Light bomber family by Fairey
The Fairey Battle is a British single-engine light bomber that was designed and manufactured by the Fairey Aviation Company. It was developed during the mid-1930s for the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a monoplane successor to the Hawker Hart and Hind biplanes. The Battle was powered by the same high-performance Rolls-Royce Merlin piston engine that powered various contemporary British fighters such as the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire. As the Battle, with its three-man crew and bomb load, was much heavier than the fighters, it was therefore much slower. Though a great improvement over the aircraft that preceded it, its relatively slow speed, limited range and inadequate defensive armament of only two .303 (7.7 mm) machine guns left it highly vulnerable to enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire.
The Fairey Battle was used on operations early in the Second World War. During the "Phoney War" the type achieved the distinction of scoring the first aerial victory of an RAF aircraft in the conflict. In May 1940, the Battles of the Advanced Air Striking Force suffered many losses, frequently in excess of 50 per cent of aircraft sorties per mission. By the end of 1940 the type had been withdrawn from front-line service and relegated to training units overseas. As an aircraft that had been considered to hold great promise in the pre-war era, the Battle proved to be one of the most disappointing aircraft in RAF service.
Development.
Origins.
In April 1933, the British Air Ministry issued Specification P.27/32 which sought a two-seat single-engine monoplane day bomber to replace the Hawker Hart and Hind biplane bombers then in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). A requirement of the prospective aircraft was to be capable of carrying of bombs over a distance of while flying at a speed of . According to aviation author Tony Buttler, during the early 1920s, Britain had principally envisioned that a war with France as its enemy and the range to reach Paris was sought. According to aerospace publication Air International, a key motivational factor in the Air Ministry's development of Specification P.27/32 had been for the corresponding aircraft to act as an insurance policy in the event that heavier bombers were banned by the 1932 Geneva Disarmament Conference.
The Fairey Aviation Company were keen to produce a design to meet the demands of Specification P.27/32 and commenced work upon such a design. The Belgian aeronautical engineer Marcel Lobelle served as the aircraft's principal designer. One of the early decisions made by Lobelle on the project was the use of the newly developed Rolls-Royce Merlin I engine, which had been selected due to its favourable power and compact frontal area. The Merlin engine was quickly paired to a de Havilland Propellers-built three-bladed variable-pitch propeller unit. The choice of engine enabled the designing of the aircraft to possess exceptionally clean lines and a subsequently generous speed performance. The resulting design was an all-metal single-engine aircraft, which adopted a low-mounted cantilever monoplane wing and was equipped with a retractable tail wheel undercarriage.
A total of four companies decided to formally respond to Specification P.27/32, these being the Fairey, Hawker Aircraft, Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft, and Bristol Aeroplane Company. Of the submissions made, the Air Ministry selected Armstrong Whitworth and Fairey to produce prototypes to demonstrate their designs. On 10 March 1936, the first Fairey prototype, "K4303", equipped with a Merlin I engine capable of generating , performed its maiden flight at Hayes, Middlesex. The prototype was promptly transferred to RAF Martlesham Heath, Woodbridge, Suffolk for service trials, during which it attained a maximum speed of 257 MPH and reportedly achieved a performance in advance of any contemporary day bomber.
Even prior to the first flight of the prototype, some members of the Air Staff had concluded that both the specified range and bomb load, to which the aircraft had been designed, were insufficient to enable its viable use in a prospective conflict with a re-emergent Germany. Despite these performance concerns, there was also considerable pressure for the Battle to be rapidly placed into mass production in order that it could contribute to a wider increase of the RAF's frontline combat aircraft strength in line with similar strides being made during the 1930s by the German "Luftwaffe". As such, the initial production order placed for the type, for the manufacture of 155 aircraft built as per the requirements of Specification P.23/35, which had received the name "Battle", had been issued in advance of the first flight of the prototype.
Production.
In 1936, further orders were placed for Fairey to build additional Battles to Specification P.14/36. In June 1937, the first production Battle, "K7558", conducted its maiden flight. "K7558" was later used to perform a series of official handling and performance trials in advance to the wider introduction of the type to operational service. During these trials, it demonstrated the Battle's ability to conduct missions of a 1,000-mile range while under a full bomb load. The first 136 Fairey-built Battles were the first aircraft to be powered by the Merlin I engine. By the end of 1937, 85 Battles had been completed and a number of RAF squadrons had been re-equipped with the type, or were otherwise in the process of re-equipping.
As the RAF embarked on what became a substantial pre-war expansion programme, the Battle was promptly recognised as being a priority production target. At one point a total of 2,419 aircraft were on order for the service. In June 1937, the first aircraft was completed at Hayes, but all subsequent aircraft were manufactured at Fairey's newly completed factory at Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheshire. Completed aircraft were promptly dispatched for testing at the company's facility adjacent to RAF Ringway, about 6 miles away. A total of 1,156 aircraft were produced by Fairey. Subsequently, as part of government-led wartime production planning, a shadow factory operated by the Austin Motor Company at Cofton Hackett, Longbridge, also produced the type, manufacturing a total of 1,029 aircraft to Specification P.32/36. On 22 July 1938, the first Austin-built Battle, "L4935", conducted its maiden flight. At that point, concerns that the aircraft was obsolete had become widespread, but due to the difficulties associated with getting other aircraft types into production, and the labour force having already been established, stop-gap orders were maintained, and production continued at a steady rate through to late 1940.
A further 16 were built by Fairey for service with the Belgian Air Force. The Belgian Battles were delivered in early 1938, and were differentiated from British-built examples by having a longer radiator cowling and a smoother camouflage finish. In September 1940, all production activity came to a close and the final assembly lines were shuttered. Overall production of the Battle during its entire manufacturing life was 2,201 machines, including 16 for Belgium.
A number of Battles which had been originally completed as bombers were later converted to serve in different roles, such as target tugs and trainer aircraft.
Design.
The Fairey Battle was a single-engine monoplane light bomber, powered by a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. Production aircraft were progressively powered by various models of the Merlin engine, such as the Merlin I, II, III (most numerous) and V but all bomber variants were called the Battle Mk I. The Battle had a relatively clean design, having adopted a slim oval-shaped fuselage which was manufactured in two sections. The forward section, in front of the cockpit, included a steel tubular structure to support the engine; the rear section was of a metal monocoque structure comprised hoop frames and Z-section stringers which was built on jigs. The structure of the aircraft involved several innovations and firsts for Fairey: it had the distinction of being the company's first low-wing monoplane; it also was the first light-alloy stressed-skin construction aircraft to be produced by the firm.
The wing of the Battle used a two-part construction, the centre section being integral with the fuselage. The internal structure of the wings relied upon steel spars which varied in dimension towards the wing tips; the ailerons, elevators and rudder all were metal-framed with fabric coverings, while the split trailing edge flaps were entirely composed of metal.
The Battle had a crew of three, pilot, observer/bomb aimer and radio operator/air gunner, under one long continuous canopy which extended between the two cockpits set at the leading and trailing edges of the wing. The aircraft had a fixed .303 Browning machine gun mounted in the starboard wing for the pilot and a free .303 Vickers K machine gun in the rear cockpit for the gunner. The observer-navigator was behind and below the pilot in a cabin within the fuselage. The bomb aiming position was in the bottom of the aircraft with sighting done in a prone position through an open aiming panel behind the radiator outlet. If the pilot's canopy was open a rush of hot air and oil mist from the radiator through the open panel would prevent the bomb aimer from using the Mk. VII Course Setting Bomb Sight.
The armament and crew of the aircraft were similar to the Bristol Blenheim bomber: three crew, 1,000 lbs standard bomb load and two machine guns, although the Battle was a single-engine bomber with less horsepower. The Battle had a standard payload of four GP bombs which was carried in cells contained within the internal space of the wings. Maximum bomb load was , with two additional bombs on under-wing racks or with two bombs carried externally under bomb bays and two bombs on under-wing racks. The bombs were mounted on hydraulic jacks and were normally released via trap doors; during a dive bombing attack, they were lowered below the surface of the wing.
The Battle was a robust aircraft which was frequently described as being easy to fly, even for relatively inexperienced pilots. The pilot was provided with good external visibility and the cockpit was considered to be roomy and comfortable for the era but the tasks of simultaneously deploying the flaps and the retractable undercarriage, which included a safety catch, has been highlighted as posing considerable complication. Climate control within the cockpit was also reportedly poor.
By the time that the Battle was entering service in 1937 it had already been rendered obsolete by the rapid advances in aircraft technology. The performance and capabilities of fighter aircraft had increased to outstrip the modest performance gains that the light bomber had achieved over its biplane antecedents. For defence, the Battle had been armed only with a single Browning machine gun and a trainable Vickers K in the rear position; in service, these proved to be woefully inadequate. The Battle lacked an armoured cockpit and self-sealing fuel tanks. The Battle was considered well-armoured by the standards of 1940, although there was an emphasis on protection against small-arms fire from the ground. No RAF bombers were fitted with self-sealing tanks at the beginning of the war, although they were hastily fitted once the necessity became apparent. Since it was some time before self-sealing tanks could be mass-produced, it was a common stop-gap in 1940, even into 1941, to simply armour the rear of the fuel tanks with single or double layers of 4 mm armour. The Battle, along with the rest of the early-war inventory, was taken out of front-line duties before it had a chance to be fitted with self-sealing tanks.
Operational history.
Introduction.
In June 1937, No. 63 Squadron, based at RAF Upwood, Cambridgeshire, became the first RAF squadron to be equipped with the Fairey Battle. On 20 May 1937, the delivery of the first Battle to No. 63 occurred; following further deliveries, the squadron was initially assigned to perform development trials. The type holds the distinction of being the first operational aircraft powered by a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine to enter service, having beaten the debut of the Hawker Hurricane fighter by a matter of months.
By May 1939, there were a total of 17 RAF squadrons that had been equipped with the Battle. While many of these were frontline combat squadrons, some, under the No. 2 Group, were assigned to a non-mobilising training role; on the eve of the outbreak of war, these squadrons were reassigned to operate under No. 6 Training Group or alternatively served as reserve squadrons.
Wartime bomber service.
The Battle was obsolete by the start of the Second World War, but remained a front-line RAF bomber owing to a lack of a suitable replacement. On 2 September 1939,