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Blackburn Botha Mk1

UncleTgt

UncleTgt

SOH-CM-2025
I recently discovered that 502 squadron RAF Coastal Command flew a few Botha's between August & November 1940 while transferring from Anson's to Whitley's. So I decided to extrapolate a paint scheme for such an aircraft.
 
Did you fly a Botha? I do wonder if Blackburn hadn't got lumbered with the Perseus, whether this and the Skua might've faired better.
 
Blackburn Botha

Hi Guys ,

I personally always thought that with a Bristol Pegasus or maybe an early Bristol Hercules ; the Botha could have become a reliable if not a good aircraft .

Next question , why didn't someone think of putting two Rolls-Royce Merlins in a Lockheed Lightning P-38?

Just a question , that will probably always remain unanswered .

Regards to all,
1150

PS .
Please keep up the good work Uncle TGT as most of us morons are in awe of what you accomplish !!!
 
Reply...

1150 said:
Next question , why didn't someone think of putting two Rolls-Royce Merlins in a Lockheed Lightning P-38?
Click to expand...

1150,

No need here. With Turbocharged Allisons, the P-38's performance was actually outstanding. Its performance in the Mediterranean and the Pacific proved it. The cold, wet climate of Northwestern Europe, coupled with combat altitudes that Lockheed had not envisioned and improperly-blended British AvGas caused her major problems in the ETO, especially with the intercoolers.

UncleTgt - Do you want me to take a crack at the Botha?
 
Rami,

The original package has separate player & AI airfiles by Peperez, but it's pretty old. If you think you can combine the elements into a single airfile to suit, that would be useful.

Be warned, it has the left hand torque issue like the Whitley, you can't stay on the runway without using the engines, & that makes the take-off run massively long. IMHO it needs similar tweaking of the rudder control in the prop wash whilst sitting on tarmac (section 1101, entries for yaw & maybe side forces).

That said, I'd much rather have a better Anson airfile - 200kts+ in an Anson is hard to believe ...
 
Yep its Bismark13s Botha

Ian,
Yep, it's Bismark13s Botha package. I picked up youryour skinpacks too, hoping to use them as a base for a 502 sqn repaint. As usual I ended up altering the dp + making a fresh template to paint over.:stupid:
 
Ian,

My 1943 Botha repaint is based on a single reference for 11 Radio School, there aren't any photos I could find

L6202, 6-20 ? My interpretation of this a/c ident looks like this. Does this coding correct? I know OTU a/c were often double digit numbers, I'm thinking I should drop the "6"...
 
Hi UT,
Very nice re-paints. But I don't think the ID codes would be staggered like that. They would be straight, using the upper dorsal 'spine' as the guide, not the bottom ventral angled fuselage line.

Cheers

Shessi
 
Hiya Mark,

In general I agree, but on this model they look truly awful if I don't stagger them to some extent. Maybe I just need to make the letters a lot smaller, then I could get them "in line".:encouragement:
 
I think the Radio School codes are OK, a little more height:width ratio.
I've seen photos of Bothas with staggered and unstaggered codes. Maybe if you reduced the size a bit, 30" or maybe even 24". That is assuming that you're using 36" at present.
 
Guys I went smaller & tried to keep everything in line...

Ian, hear what you say about the radio school, I'll change the font to make them narrower...

Picked up some interesting snippets from the web. It seems the bomb bay was positioned slightly to port, with a narrow walkway down the stbd side. So, when a torpedo was loaded, it dropped offset to port, & the resulting forces nearly tipping the aircraft over.:stupid: No wonder they never used them as torpedo bombers, not even for training.:costumed-smiley-034

Also 11 Radio School was used to train operators on ASV & BABS RDF systems, so it probably needs some radar aerials adding to the payload as an option.:playful:
 
Rami said:
1150,

No need here. With Turbocharged Allisons, the P-38's performance was actually outstanding. Its performance in the Mediterranean and the Pacific proved it. The cold, wet climate of Northwestern Europe, coupled with combat altitudes that Lockheed had not envisioned and improperly-blended British AvGas caused her major problems in the ETO, especially with the intercoolers.
Click to expand...

From what I recall there was some talk about doing this but Allison put the kibosh on it.
 
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