Beaufighter

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TheGreenGoblin
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Re: Beaufighter

#21 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri May 29, 2020 2:34 pm

ian16th wrote:
Fri May 29, 2020 2:29 pm

Dunno about all, but apparently those fitted to the Beaufighter went the same way. It was reported to be a handful at take off.

I guess the port engine would have been the critical engine....
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Re: Beaufighter

#22 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri May 29, 2020 2:43 pm

Steve Stevens DFC

Reference that video posted in an earlier post it is sad to note the Steve Stevens who was clearly ill but absolutely mentally acute died only 5 days after that interview. He was 96 years old.

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https://www.salegion.org.uk/steve-steve ... ter-pilot/
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Re: Beaufighter

#23 Post by AtomKraft » Fri May 29, 2020 3:27 pm

I wonder if a story I heard a few years ago is true?

I was told that it was easy to find the enemy territory by flying roughly East from Banff.
During the attacks, the heavy vibration from the 4 twenties was extreme, and often reoriented the compass.
On the recovery, heading 'West' the a/c would often fly a more northerly heading and not arrive.

True? Or mince?

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Re: Beaufighter

#24 Post by G-CPTN » Fri May 29, 2020 3:48 pm

Thanks.

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Re: Beaufighter

#25 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri May 29, 2020 4:04 pm

AtomKraft wrote:
Fri May 29, 2020 3:27 pm
I wonder if a story I heard a few years ago is true?

I was told that it was easy to find the enemy territory by flying roughly East from Banff.
During the attacks, the heavy vibration from the 4 twenties was extreme, and often reoriented the compass.
On the recovery, heading 'West' the a/c would often fly a more northerly heading and not arrive.

True? Or mince?
I had read something similar in' Control in the Sky The Evolution and History of the Aircraft Cockpit' by L. F. E. Coombs.

He states that the P type compass in the Beaufighter could be out by up to about 30 degrees after the 20 millimetre cannons were fired due to the magnetization of the steel blast tubes by the passage of the shells!

Sounds likely... I guess we might believe Mr Coombs as no old time Beaufighter pilot is likely to pitch up here now.

That book is a great read by the way...

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Re: Beaufighter

#26 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri May 29, 2020 4:23 pm

Gyro magnetic distant-reading compass In the first two years of the war there was one particular item of equipment that set British cockpits apart from those of other nations. This was the pilot’s compass. The cockpit of an RAF aircraft in the early years of the Second World War could be easily identified from the large-diameter aperiodic magnetic compass with rotatable grid ring, which took up a lot of space. Any magnetic compass can be affected by magnetic fields generated by adjacent equipment, including airframe components, bombs and guns. After the 20 mm guns in a Beaufighter were fired the P-type compass could be as much as 30° in error because the steel blast tubes were magnetized by the passage of the shells. American and German aircraft had remotely located master compass units with repeater instruments in front of the pilot and navigator. By the end of 1940 the RAF began to make increasing use of the gyro magnetic distant-reading compass. The master unit was mounted in a position where it was least affected by adverse magnetic influences. A repeater indicator of aircraft heading was provided on the pilot’s instrument panel and in the navigator’s compartment. Engine instruments Engine instruments in American multi-engined aircraft were usually of the type in which one instrument case housed two mechanisms, thereby giving two pointer-on-dial presentations; one for each of two engines. This arrangement economized on space on the instrument panel. The British also had some twin read-out instruments, such as oil pressure and rpm indicators. The American twin-display instruments, for example, when set in a row covering four engines and two different sets of parameters, had to be scanned carefully to make sure that a particular reading applied to the correct engine.
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Re: Beaufighter

#27 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat May 30, 2020 2:11 pm

I was delighted to find (pointed out by a fellow Saffer) this wonderful site developed by Tinus Le Roux covering Afrikaans pilot Paul Kruger's (grandson of Boer President Paul Kruger, or so the Germans beleived ) service career flying the Beaufighter and his experiences as a POW later...




http://saafww2pilots.yolasite.com/paul-kruger.php
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Re: Beaufighter

#28 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat May 30, 2020 3:40 pm

TheGreenGoblin wrote:
Sat May 30, 2020 2:11 pm
I was delighted to find (pointed out by a fellow Saffer) this wonderful site developed by Tinus Le Roux covering Afrikaans pilot Paul Kruger's (grandson of Boer President Paul Kruger, or so the Germans beleived believed) service career flying the Beaufighter and his experiences as a POW later...




http://saafww2pilots.yolasite.com/paul-kruger.php
Can't have bad German style spelling on such an Anglophile website... :)
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Re: Beaufighter

#29 Post by 1DC » Sat May 30, 2020 4:24 pm

Bomb Disposal were on Cleethorpes beach at Dawn this morning, exploding ammunition found in the remains of the Beaufighter.

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Re: Beaufighter

#30 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat May 30, 2020 6:38 pm

What made Britain great, was, for all its faults, it believed in an ideal and behaved, however badly at a specific time, ultimately fairly... We have lost that and we have lost our way.

It brought old enemies together and made them friends...

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Re: Beaufighter

#31 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Jun 10, 2020 11:42 am

I came across the history of this Frenchman who fought in England flying the Beaufighter and then the Mosquito.

Max Guedj ( June 8 , 1913 - January 15 , 1945) is a free French aviator from the Second World War , who died as a hero in air service ordered over Norway.

Max Guedj was born on June 8 , 1913 in a Jewish family in Sousse ( Tunisia ). His father was the president of the Casablanca 1 bar . He himself graduated as a lawyer . Having obtained his civilian pilot's license in 1938 at the outbreak of war in 1939 he was mobilized as a soldier of 2 e class 2 th regiment of Zouaves in Meknes . In 1940, he was a sergeant in a DCA unit (1940).

Joined with Free France , he joined the FFL as a student pilot. After a training period in RAF schools , he was seconded to Squadron 248 (February 1942). He joined the Coastal Command where he flew twin - engine fighter-bombers Bristol Beaufighter and De Havilland Mosquito . He takes part in the attack on the German cruiser Prinz Eugen ( May 17 , 1942), then carried out numerous missions in Norway , in the Mediterranean , in the Atlantic . His exceptional bravery and valor earned him the respect and admiration of the British . He was promoted to the rank of Wing Commander ( lieutenant colonel ) inDecember 1944, one of the highest that a foreigner would have reached in the RAF . He was decorated with two DFC ( Distinguished Flying Cross ) and a DSO ( Distinguished Service Order ). He was cited six times to the Air Force and the Free French Forces and received the highest French decorations.

The January 15 , 1945he takes off for its final mission: an attack on a tanker of 6000 tons bringing the petrol top aviation degree of octane for airfields enemies of northern Norway . This mission can shorten the duration of the war by two months 2 . The difficulty is that the ship is in the port of Leirvik , at the bottom of the Romback Fjord (also called Fjord de Narvik ) which extends the Ofot Fjord . It is an area very well defended by Flak and German hunting. Max Guedj attacks at the head of his nineteen De Havilland Mosquitothe squadrons 235 and 248, despite a barrage of flak stretched by four escorts and interception by twenty fighters Focke-Wulf Fw 190 . The tanker is destroyed, but Max Guedj's plane explodes.

He is the father of novelist Sarah Dars .
His exceptional bravery and valor earned him the respect and admiration of the British . He was promoted to the rank of Wing Commander ( lieutenant colonel ) inDecember 1944, one of the highest that a foreigner would have reached in the RAF . He was decorated with two DFC ( Distinguished Flying Cross ) and a DSO ( Distinguished Service Order ). He was cited six times to the Air Force and the Free French Forces and received the highest French decorations
Know to his English colleagues as Maurice, he flew with Navigator Charles Corder...
Conspicuous Gallantry over Biscay – Charles Corder CGM

Corder CGM 248 SqnNavigator who flew Beafighters with the legendry French pilot Max Guedj, ‘Maurice’. Over the Bay of Biscay there aircraft was very severely damaged but they managed to return and scrape over the cliffs of Cornwall to crash land when Corder tackled the blaze. He later flew Mosquitos with the Banff Wing attacking targets in Norway with rockets and cannons.
https://grahampitchfork.com/about/the-m ... ls-series/
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Re: Beaufighter

#32 Post by larsssnowpharter » Wed Jun 10, 2020 3:38 pm

My father flew the Beaufighter but only while ferrying back from the Far East in the 50s or as a target tug in Singapore. Never used the guns.

He spent many hours flying its successor, the Brigand on 45 Sqn at Tengah describing it as the only aircraft that could - and did - shoot itself down. He then converted into Hornets his favourite type ever.

He was later posted on to the Air Torpedo Development Unit at Culdrose where he was reunited with the Brigand for a further 4 years.

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Re: Beaufighter

#33 Post by om15 » Wed Jun 17, 2020 8:25 am

Several generations of Brats carried out basic ground running instruction on this test bed at Halton over the years, I don't know when it was introduced into service but it was in use in 1968.
1358498-large.jpg
Huge thread drift, I seem to remember that the Hawker Hunter instructional airframes that we apprenticised were later refurbished by BAe and flogged on to the Swiss.

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Re: Beaufighter

#34 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Jun 17, 2020 11:21 am

larsssnowpharter wrote:
Wed Jun 10, 2020 3:38 pm
My father flew the Beaufighter but only while ferrying back from the Far East in the 50s or as a target tug in Singapore. Never used the guns.

He spent many hours flying its successor, the Brigand on 45 Sqn at Tengah describing it as the only aircraft that could - and did - shoot itself down. He then converted into Hornets his favourite type ever.

He was later posted on to the Air Torpedo Development Unit at Culdrose where he was reunited with the Brigand for a further 4 years.
The Notorious Bristol Brigand B1
The last of the piston engine attack aircraft to see active service with the R.A.F. An aircraft that without prior warning had the ability to shed an engine, even a complete wing and engine.

An aircraft that could and did, shoot itself down.

An aircraft that often was unable to lower its undercarriage but had the ability to make a safe and soft belly landing on a grass strip at R.A.F. Seletar, a maintenance unit, thereby providing immediate work for that unit.

An aircraft that left parents without a son. Young wives became widows, children lost their Fathers.

In time we found it difficult to suppress at least a tingle of fear as we climbed aboard the ‘brutes’ and wondered if we would subsequently emerge safely through the same hatch and all of us, at times , felt rather uneasy about flying in them.

Nevertheless I was to spend two and half years flying in the ‘Brigand B 1’s’, whilst on active service with No. 84 squadron based at R.A.F. Tengah on the island of Singapore, from June 1950 until December 1952 during the ‘Malayan Emergency’ flying in 27 different Brigand aircraft, notching up in excess of 950 flying hours in the type including 218 operational air strikes against the so called terrorists of the MLA (Malayan Liberation Army), which consisted mainly of CHINESE COMMUNISTS.

I also carried out 111 of those sorties in the ‘Bridal Brigand’ RH813- ‘H’, which incidentally didn’t once cause trouble in the air, it was flown back to the UK (very gently) by an ex-84 sqdn pilot George Hickson during March 1952 arriving at 19 MU St. Athan on the 3rd April 1952.

After which it was converted to a T. Mk. 5. It ended its service life with 238 OCU on 21st October 1954 . In August 1956 it suffered Cat.4 damage with repairs started by 49 MU. on 10th August 1956 and completed at BAC. Filton. on 24th July 1957 but was declared non-effective on 11th April ’58. and sold to H.H. Bushell as scrap on 15th September ’58 thus ending the life of the only Brigand B1. that I had any affection for.

All Bristol Brigands were finally withdrawn from service on 13th March 1958 when a final flypast by six Mk. T.5’s took place over North Luffenham and No 238 OCU. was disbanded four days later.

I have endeavoured to put down on paper the outline history of the Bristol Brigand B1 from its beginning in 1941 to its inglorious end, in the hope that it may be of interest to both aviation and military enthusiasts, perhaps helping to dispel some of the myths that over the years surrounded this aircraft.

It may also serve to tell a small part of the role that the RAF played in the early years of the Malayan “Emergency” and help keep alive the memory of my friends and colleagues who sadly were never to return home having made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country but who’s contribution seems to have been largely forgotten in our history books since I have yet to find a single memorial that has been erected in their memory or to the conflict in Malaya that took place from 1948 until 1960 in the “war that never was”.
https://brigandboys.org.uk/

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Re: Beaufighter

#35 Post by larsssnowpharter » Wed Jun 17, 2020 11:44 am

As I recall, the reason the Brigand 'shot itself down' was that one in five rounds in the guns was explosive. The explosive rounds occasionally detonated in the barrel with disastrous results.

Your quotation above is inaccurate in that Dad actually flew the last flight of the Brigand in service in 1959. This was probably missed as the unit it was assigned to (ATDU) was Ministry of Supply or somesuch.

Another reason the Brigand caused so many deaths was a staff policy that mandated crews complete a certain number of asymmetric landings per month.
It doesn't take a genius to realise that the Brigand, with a pair of 2400 hp Centaurus engines is going to be more than a handful to fly asymmetric.

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Re: Beaufighter

#36 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Jun 17, 2020 11:55 am

larsssnowpharter wrote:
Wed Jun 17, 2020 11:44 am
As I recall, the reason the Brigand 'shot itself down' was that one in five rounds in the guns was explosive. The explosive rounds occasionally detonated in the barrel with disastrous results.

Your quotation above is inaccurate in that Dad actually flew the last flight of the Brigand in service in 1959. This was probably missed as the unit it was assigned to (ATDU) was Ministry of Supply or somesuch.

Another reason the Brigand caused so many deaths was a staff policy that mandated crews complete a certain number of asymmetric landings per month.
It doesn't take a genius to realise that the Brigand, with a pair of 2400 hp Centaurus engines is going to be more than a handful to fly asymmetric.
http://www.rafalmanac.com/disband10index.htm

The link above notes the issues with the assymmetric training crashes.

Thanks for the clarification ref. the nature of shooting oneself down.

You should contact the webmaster at that site to set them straight with respect to the last flight and ensure that historical veracity is maintained.
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Re: Beaufighter

#37 Post by ian16th » Wed Jun 17, 2020 1:41 pm

I once re-fueled one of the twin engined Bristol a/c. I think it was a Beaufighter.

It was passing through Istres c1957 on its way to Luqa for target towing duties.
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