British High-Altitude Bombers

[Zipper730]

From what I recall, there were several high-altitude proposals that the British developed for high-altitude bomber aircraft, including

1. Vickers Wellington Mk.V/VI
2. Vickers Windsor
3. Vickers 180,000 lb. Giant Bomber
4. Vickers Long-Range High-Altitude "Victory" Bomber
5. Several 75 Ton Bomber Proposals
6. Several 100 Ton Bomber Proposals: One of which included the basis for the Bristol Brabazon

I was reading through British Secret Projects, which covers both fighter and bomber designs, and I'm curious when these designs originated.

Airframes , Graeme , P pbehn , S Shortround6 , W wuzak

 

[Zipper730]

As I often sometimes look at older posts I made: I've found some additional data on all of this: Most of this came from Tony Buttler's work.

Vickers Wellington

• 1932/09/17: Specification B.9/32 issued
• 1936/06/15: Vickers Wellington makes first flight
• 1938/Fall: Air Staff requests Vickers investigates the possibilities of using the Wellington as a high-altitude bomber with a pressurized cabin.
• 1938/10/--: Vickers Wellington enters operational service
• 1940/--/--: Wellington Mk.V makes its first flight

Vickers Warwick

• 1935/--/--: Specification B.1/35 issued for a heavier complement to B.9/32
• 1936/03/14: Complete mock-up was authorized1939/08/13: Vickers Warwick makes its first flight

Vickers Windsor

• 1940/late: Air staff developed an interest in a pressurized Warwick
• 1941/01/09: Lord Beaverbrock instructed Vickers to undertake the development
• 1941/03/05: Design took shape with a similar fuselage to the Wellington Mk.V but with elliptical wings, and the early twin-engined medium concept gave way to a four-engined heavy with 4 x Merlins with ducted wing radiators.
• 1941/10/--: Specification B.5/41 drawn up calling for a top speed of 345 mph @ 31000', a service ceiling of 38500', with a 8000 lb. bomb-load.
• 1942/09/16: Specification B.5/41 cancelled in favor of B.3/42.
• 1942/10/29: Mock-up review begins
• 1942/10/30: Mock-up review ends
• 1943/10/23: Vickers Windsor B.Mk.1 makes its first flight. First two aircraft were weight-limited to 55,000 lb. for structural reasons

Vickers 180,000 lb. Aircraft

• 1937/--/--: Designed as a passenger aircraft though a bomber variant was proposed: Both designs had six engines and all the payload was carried in the wings of the bomber-design.
• 1940/07/--: Design evolved to a conventional design with thinner wings and the payload carried in the fuselage.
• 1941/01/--: Brochure completed and forwarded towards MAP officials.

Vickers Long-Range, High-Altitude "Victory" Bomber

• Basic notes: Designed to undertake stratospheric bombing with a single 22,000 lb. bomb dropped from high altitude.
• 1941/01/09: With the exception of certain other high-altitude designs taking preference, Lord Beaverbrock encouraged the development of a 50-ton, six-engined design.
• 1941/02/04: Wallis presented an outline of the design to W.S. Farren
• 1941/02/09: Tizard suggested the aircraft design be ordered
• 1941/03/--: Design ordered to be developed in a three-staged process, and wouldn't be allowed to continue without further authorization from the Air Ministry.
  • There appeared to be concern that it wouldn't interfere with other projects and reservations over the large bomb to be carried, as most RAF concepts didn't really focus much on bombs over 4000 lb.
• 1941/05/21: Tizard stated the Air Ministry had no interest in a bomber that could only carry one bomb, though he said more interest would exist if there was more versatility in armament.
• 1941/09/23: Wallis was told the document was carefully reviewed and decided no development work should occur at that time
• 1942/01/--: Vickers kind of dragged out the clock, and prepared a brochure with the performance figures drawn up, as well as provisions for a larger range of ordnance
• 1942/01/09: Vickers was ordered to stop all work

It's interesting that the Vickers 180,000 lb. bomber predated the Windsor, with the design evolving into the more conventional configuration around the time the high-altitude Warwick development (which became the Windsor) started taking shape. I'm not sure if there was any interest in producing an airliner version of the design by October (most of what was said seemed to imply it was soelly a bomber by this point).

Another thing that I noticed was that there were difficulties making the geodetic construction work at larger scales, particularly as the wings got thinner (geodetic construction works great when you have thick structures, not so much as they get flatter): For the Vickers Windsor (which was essentially a smaller Victory bomber), the skinning was quite sophisticated involving woven steel wires, steel ribbons coated with some kind of plastic or rubber.