BN2 Islander
- Thread starter jojohnson9
- Start date
I actually suspect the other way around, which is why I didn't get the Duke already. I'm a flying boat fan. A modern twin I doubt I'll use much if ever.
What I really want is all the odd birds that very rarely get made such as Avro Ansons, Boulton Paul Defiants and Hawker Typhoons. I'll probably end up being really random and getting the Dodosim helo.
What I really want is all the odd birds that very rarely get made such as Avro Ansons, Boulton Paul Defiants and Hawker Typhoons. I'll probably end up being really random and getting the Dodosim helo.
Henry
Retired SOH Administrator
Id love a defiant!I actually suspect the other way around, which is why I didn't get the Duke already. I'm a flying boat fan. A modern twin I doubt I'll use much if ever.
What I really want is all the odd birds that very rarely get made such as Avro Ansons, Boulton Paul Defiants and Hawker Typhoons. I'll probably end up being really random and getting the Dodosim helo.
H
6
6297J
Guest
Speaking of flying boats, I'd love a Sunderland
(Here is how to use the runway to get the barnacles off your bottom of your Sunderland - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu2qxgtFvW8&feature=related )
(Here is how to use the runway to get the barnacles off your bottom of your Sunderland - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu2qxgtFvW8&feature=related )
Seconded! DAN!
The B-P Defiant was built in Wolverhampton (this is the West Midlands - it's said "Wulveramptun"), just up the road from here. Unsurprisingly there are no memorials or statues in the honour of that, unlike the Spitfires over at Castle Brom the other side of Birmingham. It actually did quite well as a night fighter.
Henry
Retired SOH Administrator
I always thought that BP factory was in Norwich pronounced noritch to the localsSeconded! DAN!
The B-P Defiant was built in Wolverhampton (this is the West Midlands - it's said "Wulveramptun"), just up the road from here. Unsurprisingly there are no memorials or statues in the honour of that, unlike the Spitfires over at Castle Brom the other side of Birmingham. It actually did quite well as a night fighter.
but you are correct they were made in the west
there's a great one for cfs2
but will not port into fs9 yet alone fsx
H
1068 Defiants apparently rolled off the Pendeford production line, along with 105 Blackburn Rocs, 692 Blackburn Barracudas (hands up who can visualise those two without referring to books... ) and a few, although not many, of the 162 Balliols after the war. B-P moved to Seighford in 1956. Apparently, they also made bicycles and cars - never knew the latter.
Almost all aircraft factories in Britain had a "shadow", doing the same job, by 1940. For instance Supermarine were based in Southampton, but the Spitfire is very strongly associated with what was actually a Jaguar cars plant in Castle Bromwich, Birmingham. Likewise, Austin cars, also in Birmingham, were a shadow for Vickers - because their airfield was too small, however, many of the Austin-built Vickers aircraft (e.g. Wellingtons) were test flown from a training base in Elmdon, which is better known now as "Birmingham International Airport".
To correct myself, there is apparently a plaque commemorating B-P, and specifically the Defiant, in a housing estate - which is what Wolverhampton (Pendeford) has long since vanished under. I've never known about or seen it, I have to admit. I might have to go hunting one of the days.
) and a few, although not many, of the 162 Balliols after the war. B-P moved to Seighford in 1956. Apparently, they also made bicycles and cars - never knew the latter.Almost all aircraft factories in Britain had a "shadow", doing the same job, by 1940. For instance Supermarine were based in Southampton, but the Spitfire is very strongly associated with what was actually a Jaguar cars plant in Castle Bromwich, Birmingham. Likewise, Austin cars, also in Birmingham, were a shadow for Vickers - because their airfield was too small, however, many of the Austin-built Vickers aircraft (e.g. Wellingtons) were test flown from a training base in Elmdon, which is better known now as "Birmingham International Airport".
To correct myself, there is apparently a plaque commemorating B-P, and specifically the Defiant, in a housing estate - which is what Wolverhampton (Pendeford) has long since vanished under. I've never known about or seen it, I have to admit. I might have to go hunting one of the days.
Henry
Retired SOH Administrator
i was almost correct
Boulton Paul Aircraft Ltd was a British aircraft manufacturer that was created in 1934, although its origins lay in 1914, and lasted until 1961. The company mainly built and modified aircraft under contract to other manufacturers, but had a few notable designs of its own, such as the ill-conceived Boulton Paul Defiant.
The company's origins date back to an ironmonger's shop founded in 1797 in Norwich . By the early 1900s, Boulton & Paul Ltd was a successful general manufacturing firm. The aircraft building business was sold off from the main construction business in 1934 and then moved to Wolverhampton.
I guess 1797 was slightly early for the defiant
but us East Anglians are futuristic
we knew then
H
Boulton Paul Aircraft Ltd was a British aircraft manufacturer that was created in 1934, although its origins lay in 1914, and lasted until 1961. The company mainly built and modified aircraft under contract to other manufacturers, but had a few notable designs of its own, such as the ill-conceived Boulton Paul Defiant.
The company's origins date back to an ironmonger's shop founded in 1797 in Norwich . By the early 1900s, Boulton & Paul Ltd was a successful general manufacturing firm. The aircraft building business was sold off from the main construction business in 1934 and then moved to Wolverhampton.
I guess 1797 was slightly early for the defiant
but us East Anglians are futuristic
we knew then
H
Another funny for you... There was a plan afoot, which never flew, to put the Defiant's powered turret onto the Westland Lysander after they were massacred in France during the retreat to Dunkirk. I say that one never flew, but the Lysander with the underside turret (it crashed) and the Lysander with a split-tail (like the Lanc, for example) and a bomber rear turret both did. Neither went into production, but apparently neither actually flew too badly.
It wasn't just the Royal Engineers that invented wierd and wonderful things during WW2.... (Hobart's Funnies.
)Did they actually make such a Dud in such numbers????? --Defiants__
" The innovative but heavy Boulton-Paul Defiant was withdrawn from daylight operations following the tragedy of 141 Squadron on 19 July 1940, when six out of its nine Defiants were shot down in fighter-vs-fighter combat. Dowding was very well aware about combat experiences with this aircraft and supported the decision of its removal from first-line strength."
--" The Defiant, after some striking initial successes, proved to be too expensive in use against fighters and was relegated to night work and to the attack of unescorted bombers. It had two serious disabilities; firstly, the brain flying the aeroplane was not the brain firing the guns: the guns could not fire within 16 degrees of the line of flight of the aeroplane and the gunner was distracted from his task by having to direct the pilot through the communication set. Secondly, the guns could not be fired below the horizontal, and it was therefore necessary to keep below the enemy. When beset by superior numbers of fighters the best course to pursue was to form a descending spiral, so that one or more Defiants should always be in a position to bring effective fire to bear. Such tactics were, however, essentially defensive, and the formation sometimes got broken up before they could be adopted. In practice, the Defiants suffered such heavy losses that it was necessary to relegate them to night fighting, or to the attack of unescorted bombers.
Read somewhere that "night fighters" were mostly a name, at night at this stage of the war most were just flying blindly and hardly ever saw or shot a target....
" The innovative but heavy Boulton-Paul Defiant was withdrawn from daylight operations following the tragedy of 141 Squadron on 19 July 1940, when six out of its nine Defiants were shot down in fighter-vs-fighter combat. Dowding was very well aware about combat experiences with this aircraft and supported the decision of its removal from first-line strength."
--" The Defiant, after some striking initial successes, proved to be too expensive in use against fighters and was relegated to night work and to the attack of unescorted bombers. It had two serious disabilities; firstly, the brain flying the aeroplane was not the brain firing the guns: the guns could not fire within 16 degrees of the line of flight of the aeroplane and the gunner was distracted from his task by having to direct the pilot through the communication set. Secondly, the guns could not be fired below the horizontal, and it was therefore necessary to keep below the enemy. When beset by superior numbers of fighters the best course to pursue was to form a descending spiral, so that one or more Defiants should always be in a position to bring effective fire to bear. Such tactics were, however, essentially defensive, and the formation sometimes got broken up before they could be adopted. In practice, the Defiants suffered such heavy losses that it was necessary to relegate them to night fighting, or to the attack of unescorted bombers.
Read somewhere that "night fighters" were mostly a name, at night at this stage of the war most were just flying blindly and hardly ever saw or shot a target....
Henry
Retired SOH Administrator
Yup!Did they actually make such a Dud in such numbers????? --Defiants__:isadizzy:
what????
and after their big failure and re designated
they were actually successful
H
The Defiant was nowhere near as much of a dud as history makes it out to be, that's the thing.
It failed totally as a day fighter, being too heavy, too limited in manoeuvrability, too slow and not having forward-firing weapons. Two squadrons were decimated during the Battle of Britain and the type was withdrawn from the front line, but as a stable platform with two crew and the four gun turret, it was a very capable night fighter. They were not ultimately replaced until radar-equipped aircraft came along. It actually paid a far greater role in the war than it is remembered for.
It failed totally as a day fighter, being too heavy, too limited in manoeuvrability, too slow and not having forward-firing weapons. Two squadrons were decimated during the Battle of Britain and the type was withdrawn from the front line, but as a stable platform with two crew and the four gun turret, it was a very capable night fighter. They were not ultimately replaced until radar-equipped aircraft came along. It actually paid a far greater role in the war than it is remembered for.
hummmm, hummmm,.......I take that with a grain of salt.:mixedsmi:
Henry
Retired SOH Administrator
Ya want fries with that?
During the winter Blitz on London of 1940–41, the Defiant equipped four squadrons, shooting down more enemy aircraft than any other type.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_Paul_Defiant#cite_note-6</sup> The turret-fighter concept was not immediately discarded and the fitting of Defiant-style turrets to Beaufighter and Mosquito night fighters was trialled to enable these aircraft to duplicate these methods, but the effect on performance proved drastic, and the idea was abandoned.The Defiant Mk II model was fitted with the AI Mk IV airborne interception radar and a Merlin XX engine. A total of 207 Mk II Defiants were built. After trials in 1940 with the School of Army Co-operation to assess its capabilities in that role, the Defiant was re-evaluated as a high-speed gunnery trainer, with the Air Ministry agreeing to keep the production lines open. The Defiant was removed from combat duties in 1942 and, thereafter, used for training, target towing, ECM and air sea rescue. The Defiant was used to carry the Mandrel noise jammer to combat the German Freya early warning radar.<sup id="cite_ref-Pricep124-52_8-0" class="reference">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_Paul_Defiant#cite_note-Pricep124-52-8</sup> In the air-sea rescue role, the Defiant was equipped with a pair of under-wing pods that contained dinghies. A further 140 Defiant Mk III aircraft were built; this model lacked the dorsal turret and was used as a target tug. Many of the surviving Mk I and Mk II Defiants also had their turrets removed.
In this final target towing variant, the Defiant ended up with a number of overseas assignments with both the RAF and Fleet Air Arm in the Middle East, Africa and India.<sup id="cite_ref-Bowyer_p.270_0-1" class="reference">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_Paul_Defiant#cite_note-Bowyer_p.270-0</sup>Further deployments occurred to Canada where the Defiant fulfilled a role as both a target tug and trainer with the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
Defiants were also utilized for "special" work including tactical evaluations with the RAF Gunnery Research Unit and Air Fighter Development Unit (AFDU) at Farnborough. On 11 May 1945, Martin-Baker used a Defiant, DR944, to test their first ejection seat with dummy launches.<sup id="cite_ref-Bowyer_p.270_0-2" class="reference">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_Paul_Defiant#cite_note-Bowyer_p.270-0</sup>
The last operational use of Defiants was in India, where they were used as target tugs.<sup id="cite_ref-bharat-rakshak_9-0" class="reference">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_Paul_Defiant#cite_note-bharat-rakshak-9</sup>
H
<sup id="cite_ref-bharat-rakshak_9-0" class="reference">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_Paul_Defiant#cite_note-bharat-rakshak-9</sup>
Early in the war, "night fighters" were basically Spitfires and Hurricanes sent off into the darkness to find and shoot down an intruder. They rarely if ever found them and even if they did, kills were phenomenally rare. Large parts of the problem were two big issues:
1) Simply flying at night requires full concentration.
2) The glare of the exhaust stacks did a pretty good job of masking enemy aircraft (especially when what you were normally looking for was the glow from their exhaust, and yours was brighter!)
The Defiant got around this in two ways; having the second set of eyes to search, freeing up the pilot to actually fly the thing, and also he faced backwards, so wasn't seeing the exhaust stacks.
Another aircraft used, for exactly the same reasons, was the Bristol Blenheim light bomber. Obsolete as a bomber, but with lots of eyes to find night intruders and a turret to shoot at them, removing the necessity for flying maneouvres that lost sight of the target. This also freed up the (primarily) black Hurricanes and (far fewer) black Spitfires to be painted brown and green and redeployed to far more appropriate daytime use.
1) Simply flying at night requires full concentration.
2) The glare of the exhaust stacks did a pretty good job of masking enemy aircraft (especially when what you were normally looking for was the glow from their exhaust, and yours was brighter!)
The Defiant got around this in two ways; having the second set of eyes to search, freeing up the pilot to actually fly the thing, and also he faced backwards, so wasn't seeing the exhaust stacks.
Another aircraft used, for exactly the same reasons, was the Bristol Blenheim light bomber. Obsolete as a bomber, but with lots of eyes to find night intruders and a turret to shoot at them, removing the necessity for flying maneouvres that lost sight of the target. This also freed up the (primarily) black Hurricanes and (far fewer) black Spitfires to be painted brown and green and redeployed to far more appropriate daytime use.
Henry
Retired SOH Administrator
here's the Narfuk deal
i knew there was one!
Boulton Pauls aircraft were flown out of Mousehold Heath in Norwich - an area which became the first Norwich Airport
The main reason they were hopeful is the enemy
thought they were hurricanes and would sneak up behind them bad idea!
if they had forward firing guns in the wings and the turret
i believe they would have been more successful
anyone up to do one?
beers on me
H
i knew there was one!
Boulton Pauls aircraft were flown out of Mousehold Heath in Norwich - an area which became the first Norwich Airport
The main reason they were hopeful is the enemy
thought they were hurricanes and would sneak up behind them bad idea!
if they had forward firing guns in the wings and the turret
i believe they would have been more successful
anyone up to do one?
beers on me
H
Give me many, many, years to learn gmax and then I'll have to learn an entirely new package to do one for whatever sim we're flying by then.
As anyone who glanced at my latest scenery thread might have noticed ([plug]
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=16924 [/plug]), Defiants as night fighters were based in quite a few places around the country during their time in service.
As anyone who glanced at my latest scenery thread might have noticed ([plug]
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=16924 [/plug]), Defiants as night fighters were based in quite a few places around the country during their time in service.
Give me many, many, years to learn gmax and then I'll have to learn an entirely new package to do one for whatever sim we're flying by then.
As anyone who glanced at my latest scenery thread might have noticed ([plug]
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=16924 [/plug]), Defiants as night fighters were based in quite a few places around the country during their time in service.
I think there was one in FS9..
There was one in CFS2, but it doesn't seem to have been ported (yet) into FS9.
http://www.pavaservices.com/cfs/P82.htm
http://www.pavaservices.com/cfs/P82.htm