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I was just discussing 1940 which includes the Battle of Britain, there were times when pilots just jumped in a plane to get it off the ground and there were times when a pilot returned from being scrambled in a plane whos guns hadn't been re armed. With Bader the 2 minutes to get airborne included getting his legs strapped on, which he used to practice.I'm assuming they did things similar then as they do now, which is hot cock the jet for alert. Engines get run, all equipment to include the flight controls gets checked, then the plane gets shut down with the applicable switches already in the correct position.
In the Eagle we wanted to be rolling within 5 minutes of the horn under most circumstances. You were a—holes and elbows making that happen. When sitting with another flight lead we would often let the first guy to taxi take the lead. Gave extra impetus to get it done and start rolling...
Cheers,
Biff
only 2 or possibly 3 operational squadrons ever used them, by the winter of 1940/41 they were being pulled from the operational squadrons and being sent to training units.
One has to assume Blackburn did some flight testing of their own before presenting the Botha to the Air Ministry and RAF reviewers. Why would they bring such a POS forward for formal trials?If anyone gets any ideas about the Botha being used for anything more than as an artificial reef, here are some highlights from testing the aircraft at Boscombe Down, from the same source as the previous entry on the Firebrand:
Pre-war trials were curtailed on the first example to arrive at Boscombe due to unsatisfactory rudder control. This wasn't adequately addressed as during weapons trials with a second aircraft, the pilot could not satisfactorily aim his torpedo because of continuous yawing,"...within a 3 second period". Improvements were made in increasing the size of the control surfaces and fin and hori stab, as well as the technique of cording (where strips of rope are doped on to control surfaces as weight and/or dampers, originally applied to boat rudders).
"Cockpit and handling criticisms were still damning. The undercarriage and flaps were operated by a single lever on the right, while the elevator trimmer was on the left. Changes in rpm, gill setting and undercarriage/flaps all gave large trim changes - no problem for a pilot with three hands".
Retracting flaps after take off caused large sink rate and thus their use on take-off was not recommended. On approach, elevator control was poor with flaps down and it was only just possible to maintain height at low weight on one engine.
With the Pegasus XA trials, the aircraft was in poor condition on arrival and took some amount of maintenance to make it serviceable. On one engine it was impossible to maintain height in any condition. Dives were restricted to a speed of 215mph because of increased nose heaviness. This restriction was lifted owing to shrouds being fitted to each of the control surfaces and dives were recorded at 300mph. Trials with this aircraft ended after a double engine failure because both fuel cocks were set to off and couldn't be changed owing to the levers being positioned behind the pilot's seat!
One has to assume Blackburn did some flight testing of their own before presenting the Botha to the Air Ministry and RAF reviewers. Why would they bring such a POS forward for formal trials?
A walk around wouldn't spot the problem and if the pilot cant see the ailerons working from his seat you need communication between the pilot and a tech. The solution is making such wrong connection impossible.Chadwick died in 1947 in the prototype Tudor 2 airliner. Surely a peacetime civilian aircraft can undergo the necessary preflight checks?
With Bader the 2 minutes to get airborne included getting his legs strapped on, which he used to practice.
Because they don't get paid until they do. The client specified changes that increased weight and also specified the engines that limited the power. Military procurement is full of such things. I am sure Blackburn told whoever was involved it would be a POS and they said build it anyway.One has to assume Blackburn did some flight testing of their own before presenting the Botha to the Air Ministry and RAF reviewers. Why would they bring such a POS forward for formal trials?
What do you think of the Firecrest?While some of Blackburn's designs, like the B-20, where definitely bleading-edge, some were just bad to the point of wondering if the corporate executives wanted the UK to lose.
What do you think of the Firecrest?
So it seems what we really needed to do the job was a trimotor a la SM 79. Looks like Italians did get some things right.I'm sure there is a way to fix the Botha:
Remove engines.
Remove valuable bits from airframes.
Use Taurus engines and useful bits to build a competently designed airframe (the stability problems were not the fault of the lower-powered engines!), possibly a trimotor.
Licence build of the R-1830 would have been perfect.No, what the British needed was decent, reliable radial engine of 1100-1200hp.
Italians used three 750hp engines which is hardly a good solution.
British could have slung a torpedo under Blenheim and not done any worse than the Botha and Beaufort as torpedo bombers go. Many successful torpedo bombers of WW II hung the torpedo out in the breeze and did not inclose it or recess it. The Beaufighter carried it 100% exposed.