25th October 1939

[antarmike]

First flight of the Handley Page Halifax

(alternative sources give 24th Sept 1939 and 25th October 1939 as first flight date!)

All agree that it first flew from RAF Bicester.

 

 

The first Halifax L7244 (above), like all early Halifaxes it was powered by the Rolls Royce Merlin, but later marks would fly with Radials, in the form of the Hercules of initially 1615 h.p.

 

The Halifax has the distinction of being the first RAF four-engined bomber to drop bombs on Germany in an air-raid on Hamburg on the night of the 12-13 March 1941.

Edited October 24, 2008 by antarmike

[antarmike]

The early Halifax had a control surface design fault and in some circumstances the rudders would be forced hard over, and the pilot could not return them to straight ahead. This lead to a spiral from which very few pilots managed to recover.

 

Later in production the triangular early Rudder/Fin was Squared off and the new aerodynamics solved the potentially dealy situation occuring again.

[antarmike]

[antarmike]

The Halifax entered service with No. 35 Squadron RAF at RAF Linton-on-Ouse in November 1940 and its first operational raid was against Le Havre on the night of 11th/12th March 1941.

 

In service with RAF Bomber Command, Halifaxes flew 82,773 operations, dropped 224,207 tons of bombs and lost 1,833 aircraft. In addition to bombing missions, the Halifax served as a glider tug, electronic warfare aircraft for No. 100 Group RAF and special operations such as parachuting agents and arms into occupied Europe. Halifaxes were also operated by RAF Coastal Command for anti submarine warfare, reconnaissance and meteorological roles.

 

Postwar, Halifaxes remained in service with the RAF Coastal Command and RAF Transport Command and the Armée de l'Air until early 1952. The Pakistan Air Force which inherited the planes from the RAF continued to use the type until 1961.

 

A number of former RAF Halifax C8s were sold from 1945 and used as freighters by a number of mainly British airlines. In 1948 the air freight market was in decline but 41 civil aircraft were used in the Berlin Air Lift operating a total of 4,653 freight sorties and 3,509 sorties carrying bulk diesel fuel.