And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Saturday, January 11, 2025
Bristol Blenheim Mk IF. Long range fighter version of Blenheim Bomber.
Obsolete quite early in the war, like many pre war designs that had been state of the art so recently, and suffered serious losses at the hands of flak and Luftwaffe. The crews were tough as survival rates were very poor. It ended up as an early night fighter being able to carry the early radar arrays. This aircraft crashed in 2003 not long after its first flight, apparently when an engine failed during a landing approach. It was seriously damaged and it wasn't expect it would be repaired yet here we are.
Upgrade the engines, redesign the nose and you get the Beaufighter, which could be a night-fighter or a ship-killer armed with a torpedo or rockets and bombs. Al_in_Ottawa
my father worked on them....the mercury engines had a gear reduction to the prop which gave problems...an engine failure on take off normally ended in a crash with a fire that burned extra hot because of its aluminum/magnesium alloy skin
those could be intake trumpets....the mercs were supercharged (had automatic boost control)...they did have a manual override for war emergency... they had a lead wire seal on the boost override,if the seal was broken the engine was torn down for inspection. my dad said when you went to manual boost the engines would spin those big props like they weren't even there
Obsolete quite early in the war, like many pre war designs that had been state of the art so recently, and suffered serious losses at the hands of flak and Luftwaffe. The crews were tough as survival rates were very poor. It ended up as an early night fighter being able to carry the early radar arrays.
ReplyDeleteThis aircraft crashed in 2003 not long after its first flight, apparently when an engine failed during a landing approach. It was seriously damaged and it wasn't expect it would be repaired yet here we are.
they did like their greenhouses.
ReplyDeleteUpgrade the engines, redesign the nose and you get the Beaufighter, which could be a night-fighter or a ship-killer armed with a torpedo or rockets and bombs.
ReplyDeleteAl_in_Ottawa
Thank You for the genesis of Blenheim-to-Beaufighter. Dummy me just never connected the dots. Reminds me of NAA's A-36 becoming the P-51.
DeleteQuite the view, had to be a hell of trip flying one.
ReplyDeletemy father worked on them....the mercury engines had a gear reduction to the prop which gave problems...an engine failure on take off normally ended in a crash with a fire that burned extra hot because of its aluminum/magnesium alloy skin
ReplyDeleteAre those intake trumpets along the cowling leading edge? Poor man's ram air.
ReplyDeletethose could be intake trumpets....the mercs were supercharged (had automatic boost control)...they did have a manual override for war emergency... they had a lead wire seal on the boost override,if the seal was broken the engine was torn down for inspection. my dad said when you went to manual boost the engines would spin those big props like they weren't even there
ReplyDelete