Handley Page Hampden

The Handley Page Hampden was the third of the famous trio of bombers which Great Britain went to war against Germany in 1939. Like the the Vickers Wellington the H.P.52 was designed to specification B9/32, but unlike the Wellington its designer Gustav Lachman schemed a smaller, more radical aircraft using modern metal monocoque construction. To optimise performance the fuselage was extremely narrow with the pilot sitting in a fighter style cockpit (with excellent visibility), and power operated turrets were not considered due to their size and weight.

The Hampden prototype first flew in June 1936 and was found to have a sparkling performance in comparison with the Wellington and Armstrong Whitworth Whitley. It had a good turn of speed and was fully aerobatic and the RAF had high hopes for the Hampden. It was criticised however for a number of reasons. Firstly the defensive armament was considered inadequate and the ultra narrow fuselage was extremely cramped, so much so it was impossible to remove a wounded pilot from the cockpit in an emergency.

The Hampden entered service with 49 Squadron in 1938 equipping most 5 Group squadrons before the start of World War Two. It was soon apparent that the poor defensive armament made the Hampden unsuitable for daylight operations and night bombing was to be the hampdens major role. With the introduction of the first of the RAF's four engined "heavies" the Short Stirling in 1940 the writing was on the wall for the Hampden with its light bomb load and the last Hampden operation with Bomber Command was in September 1942.

Performance

A top speed of 254 mph at 13,800 ft
Weight: 18,567 lb's fully loaded.
Powerplant: Two 1000 HP Bristol Pegasus XVIII nine cylinder radial engines.
Armament: Eight 500lb bombs or two 2000lb AP bombs. Two Vickers 0.303" machine guns in dorsal and ventral positions and one Vickers machine gun in the nose.