Why wasn't three-engined bomber more popular?

I believe the Jetstream was the last Handley-Page aircraft before voluntary liquidation in or about 1970.

The voluntary liquidation was strange they had millions of dollars worth of orders for the Jetstream enough to keep the production lines running for years. However the bank called in the loans and without credit you can't build planes.

I can't remember the exact details but there was an article in a major newspaper claiming that the government used dirty tricks to try and force Handley-Page to join up with the British Aircraft Corporation. When HP refused the government used the bank to do the job for them.

Nodeo-Franvier said:

Tri-motor seem like a nice compromised between He-111 and B-17. And SM.79 was also quite successful.

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Three-engine aircraft were a popular design solution in Europe between the wars because the engines were not that powerful and not that reliable, so having three decreased the chances of an engine failure leading to a crash. Westland, Fokker and Ford all made very good commercial tri-motors. But then engines in the late '30s got more powerful and more reliable, and two engines makes for simpler design, simpler instrumentation and control, better pilot view and just cheaper to build and service. When two engines weren't enough, most companies went to four engines. The problem with big bombers was to go with the simpler twin-engine design meant really big and powerful engines, and there were a lot of problems developing engines big enough. Rolls-Royce failed with the Vulture, and Daimler-Benz with the DB606 and DB610. Italy didn't have a powerful radial engine so the SM79 had to have three.

GregP said:

The Dart was used on several freighters and airliners, including the Handley-Page Dart Herald:

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The first and quite possibly the most historic to be powered by Darts has to be the Vickers Viscount, the very first turboprop commercial airliner put into production, and of course the Fokker F-27 as mentioned by Fastmongrel, an aircraft that competed directly with the Herald and took the lion's share of orders for that class of aircraft away from the HP aircraft. Let's not forget the Avro or HS.748 and its military offshoot the Andover, all of which operated in this neck of the woods for many years. The first aircraft engine I worked on whilst doing my engineering training was the Dart.

Down this way there was quite a heated effort by HP to sell the Herald to National Airways Corporation (which operated the Viscount at the time) and one of the prototypes was sent to an airshow here. The government wanted the Herald and there was fierce lobbying by HP reps to pursue the type, as there was still a 'Buy British' policy gripping the airlines. The head of NAC wanted the F-27 and it came down to a bit of a competition as to which type could handle the smaller regional airports around the country in remote areas and of course the trials of operating out of wind swept Wellington Airport. The Herald went on an extensive tour of the country and never failed to impress, but it wasn't enough. Handley Page were already on the back foot with trying to sell the Dart Heald because although the four engined Leonides powered prototype flew before the F-27, it was a turboprop and airlines that had ordered the Herald cancelled their orders for F-27s. HP had to play catch up and it was another three years after the F-27 first flew that the Dart Herald appeared. NAC played it cautious and at the time the Dart Herald had no foreign orders, whereas airlines in Australia and abroad operated the F-27; the airline wanted a tried and proven type, rather than a first operator of a 'new' type, a decision that had to be made as there was no clear advantage of the Herald over the F-27 - both types had their good and bad points and both were excellent aircraft. The F-27 served faithfully here in NZ as an airliner until the mid 90s, and as a freight runner until a few years ago.

NZ Post's F-27, one of three that worked the country for years. I worked on this a few times.

ZK-POH iii

fastmongrel said:

The voluntary liquidation was strange they had millions of dollars worth of orders for the Jetstream enough to keep the production lines running for years. However the bank called in the loans and without credit you can't build planes. I can't remember the exact details but there was an article in a major newspaper claiming that the government used dirty tricks to try and force Handley-Page to join up with the British Aircraft Corporation. When HP refused the government used the bank to do the job for them.

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Yeah, there was definitely a plot to denude HP of orders - clear evidence if needed was that when the decision was made to turn the Victor, an HP product into a refuelling tanker, the bid was won by Hawker Siddeley over HP, a decision questioned at the time. The Jetstream of course went lock, stock and production line up to Prestwick in Scotland from Radlett and under Scottish Aviation it sold really well, after replacing the Turbomecas with the more powerful and reliable Garret tractor engine!

The first Scottish Aviation Jetstream; the airframe was built at Radlett by HP but was modified for ease of production at Prestwick and became a company demonstrator. It's on display at Scotland's National Museum of Flight at East Fortune, east of Edinburgh.

G-JSSD

GrauGeist said:

In this photo, you can see the bombs dropping from an SM.81 nose-first, so I'm not sure which carrying method was the norm.

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You gotta be careful of this picture, this is in fact a Nationalist propaganda image, comprising a couple of different images carefully cut into one picture and drawn to look like an aircraft dropping bombs. The bomb bay doors and bombs are drawn on and aren't part of the original image of the SM.81.

fastmongrel said:

I have always wondered why vertically mounted bombs were dropped tail first. I guess it could be to protect the delicate tail fins which could hit the sides of the bomb rack as the slipstream hit the bomb, dropped tail first the bomb nose is less likely to hit the sides and likely just slide rather than cause any damage.

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Part of the reason behind making vertically stacked bomb bays is the small size of the bombers themselves. Neither the He 111 nor the SM.79 are that big, certainly not compared to contemporary british bombers and the bomb cells within the fuselage are very small. Note in the picture I posted earlier that shows the size of the SM.79's bomb doors. This is a Spanish built Heinkel in a museum in Germany. Note the flimsy nature of the bomb doors, they are rubber and although they open from a lever in the cockpit, they kind of flop open and the bombs do strike them on the way out, so maybe your theory, Fastmongrel, is right?

Bomb doors

Spanish Heinkel

nuuumannn said:

You gotta be careful of this picture, this is in fact a Nationalist propaganda image, comprising a couple of different images carefully cut into one picture and drawn to look like an aircraft dropping bombs. The bomb bay doors and bombs are drawn on and aren't part of the original image of the SM.81.

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I'll be danged...had no idea it was edited!

Thanks for the head's up, Grant!

Yet the he111 could hit with precision.

Snautzer01 said:

Yet the he111 could hit with precision.

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It didn't have a 3rd engine and could carry bombs externally.

Snautzer01 said:

Yet the he111 could hit with precision.

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Any bomber can hit with precision, with the right support equipment, aircrew training, tactical and strategic use etc. That the He 111 was successful was no accident. In the early years of the war the Luftwaffe had an enormous advantage in technical use of aerial navigation aids, Knickerbein, X and Y-Gerat, and its crews had thorough training and experience in combat that neither the RAF nor other air forces had by the time WW2 broke out in 1939.

GrauGeist said:

I'll be danged...had no idea it was edited!

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No worries mate. I saw a thing on Nationalist propaganda images many years ago and that image in particular came up for scrutiny; it showed the original pictures and how the Nats manipulated their photos for propagandistic effect. One method that was widely adopted was to just tilt the image of the aircraft flying straight and level, to give the viewer the perception the aircraft was diving, then a suitable caption was added, like "Aircraft diving upon their targets for the cause" etc. Add a few bombs and escort fighters carefully cut in and you have a menacing picture of something that never took place!

Here's a wee example of how it is done. The following image is one I took at an event near where I live in 2016, it shows Bill Reid's flying Anson dropping a bomb. Nice image, fairly innocuous.

Anson bomber

Now, process the image a little, in what took me mere minutes and you get a far more striking result that speaks volumes in terms of inspiring fear among a population that has never seen a bomber, let alone been under threat of its town being destroyed from the air.

Anson bomber-2

Should have photo shopped in 2-3 more bombs

Could have, but I didn't use Photoshop. Just a simple photo editing technique to demonstrate how easy it is. Cropped it and altered the lighting and colour, and without adding anything still produces an effective image. With photoshop you could get away with increasing their number, making the bombs bigger, adding fighters, whatever you want.

This is a glorious piece of photoshopped propaganda!

Fake stealth plane: Iran's Photoshopped fighter jet spotted in the air! | Daily Mail Online

Yeah, the illustrious Quahar - complete with a Pioneer AM/FM cassette tape deck on the right console.
Nations tremble at it's very mention...

GrauGeist said:

Yeah, the illustrious Quahar - complete with a Pioneer AM/FM cassette tape deck on the right console.
Nations tremble at it's very mention...

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That's so the pilot can play "Eye of the Tiger" during combat.

SaparotRob said:

That's so the pilot can play "Eye of the Tiger" during combat.

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I guess...we had a thread about this crate's unveiling several years ago and in the press photos, the stereo was spotted.
Trust me, it was a lively conversation

nuuumannn said:

Any bomber can hit with precision, with the right support equipment, aircrew training, tactical and strategic use etc. That the He 111 was successful was no accident. In the early years of the war the Luftwaffe had an enormous advantage in technical use of aerial navigation aids, Knickerbein, X and Y-Gerat, and its crews had thorough training and experience in combat that neither the RAF nor other air forces had by the time WW2 broke out in 1939.

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You do not hit a target just to get there. Raf and usaaf are good examples

Snautzer01 said:

You do not hit a target just to get there. Raf and usaaf are good examples

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Exactly why I said what I said. It took the RAF at least two to three years to improve its navigation by night, with the introduction of radio navigation aids, following the beginning of the war. The Butt Report highlighted the disastrous showing by Bomber Command when it was released and BC's C-in-C before the war Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt was well aware of his command's shortcomings.

As I highlighted, it wasn't the He 111 alone that made the Kampfgeschwader the effective force it was, for the reasons I stated in my post.