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- 70,372 Faces
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Bristol
Beaufighter 1F
Bristol
Beaufighter IIF
Bristol
Beaufighter VIF
Bristol Beaufighter VIF
During the mid 1930's when it was becoming apparent that war with Germany was inevitable, the Bristol Aeroplane Company realised that there was a pressing need for a heavy hitting machine, to be used primarily as a night fighter. Time was short so Leslie Frise the chief designer at Bristol's took the Bristol Beaufort torpedo bomber as the starting point for the new fighter which utilised the wings, tail, rear fuselage and fin of the Beaufort with a new forward fuselage and more powerful Bristol Hercules sleeve valve radial engines.
When the prototype Beaufighter made it's first flight on 17th july 1939 it was the most heavilly armed fighter in the world, with four 20mm cannon mounted in the forward fuselage and six 0.303" machine guns mounted in the outer wings. It was also the first fighter in the world, designed from the outset to carry airborne interception radar. The first production Beaufighters entered squadron service in September 1940 and the first Beaufighter radar "kill" at night was a Ju88 which was claimed on the night of 19th November 1940. Such was the Beaufighters impact, that by 1941 the Luftwaffe was finding it prohibitive to attack Britain at night using their standard bomber force and had to resort to hit and run raids using Me109's and FW190's.
After the introduction of the Beaufighter into service there was a fear that production of the Bristol Hercules engine would not keep pace due to heavy demand from bomber aircraft such as the Short Stirling. As an alternative the Rolls Royce Merlin engined Beaufighter MKII was introduced. In the event the Merlin engined derivative offered no advantages over the Hercules engined variant and relatively few were built.
Introduced in early 1942 the Beaufighter VI introduced the more powerful Bristol Hercules engine and the ability to carry far more offensive armament. Two versions were produced, The nightfighter Beaufighter VIF and the hard hitting strike variant, The Beaufighter VIC. The nightfighter version usually carried the much improved centimetric radar in a distinctive "thimble" nose
The real forte of the Beaufighter however, turned out to be as a hard hitting strike fighter able to carry rocket projectiles and torpedo's in addition to it's gun armament and the Beaufighter served in all theatres of war throughout WW2. Beaufighters were also built in Australia, and used by the RAAF against the Japanese who respected the Beaufighter enough to give it the nickname "whispering death" on account of the quietness of the Bristol Hercules engines.
Performance, (MKVIC)
A
top speed of 333 mph at 15,000 ft
Weight: 21,600lbs fully loaded
Powerplant: Two Bristol Hercules VI ot XVI, 1670 HP, 14 cylinder radial
engines
Armament: Four Hispano 20mm cannon and six 0.303" Browning machine
guns. Eight 60lb Rocket Projectiles or two 1000 lb bombs
