Nieuport 11. Part one. The 'Bébé' in Belgium

 

The Nieuport 11 was a French sesquiplane fighter aircraft from the World War I, while the Nieuport 16 was an improved variant, powered by a more powerful Le Rhône engine.
It received good reputation and was exported to various countries around the world, among them, Belgium.
In contemporary sources it's referred as 'Nieuport XI C.1' (or 'Nieuport XVI C.1) where the letter 'C' stands for 'Chasseur', meaning 'Hunter' in French.
It's commonly believed that approximately 12 Nieuport 11 C.1 were sent to serve with the Belgian Aviation Militaire (Belgian Military Aviation) on 5th January 1916 and were followed by two additional Nieuport 16 in September 1916. 
Both Nieuport 11 and 16 were employed by the Belgian Military Aviation's fighter squadrons, Nº1 (Chardon) and Nº5 (Comet), and were even employed by some famous aviation pioneers like Jean Olieslager or Egide Roobaert (who was among the first to have used the Le Prieur rockets -the very first air-to-air rockets), until they were replaced in frontline service by either the better Nieuport 17 or the Hanriot HD.1. 
The remaining Nieuports 11 or 16 were used for pilot training purposes at the Belgian schools of Étampes (France), Juvisy-sur-Orge (France) and after the war, at Asch (Netherlands). 
The last Nieuport 11 or 16 was withdrawn from Belgian inventory in the early 1920s.

Sources:
1st https://www.belgian-wings.be/nieuport-11-c1-16-c1
2nd en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nieuport_11
3rd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nieuport_16
4th Aeronaut Books - The Belgian Air Service in the First World War

Bristol Beaufighter, part sixteen. Very late & post-war Beaufighters.

 

When World War 2 came to an end in Europe on 8th May 1945, there were fifteen Royal Air Force's (RAF) squadrons equipped with the Bristol Beaufighter. All of those units except for four were UK-based. In the Far East Theatre of Operations, two squadrons, Nos. 42 & 85 operated their Beaufighters and No. 45 Squadron was based at Kuala Lumpur and remained in action until the Japanese surrender in August 1945.
Not listening to the Japanese Emperor, many Japanese soldiers kept on fighting beyond 15th August 1945, when the surrender date for Japan was set, so No. 27 Squadron was allocated as an Air Jungle Search & Rescue unit during that month, undertaking the search & rescue role while offering also support to forward army units engaged with the remnants of the Japanese army. 
No. 27 Squadron was based at Akyab, Burma and, although they were informed during August that they were going to be disbanded, the order was soon rescinded when civil uprisings in Indonesia took place and the squadron was rebased to Mingaladon (Burma) with detachments to Batavia, Bayan Lepas, Kemajoram and Penang. This unit also performed some leaflet-dropping sorties to advise the Japanese troops to surrender, continuing on this type of sorties in some remote regions, like the Shan States as late as January 1946. 
The detachment in Batavia performed some ground-strikes against Indonesian rebels, with the first one taking place on 20th November 1945. The detachment was active in the area until February 1946, when it returned to Mingaladon to be disbanded together with the rest of the squadron.
A new RAF Beaufighter squadron was set up in the UK during the post-war years. This unit was No. 42 Squadron at RAF Thorney Island. This was formed by renumbering No. 254 Squadron and lasted just one year with the Beaufighter TF.X as it was disbanded on 15th October 1947.
During this time period, there were two Beaufighter units stationed in the Far East; No. 84 Squadron at Seletar (Singapore) and No. 45 at Negombo (Ceylon). Both of those units were soon sent to fight communist guerrillas in Malaya under Operation Firedog.

Just after the war, the situation in Malaya was complicated. It was a region formed by nine separate states, each run by its own Sultan, with a lot of help from the British government. The main political party in the whole country was the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), which was lead by the Chinese communist Chin Ping, who sparked an armed insurrection from the end of the war. 
In 1948 the MCP killed some European rubber plantation owners and therefore, in June a state of emergency was enforced in the region. Both British and Commonwealth forces were involved in what would be an anti-communist operation that would last for twelve-years and named 'Operation Firedog'.
The first sortie made by a Beaufighter in this context was performed by No. 84 Squadron, which had a detachment in Kuala Lumpur on the 19th August 1948. This unit maintained a  crew rotation system between their main base at Ceylon and the Kuala Lumpur detachment and, in June 1949 the whole squadron was based at Kuala Lumpur, with detachments at Butterworth (Penang) and Tengah. In October 1949 the unit began to transition to the new Bristol Brigand, but kept operating the Beaufighter side-by-side, until it was moved back to Tengah in December 1949 and finally replaced all of their Beaufighters with Brigands in February 1950. 
No. 84 Squadron was initially equipped with the Beaufighter TF.X from November 1946 and and was moved to Changi (Singapore) in October 1947 before being rebased back to Tengah in February 1948. A detachment was sent to Kuala Lumpur where they joined No. 45 Squadron in Operation Firedog from July of that same year. Here they did not employ the Beaufighter very much as by October 1948 most of the squadron's crews were in the UK training and collecting for the new Bristol Brigand. At that time the squadron was rebased to Habbaniya (Iraq), where it was retrained and fully re-equipped with the Brigand. The squadron did not return to Malaya until April 1950 where they resumed Operation Firedog, this time with the Brigands.

By 1949 the frontline career of the Beaufighter was clearly declining, although the type remained in RAF's inventory in the Far East until 1956. 
The last operational version of the Beaufighter was the target-towing TT. Mk. X, which were airframes converted from existing Mk. Xs, with the prototype for the series being NT813. This variant was stripped from armament and was equipped with a wind-driven winch mounted in the rear fuselage, with its associated windmill projecting from the starboard fuselage side. A total of fifty-nine additional machines were converted and were employed by gunnery co-operation units and many Advanced Flying Schools in the UK and abroad.
In the Middle and Far East the TT. Mk. X was also employed in Flights in Cyprus, Gibraltar and Malta as well as Seletar. It was here where the Seletar Base Flight made the last operational sortie with a Beaufighter, when on 12th May 1960 TT. Mk. X registration number RD761 took off from Seletar for a farewell salute. On landing the aircraft was grounded, struck off charge and scrapped four days later, marking an end to the Beaufighter's career with the RAF.

Sources:
1st Scale Aircraft Modelling - Modellers Datafile 6 - Bristol Beaufighter
2nd  Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 153 - Bristol 'Beaufighter' in Action
3rd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufighter

Bristol Beaufighter, part fifteen. Beaufighter TF.X

 

Initially, just like the Mk. VI, the Mk. X was at first a designation employed to distinguish Coastal Command Mk. VIs powered by the Hercules XVII engines modified for low altitude attacks. The Mk. X, which was the successor to the Mk. VI on the factory lines in May 1943, had the centimetric AI Mks. VII or VIII radar installed inside a thimble nose radome.
Thanks to its heavy armament and its ability to perform a wide variety of roles, the Mk. X became a true multipurpose aircraft which served the Royal Air Force (RAF) well for the rest of the war. 
Alternatively to the torpedo for anti-shipping strikes, the Mk. X could also carry two 500 pound (227 Kg) under the fuselage plus one 250 pound (114 Kg) under each wing. A 200 gallon (909 L) drop tank could also replace the torpedo on the central fuselage rack.
Late production variants of the Mk. X had a prominent dorsal fin extension carried forward almost to the observer's cupola, and the wings stressed (taken from a proposed Mk. XII bomber version) to take a 1,000 pound (454 Kg) bomb on each side outboard of the engine nacelles. 
In total, 2.205 Beaufighters Mk. X were manufactured, with the last aircraft being delivered on 21st September 1945 with SR919 as serial number.

Sources:
1st Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 153 - Bristol 'Beaufighter' in Action
2nd Scale Aircraft Modelling - Modellers Datafile 6 - Bristol Beaufighter
3rd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufighter

Bristol Beaufighter, part fourteen. Beaufighters Mk. IV & VIF

 

The Bristol Beaufighter Mk. IV was a 'slim fuselage' type Beaufighter, powered by two Rolls-Royce Griffon engines, however, this variant remained only experimental and no production followed.

The Beaufighter Mk. VI was an improved variant of the regular Beaufighter thanks to the better Bristol Hercules VI engines, which had an increased output of 1,670 hp and that by late 1941 there were enough engines to put the new variant, the Mk. VI, into production. Powered by the new engines, the top speed of the Beaufighter rose to 333 mph (536 km/h) at 15,600 ft (4.754 m) high with a cruising speed of 243 mph (391 km/h).
The airframe received some minor modifications too, the most visible one being the installation of a single defensive Vickers .303 inch K gun in the observer's canopy. This cockpit had to be reinforced and redesigned by framing to place the gun mount. Underwing bomb racks were also introduced and the horizontal tail plane was modified with 12 degree of dihedral.
The Mk. VIC (the letter 'C' stands for 'Coastal') had also extra fuel capacity thanks to its extra wing fuel tanks which gave the type a range of 1,810 miles (2.912 km), while the standard Mk. VIF had a range of 1,480 miles (2.382 km). The suffixes F and C meant the role the variant was intended for, on one hand Mk. VIF (the letter 'F' stands for 'Fighter') was faster at higher altitude, where the extra speed was important, specially when the airframe was adapted to fit the centimetric AI Mk. VI of Mk. VII radar sets in the elongated 'thimble' nose radome. 
On the other hand, those built for the Coastal Command sought for lower altitude performance, as their attacks took place below 500 feet (152 m) or even lower. This made Bristol to crop the impellers and lock the blowers of the Hercules VI engine, which lead to the creation of the Hercules XVII radial engine variant, which gave a considerable performance boost at low levels. 

The transition from both the Mk. IF and the Mk. IIF to the Mk. VIF was gradual, so there is not a definite date to pinpoint when the earlier versions went out of date and the new ones took over. This meant that the Mk. VIF flew side-by-side both with the Mk. I & II in the night fighter roles.
The first successful interception of a Mk. VIF was performed by the Fighter Interception Unit (FIU) when they claimed a Dornier Do. 217 shot down on 5th April 1942, being No. 68 Squadron the first operational unit of the Royal Air Force (RAF) to be equipped with the Mk. VIF in March 1942. This was followed by Nos. 604 and 219 squadrons, out of a total of twenty-two fighter squadrons based in the United Kingdom. 
Most squadrons operated the Mk I & IIF in the night fighter role, but during mid-1942 the De Havilland Mosquito night fighter started to be available in numbers, so the Beaufighter was released from home defence duties and was sent to serve overseas. Squadrons. Those squadrons not re-equipped with the Mosquito, were sent to the North African Theatre to support Operation Torch in November 1942. During the Battle for Tunisia a Beaufighter shot down five German Junkers Ju.52 in just ten minutes on 20th April 1943. 
Operating from Malta, the Beaufighter could reach almost every point in the Mediterranean Theatre. Albeit initially there were only Mk. IF squadrons based there, those were soon replaced by the Mk. VIF and they were joined by two additional squadrons. 

Overall, in every theatre of war, the Beaufighter proved useful as a night fighter and also as other capabilities, such as a strike fighter, where, acting in the Far East, became very popular among its crews thanks to its ruggedness and reliability, albeit being heavy to control and not easy to fly. 

Sources:
1st Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 153 - Bristol 'Beaufighter' in Action
2nd Scale Aircraft Modelling - Modellers Datafile 6 - Bristol Beaufighter
3rd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufighter

Bristol Beaufighter, part fourteen. Beaufighter Mk. IC

 

As the bombing campaign over mainland Europe increased after the Battle of Britain, both Bristol Aeroplane Company and the Royal Air Force (RAF) began to consider additional roles for the Beaufighter, as it was seen the ideal long range fighter to strike upon enemy bases and shipping lanes in such far places as Norway. 
To this purpose long range fuel tanks were fitted on a Beaufighter Mk. I registered as R5152, which had its guns replaced by fuel tanks. This was accompanied by additional changes such as an extra table and instruments being added in the rear position to help the navigator in long over-water flights, a D/F loop in lieu of the gun camera. An initial batch of eighty modified Beaus Mk. I were completed, with the suffix of a letter 'C' (standing for 'Coastal') added to the Mk. I official denomination. The machines of this initial batch had a temporal Wellington fifty gallon (227 L) fuel tank mounted on the fuselage floor between the gun bays. Standard wing fuel tanks were not ready until later.
The Mk. IC saw service for the first time in late March 1941 serving with No. 252 Squadron, shooting down a Focke-Wulf Fw. 200 on 16th April, and marking it as the first victim of the Mk. IC. In June 1941 No. 143 Squadron became the second unit to employ the Mk. IC. 
The Mk. IC became so important in RAF's Coastal Command that Bristol adapted the airframe to carry various fittings for the singular task of striking enemy shipping and kept on allocating the 'C' for 'Coastal'. 
Due to the troubling situation growing in the Mediterranean, No. 252 Squadron was sent with its Beaufighters to Malta in May 1941 and was soon followed by No. 272 Squadron with its Mk. ICs and Nos. 46 and 89 with Mk. IFs. When on Malta, No. 252 saw heavy action when escorting convoys and supporting the Syria-Lebanon Campaign. Later, they were rebased to Egypt, where they claimed their first enemy aircraft shot down on 24th July. 
As the Beaufighter showed that effective night interception was possible when the right aircraft and equipment were ready, the Mk. I performed a wide variety of roles including reconnaissance, ground attack and maritime strikes, relying primarily in its heavy armament. 
A total of 954 Beaufighters Mk. I were manufactured and were employed a by twenty-eight RAF squadrons, operating in most of World War 2's theatres of war. 

Sources:
1st Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 153 - Bristol 'Beaufighter' in Action
2nd Scale Aircraft Modelling - Modellers Datafile 6 - Bristol Beaufighter
3rd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufighter

Bristol Beaufighter, part thirteen. Beaufighter Mk. IF

 

As the Luftwaffe switched from day to night bombing at the Fall of 1940, airborne radar sets were given priority, specially installed in a suitable night fighter airframe. The Royal Air Force (RAF) had few aircraft suitable for that role, although the Bristol Blenheim was being employed as an interim night interceptor. The situation called for a large aircraft which could host the radar installation with its correspondent operator, and with enough performance to catch up with the German intruder aircraft, something that the Blenheim couldn't do it effectively, so the Beaufighter offered the RAF an ideal answer.
Back in late 1940, aircraft's performance in night fighting combat wasn't so important and the Fighter Interception Unit (FIU) at RAF Ford managed to fit an Airborne Interception (AI) Mk. IV radar into a single Beaufighter Mk. IF (the letter 'F' stands for 'Fighter') for trials.
Beaufighter Mk. IF R2059 flew the first night interception sortie of the type, while still assigned to the FIU on the night of 4th to 5th September 1940. The first interception mission performed by a RAF Beaufighter squadron was on 17th to 18th September when No. 29 squadron based at RAF Digby sent up R2077 on patrol. However no enemy aircraft were found during that first sortie. Anyway, on 25th October No. 219 squadron recorded the first night kill by a Beaufighter. This was followed by some more victories, albeit the Beaufighters in which they were scored were not equipped with an AI radar, so it wasn't until 19th November 1940 when an AI assisted kill was achieved. During the following six months, radar-equipped Beaufighters took down around twelve enemy aircraft. 
A total of four squadrons were equipped, total or partially, with the Beaufighter, to test the effectiveness of the AI radar, those were, Nos. 29, 25, 219 and 604 squadrons. On 8th September 1941 No. 600 Squadron, which was specialized in night fighting, also received its first Beaufighters IFs. 
On 7th December 1940 the 100th Beaufighter was completed at Filton factory and the 200th exemplar was followed on 10th May 1941. By that date production was licensed to Fairey's shadow factory at Stockport and the Ministry of Aircraft Production plant at Weston-super-Mare at a steady pace. 

An experimental variant of the Beaufighter, the Mk. V was, basically a Beaufighter Mk. II with the turret taken from a Boulton-Paul Defiant attached. During March 1941 this experiment was carried out because, theoretically, it gave the Beaufighter more defensive firepower in the form of four 0.303 inch Browning machine guns. Furthermore, that turret was going to replace not just all of the wing guns, but also one pair of cannons. The observer's dorsal blister was faired flush with the fuselage which retained the lower edge 'scoop out' of the original design. 
Even if the turret arrangement showed its merit when attacking Luftwaffe's bombers at night, as proved by the Defiants and, on the other side, by the Schrage Musik upward firing cannon, the advantages were not obvious enough to justify a serial production of the Mk. V and it was realized that the standard Beaufighter could undertake interception duties with its standard armament well enough.
Two Mk. II airframes, powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin, were fitted and operationally tested, the first one assigned to the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) and the FIU and then passed on to No. 406 Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). The second machine was assigned straight to No. 600 Squadron where it served until it was lost to an accident on 29th September 1941.
A&AEE wrote a handling report about the turret Beaufighter in August 1941, where it stressed the drop in top speed of the Mk. V variant. Squadron usage reports also revealed that the turret obstructed the pilot's scape hatch, so all Beaufighters Mk. V were modified with a floor hatch which could be unlocked in case of emergency and forced back by the slipstream to form a windshield for the crew, each member of which then dropped straight through the hatch. However, no further Mk. Vs were built. 

Sources:
1st Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 153 - Bristol 'Beaufighter' in Action
2nd Scale Aircraft Modelling - Modellers Datafile 6 - Bristol Beaufighter
3rd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufighter

Bristol Beaufighter, part twelve. Inception and early operational history

 

Note: This is our last post until September. See you back then!
The Bristol Beaufighter was a British twin-engined World War 2 heavy-fighter/strike aircraft that was initially conceived as a fighter variant of the Bristol Beaufort.
Its inception dates back to 1938 when the Beaufort was about to undertake its maiden flight, Bristol's chief designer, Leslie Frise and Roy Fadden, his assistant, put forward a design study on the Beaufort to check how much of it could be adapted into an interim fighter, as it was expected during the Munich Crisis, that the Royal Air Force (RAF) would be short of fighters in case of war. 
This idea was well received by the Air Staff because, theoretically, it reduced the time and cost for an entire new fighter, so a few days later Bristol was asked to build four prototypes of the so-called "Beaufort fighter".
Given that some preliminary studies have been carried out by Bristol of a heavy fighter powered by their own Hercules engine, this design, called 'Type 156', employed the Beaufort's wing, tail and landing gear and Bristol's engineers at Filton (where the headquarters of the company were located) managed to refine the design of the Type 156 in only six months to produce the first prototype.
The design differed so much from that of the Beaufort. A new narrower fuselage was added to the Beaufort's components, with a short solid nose housing a single-seat cockpit. A dorsal position for an observer was included aft the cockpit. 
With a serial number of R2052 , the Type 156's prototype made its maiden flight on 17th July 1939 and, although initially it was going to be armed with four 20 mm (.78 in) cannons, those were never installed in the prototype during the first flight. 
Now, further refinement work on the prototype was needed to convert the Beaufighter into an operational combat aircraft and almost a year had to pass before the RAF received its first operational Beaufighter. During that time Bristol refined the design, boosting its performance, which with early Hercules engines was similar to that of the Hawker Hurricane, the most numerous RAF fighter during the early war. 
Given that only Hercules III engines were immediately available, and they gave the Beaufighter the 'Hurricane performance', the Air Ministry issued a specification, F.17/39 which set up the production chain for the Beaufighter and ordered a first batch of 300 aircraft. Given that the engine supply was not certain, agreements were made to foresee another variant powered by the in-line Rolls-Royce Griffon engines, with minimum modifications to the wings being made, as an alternative to the radial Hercules engines.
Four prototypes were built by Bristol, R2052 to R2055, which served for pre-testing purposes, with some handicaps in testing during the summer of 1940 as the Battle of Britain progressed. The second prototype, R2053 was also unarmed, but the third prototype, R2054 had four 20 mm cannons installed with its blast tubes integrated under the forward fuselage, together with armour plate, a bullet-proof windshield and a gun camera. This camera became very distinctive as it produced a bulge on top of the nose.
The first three prototypes were tested by the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) in April and June 1940 and, except for some slow speeds, it achieved good test results. 
In order to improve Beaufighter's performance, while the Hercules VI engine became available, was to fir alternative power plants to the fuselage, as previously agreed upon, so the most logical alternate engine was the Rolls-Royce Merlin, the same one that powered both the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire. 
After making some modifications to the engine nacelles, a new model, which was designated as Beaufighter Mk. II, was made with the Merlin XX engine installed on the 450th Beaufighter of the 1.218 Beaufighters on the Filton production line by mid-1940 and three airframes, R2058, R2061 (this one powered by the Rolls-Royce Exe nacelle engines and nacelle configuration) and R2062, were put aside to serve as testbeds for the Mk. II.
Regarding armament, only the first fifty production Beaus were fitted with just four 20 mm Hispano cannons, but subsequent Mk. Is had six additional .303 in Browning machine guns placed in the wings, two on the port side and four on the starboard. This made the Beaufighter the most heavily armed fighter of the RAF for the whole war. 
Some additional solutions were investigated to improve Beaus' performance, such as fitting twin fins on a single prototype, R2268, in order to improve directional stability, however trials were not satisfactory and no production on this configuration was undertaken.

Sources:
1st Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 153 - Bristol 'Beaufighter' in Action
2nd Scale Aircraft Modelling - Modellers Datafile 6 - Bristol Beaufighter
3rd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufighter