The Armstrong Whitworth Whitley was a twin-engined heavy bomber which, as we wrote in previous posts, was initially powered by two Armstrong Siddeley Tiger IX radial engines yielding 795 hp of power each. More advanced versions of the Tiger engine powered subsequent variants of the Whitley, while from the Mk.IV onwards, they were replaced by a pair of Rolls Royce Merlin IV V12 engines which yielded a power of 1.030 hp each. These new engines boosted considerably Whitley's performance.
The Whitley had a crew of five: a pilot, a co-pilot/navigator, a bomb aimer, a wireless radio operator and a rear gunner. The pilot and the co-pilot sat side by side in the cockpit with the wireless operator further back. The navigator had his seat mounted on rails to be able to pivot, slid backwards and rotated to the left to use the table chart behind him after takeoff. Bomb aimer was positioned in the nose with a gun turret located directly above. The fuselage just aft of the wireless operator was divided horizontally by the bomb bay, behind which was the main entrance door and aft of that, the rear turret. The offensive armaments were stowed in two bomb bays housed within the fuselage, along with a further 14 smaller cells in the wings. According to some other sources, however, there were up to 16 in total; two groups of 2 in the fuselage, and four groups of 3 in the wings, plus two smaller cells for parachute flares in the rear fuselage. The Mk.III variant had bomb racks capable of holding larger bombs.
Initial variants had a nose and rear turrets, both being manually operated and mounting a single Vickers 0.303 in machine gun. On the Mk.III this defensive configuration was revised and a new retractable 'dustbin' ventral turret with two Vickers 0.303 in was added. The nose turret was also replaced with a Nash & Thompson power-operated turret. On the Mk.IV, tail turret was replaced with a Nash & Thompson turret and the ventral one was eliminated. Once the tail turret was replaced, the Whitley became the most powerfully armed bomber in the world against rear attacks.
The fuselage was divided in three sections, with the main frame being riveted with the skin and the intermediate sections being riveted to the inside flanges of the longitudinal stringers. Extensive use of Alclad sheeting was also made. Fuel was carried inside of three tanks all of them distributed all around the fuselage and the wings. In combat, the fuselage proved to be robust enough to withstand severe damage.
The Whitley featured also a large rectangular-shaped wing, which gave the aircraft its nickname of 'The Flying Barn Door'. Like the fuselage, the wings were formed from three sections, being built around a large box spar with the leading and trailing edges being fixed onto the spar at each rib point. The forward surfaces of the wings were composed of flush-riveted, smooth and unstressed metal sheeting, the rear being 2/3rds aft of the box spar to the trailing edge, as well as the ailerons and split flaps were covered in fabric. The inner structure of the split flaps was made out of duralumin and went between the ailerons and the fuselage, being set at a 15-20 degrees position for taking off and at a 60 degree for landing. Tailplanes used a similar construction style to that of the wings,with the fins braced to the fuselage using metal struts with the elevators and rudders having servo-balancing trim tabs.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Whitworth_Whitley
2. https://www.valka.cz/Armstrong-Whitworth-A-W-38-Whitley-t15610
3. Hall Park Books - Warpaint 21 - Armstrong Whitworth Whitley
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