwell Miller the pilots chosen were the Smith Brothers Ross and Keith who were members of the Australian flying Corps due to the huge distances involved a considerable amount of pre-flight planning had to be done petrol oil and essential stores had to be laid down at strategic points on Route and Landing grounds had to be carefully surveyed especially in the more remote regions as a result of this the biggest modification made to the aircraft was the provision of more space for additional stores just in case some of the stops had supply issues the Smith Brothers took off on the morning of the 12th of November 1919 at around 8:00 a.m. remarkably most of the journey was made without any major problems the most common issue was the risk of the aircraft getting bogged down in the more tropical airfields the worst incident occurred in suraya where the aircraft became so utterly bogged that the locals had to Fashion an impromptu Runway from bamboo taken from natural Groves and indeed salvaged from huts on the 10th of December 1919 their vimi was cited approaching Australia by hmas Sydney 100 mi from Darwin just after 400 p.m. that day the Smith Brothers successfully landed at Fanny Bay from which they would fly the final leg to Melbourne and win the race the smith brothers were received as national heroes and they both received knighthoods for their exploits the third great flying Endeavor to feature the vime was not a complete success but it's still worth mentioning in 1920 efforts were being made to perform a flight from England to Cape Town amongst several aircraft to make the attempt were a pair of vims the first was named the Silver Queen and it was flown by Pierre van reld and Quinton brand of the South African Air Force they left Brooklyns on the 4th of February 1920 however they crashed a week later between Cairo and carum courtesy of a leaky radiator a second vimi was Lent to them by the Raf in Cairo and renamed the Silver Queen 2 this one reached buo which today is in Southwest Zimbabwe here the high elevation and severe heat took its toll and the vimi failed to lift off from the Airfield the engine failing due to heat and dirty oil after the accident the aircraft was no longer fit to fly and the rest of the journey was completed in a borrowed dh9 despite the failure the vime had flown far given the conditions however it served as an excellent example of the vim's weaknesses these lessons were applied to Future development of the aircraft and it's one of the main reasons why they were so successful when later used in Egypt the Middle East and in India along with being an excellent Frontline bomber and a record setting aircraft the vime would also find itself in the commercial line as the imaginatively named vime commercial in 1919 the Civil vime project created a new design that replaced the vim's Slender fuselage with a considerably thicker one it had a four body of oval cross-sections completely clear of internal obstructions such as struts or cross bracing and this body was then joined to the standard rear fuselage with a group of fairings to accommodate this new shape the fuel tanks were moved under the floor of the fuselage with fuel being fed to the engines by wind driven pumps though it could be considered somewhat guppy looking the new structure provided excellent internal space and allowed for a cabin capable of carrying up to 10 passengers in relative Comfort initially the idea had been to give it a fully enclosed carpit however the test pilots refused it on the grounds that a it impaired their ability to see and B it deprived them of fresh air these sorts of arguments would persist for a few more years until the air speed started to regularly exceed 130 mph and people suddenly developed a desire to not have their face ripped off the first commercial prototype was completed in the spring and flew for the first time on April the 13th 1919 in terms of overall performance it did slightly better than the bomber variant probably as a result of having the fuel and stores inside the streamlined fuselage it did however lack the range of its military counterpart being limited to just 450 Mi the commercial was not produced in huge numbers in fact the largest order for the aircraft came from China who placed an order for 40 vime commercials amongst some other models a production line was established at waybridge to produce these as well as a handful for domestic use in England however records indicate that many of the commercials shipped to China were never used and simply rotted away in their crates in 1921 a military ambulance version of the commercial was produced for the Royal Air Force it was designed to accommodate four stretchers or eight- seated patients with two medical staff and it featured an Innovative node loading Arrangement perhaps the first in the world five of these ambulance models were built and these were powered by napia Alliance a direct descendant of the commercial and thus the vime was the Vernon it was the first aircraft to be specifically operated for the RAF as a dedicated transport and emergency support aircraft this it did during outbreaks of violence in Cyprus and the Middle East it did this in two ways firstly the vering could be used as a traditional transport of troops and equipment and secondly it could be quickly converted in the field to carry bombs though it was operated as both the Vernon is best remembered for its role in the mail routs in 1921 the Vernon along with RAF Vimy pressed into duties formed the nucleus of the Middle Eastern section of the new emerging air rots together they helped to revolutionize the male service in a part of the world that lacked significant rail networks and the time it took to send a letter from baghdan to London went from 28 days down to 9 ver would bear the brunt of this service until 1926 and as the air ma service gained experience reliability improved and the amount of mail carried in the first 16 months increased 10 fold at the time the first vernons were operating in the Middle East improved versions were already being developed from experiences gained in their use the biggest needs were more range and power and this was achieved with the 450 horsepower napia lion engine and the addition of two extra 120 gallon fuel tanks the trials of this new model were successful and vicus received a new contract for the Vernon Mark 2 under Ministry specification 4322 eventually a Mark 3 variant of the Vernon would be developed but in March 1923 calls were growing for the design of an aircraft with larger Dimensions capacity and range than that of the vime and vickas would begin to work on the Virginia and Victoria designs the final Vicor vimme to retire from service did so in 1938 after almost 20 years of service which for the time was a remarkable lifespan for aircraft design two surviving examples can be found today both of which were the record setting aircraft the transatlantic vimme is on display at the science museum in London and the vime that took the Smith Brothers to Australia is on display at Adelaide airport episode 16 the fairy henden the fairy henden is unique amongst the family of fairy aircraft aside from their very first the F2 prototype of 1917 the henden would be Fair's only other twin engined aircraft and their sole forray into heavy bomber design in 1927 the air Ministry issued specification b927 this called for a twin engine night bomber that could carry a 1500lb bomb load over a range of 920 Mi at5 mph it also specified that the bomber should be able to climb from ground level to 10 ,000 ft in 30 minutes faery 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 Ferry the air Ministry also received submissions from Avo Handley page and vickas but Fair's design was the most advanced all of the other submissions were traditional biplane designs whereas fairy was proposing an allnew metal framed monoplane the man who led the design team PA rally had been responsible for the design aerodynamics and testing of Fair's striking longrange monoplane and there is no doubt that those aircraft influenced the decisions he made when designing the henden the air Ministry was interested in the proposal and after discussions about the general layout to equipment weapons and crew positions a contract was placed in October 1929 for the production of a radial engined prototype the design of Fair's new bomber had a number of new features and it also had a somewhat curious Wing design the large Canal 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 spars with each of the upper and lower Spar booms consisting of square tubing the wing sections further out from this were braced by as 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 storage 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 henden 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 1,000 bombs and the henden was to have a total carrying capacity of 2548 lb though Innovative this Arrangement came with a compromise it shared the available space of the Wings Center section with the fuel tanks the henden had two large 250gal fuel tanks each located behind the engines in the thick Center section of the wing it also had a pair of smaller gravity fed 20-gallon tanks directly behind the 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 2500lb bomb load was taken it would only have a range of 680 Mi conversely if the full fuel load was taken then the bomb load was reduced from 2500 lb down to 1600 lb but the range of course went up to 950 Mi so it was a bit of a balancing act another new feature was an aluminium catwalk that ran between the ha and nose bomb AER 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 AG 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 seemed 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 fery was still making up its mind on the fin or 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 K1 1695 was not completed until November several months after the prototypes built by vickas and Hanley 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 McMillan 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 Aeron and Rudder controls felt heavy there was some longitudal instability and quite a bit of care was needed to land such a Sleek aircraft especially is it didn't have any flaps it was not long after this that faery ran into a stroke of luck their competitors prototypes were encountering various problems and the air Ministry decided to delay the competitive evaluations by 9 months Fair's good luck meant that when their aircraft decided to overrun the aerody Drone runway on landing and crash they now had sufficient time to repair and improve it there had been some air flow disturbances buffeting and premature stalling behind the c engines and as a result of this the Jupiter engines were replaced by Rolls-Royce krol v12s around this time the control cables were replaced by rods and the slight 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 flew again in November 1931 and the following may it arrived at melam Heath for contract trials after these were completed it went on for performance and Armament trials with number 10 bomber Squadron of the RAF the report on the hinden was not unfavorable but the Handley Paige Hayford was preferred because of its more conventional handling characteristics and so orders are placed for the Hayford not the henden to go into production fairy was undeterred and the aircraft went back for further modifications in the meantime the RAF at farra had at fa's expense completed small scale wind tunnel tests with different aerons 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 aerons and Servo tabs for the elevators and Rudders before being flown back to melim for further testing this time the report was more favorable though it still tended to land heavily at slow speeds with the Vicor Wellington and Armstrong witor Whitley bombers still pretty far off and with the Hayford already showing its obsolescence the air ministry's interest in Fair'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 henden 2 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 castl engines and a list of other modifications which included the reintroduction of an enclosed cockpit to the Rejoice of all a rotating front turret and slipstream deflectors for the other two Gunner positions production hens were built at Fair's new Factory at heon 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 a new specification 38 Squad was based at milen Hall which had one of the largest RAF airfields at the time due to the tendency of the henden 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 air strip only two hens were written off in accidents one of these was an interesting case in November 1938 a dual control henden serial k50 94 was crashed by a pair of leading aircraft men who had decided it would be a great idea to take it out for a joy ride 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 ft in the air the two men weren't seriously injured and they had plenty of time to contemplate their actions during their 12 month detention after the subsequent Court marshal asign aside from rebellious crewmen the henden 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 henden 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 fery had been taken more seriously from the outset the henden could have distinguish 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 faery never pursued building bombers again as always thank you all so much for watching and a big thank you of course to the patron supporters now I'm currently away at the moment visiting my family for a week so I can't update the patreon list right now as I'm away from my editing room but I will be sure to do so when I return home at the end of the month but as always thank you all for your continued support and I will catch you all next time goodbye
