Oct 15th 1938

[antarmike]

First flight of the Bristol Beaufort Torpedo Bomber. Entering RAF service in November 1939, 1,429 were ordered in total. The last going out of service in 1946.

 

 

Developed from the Blenheim, the weight had increased since the crew was now 4 airmen. The Beaufort was not tremendously successful. British built Beauforts used a pair of Taurus engines, as did the first Australian licenced built version, but fears that supplies of the Taurus could be interupted Later Aussie built Beauforts used a pair of Pratt and Witney Double wasp radials.

 

The Beaufort was itself the basis for a further development of the line, The Beaufighter.

 

The Beaufort made some notable attacks, including seperate missions against the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

 

For a large of its RAF service, it was dogged by a lack of available torpedoes, and when not available it either dive bombed or laid mines.

[Enigma]

A strange looking aircraft with the turret like that.

[antarmike]

The rear gun position was typical of many torpedo bombers/ maritime patrol aircraft. The theory was that they were likely to be at wave height, and attacking aircraft would be swooping down from a greater height, and not likely to attack from directly behind, because attacking from behind forces the attacker to fly dangerously near the water himself, with little room to evade fire.

 

Therefore a Dorsal Turret is preferable to a tail turret.

 

Compare Blackburn Roc, Blackburn Skua, Grumman Avenger