Fairey Battle and her modifications

Aircraft illustrated August 1974

The Fulmar was based on a sub-scaled Battle. See Le Fana de L'Aviation January 08 issue for more details

is the 'fairey double engined bomber' by any chance the P.24 engined battle as discussed elsewhere on this forum?

cheers,
Robin.

Justo: amazing find. I worked up a 'what-if' twin-engined Battle but had no idea that it had been a genuine proposal.

Robin: It sure looks like the P.24 Prince installation. If so, we have a hint as to how the P-47 and Blackburn B20 P.24 installations might have looked. 8)

robunos said:

is the 'fairey double engined bomber' by any chance the P.24 engined battle as discussed elsewhere on this forum?

cheers,
Robin.

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Yes.

Pictures of the prototype. Although one of the pictures is labelled "monarch" I'm pretty sure its the Prince version.

Justo Miranda said:

robunos said:

is the 'fairey double engined bomber' by any chance the P.24 engined battle as discussed elsewhere on this forum?

cheers,
Robin.

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Yes.

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thanks Justo !

yes, thanks, also, note the US markings on the prince Battle......

cheers,
Robin.

yes, thanks, also, note the US markings on the prince Battle......

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found some more on this, (while looking for something else, naturally, )

from 'Aero Engines', by Bill Gunston, 1st edition. (my italics)

"with a potential of 3000 hp,the P.24 was considered for the hawker tornado and P-47 thunderbolt,
the [P.24 powered] battle flying some 250 hours at wright field in 1942.

edit, checking in putnam's Fairey, the aircraft was shipped to the USA on december 5th, 1941, and was still at wright field in september 1942. when it returned to the RAE in 1943, 340 hours had been logged, including 87 in Britain, giving 253 hours of use in the USA.
cheers,
Robin.

robunos said:

yes, thanks, also, note the US markings on the prince Battle......

cheers,
Robin.

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So does anyone know when, what role and service was the ‘Battle’ assessed for by the United States?

Regards
Pioneer

i attach page printed in pdf about Farey P4/34 or version dive - bomber of Farey Battle

airman,

The Fairey P4/34 submission wasn't a direct development of the Battle, it was an entirely new design. Spec P4/34 was for a light bomber/divebomber, ultimately won by the competing Hawker Henley. The Fairey P3/34 then evolved into the two-seat Fulmar naval fighter.

BTW, Orlogsværftet began licence production of the P4/34 (LVI) for the Marinens Flyvevæsen in February 1939. The 12 Danish aircraft were to be O.V.231-O.V.242 (c/n 93-104) but none were finished. The Danish P4/34s (along with 12 new Macchi C.200s) were to equip a new, land-based unit, 3.Luftflotille.

http://www.ole-nikolajsen.com/RDAF%20history/b-Marinens%20flyvevasen.htm

Apophenia said:

airman,

The Fairey P4/34 submission wasn't a direct development of the Battle, it was an entirely new design. Spec P4/34 was for a light bomber/divebomber, ultimately won by the competing Hawker Henley. The Fairey P3/34 then evolved into the two-seat Fulmar naval fighter.

BTW, Orlogsværftet began licence production of the P4/34 (LVI) for the Marinens Flyvevæsen in February 1939. The 12 Danish aircraft were to be O.V.231-O.V.242 (c/n 93-104) but none were finished. The Danish P4/34s (along with 12 new Macchi C.200s) were to equip a new, land-based unit, 3.Luftflotille.

http://www.ole-nikolajsen.com/RDAF%20history/b-Marinens%20flyvevasen.htm

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Oops ! you have right ! :-[

So does anyone know when, what role and service was the ‘Battle’ assessed for by the United States?

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it's my understanding that the US were interested in the _engine_, not the the aircraft.

from putnam's Fairey, pp. 272-273:-

"when the US authorities asked for a P.24 engine for evaluation, the decision was made to ship the battle [aircraft], complete with engine and propellors, so that time would not be wasted in preparing another powerplant or in modifying an american aircraft to take the engine."

cheers,
Robin.

Also in the Putnam book Robin had already mentioned (Fairey Aircraft Since 1915), HA Taylor says

"... Gen Arnold saw the engine and asked that one or more examples should be shipped to American for test and evalution. The proposal was that it should be be built under licence by the Ford motor company for installation in the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter. To save time, the Battle test-bed, complete with P.24 and propellers, was sent to Wright Field..."

Are there any pictures/drawings of what the P-47 would have looked like with the P.24 engine?

just guessing, but i would have thought fairly similar to the XP-47H, but with visible exhaust stubs, the radiator being belly mounted, although maybe a P-40 style chin radiator.

cheers,
Robin.

Apophenia said:

Justo: amazing find. I worked up a 'what-if' twin-engined Battle but had no idea that it had been a genuine proposal.

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I'd be interested t see your model, as i'm doing onee on the What If? modellers web forum, http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php?topic=21075.msg299160#msg299160. ;D ;D

Kitbasher: My 'what if' medium was paper not polystyrene. PM inbound.

Fairey P.24 engine, from "Aeroplane" January 2009

There is an ongoing thread on the P.24 here

http://warbirdsforum.com/showthread.php?t=287

Experimental Engineering Section of the Power Plant Laboratory at Wright Field reports on Fairey P.24 engine, from the AEHS site:
http://www.enginehistory.org/Misc/P150137.pdf

http://www.enginehistory.org/Misc/P152543.pdf

http://www.enginehistory.org/Misc/P161688.pdf

Jon

Page 6 of the second report is ineresting...

Captain Forsyth states the following developments should be undertaken in this country (the US)

Undertake F-32, a 5.25 x 6 engine with 4 blocks of 8 cylinders

Undertake 5.5 x 6 engine for 3,000hp

Undertake 6 x 6 engine for 3,400hp

Anyone know what engines were proposed for the twin engined 1933 variant if if any performance figures were suggested?

Had this back in an e-mail discussion on the twin engined Battle

'A twin engined Battle might have made an ideal night-fighter. - Room in the nose for both radar and guns.

Interestingly "The Battle File" indicates that the AM realised the Battle was obsolescent in 1939 but kept production going at Fairey's Stockport factory and at Austin through most of 1940 just to give the workforce something to do pending the switch-over to the Avro Manchester at Stockport and Short Stirling at Austin. So throughout the crucial Battle of Britain period both factories were producing aircraft that were of little or no value to the war effort - In 1940 Stockport produced 218 battles and Austin produced 480 - now cut that in half to use the same number of engines - that’s still about 350 twin-engined Battles that might have been produced in 1940 alone.

Same engine combinations as the original battle - choice of either Fairey's own Prince P12 in the 700-900 hp range or Merlin - with the Air Ministry refusing to consider the Prince, leaving only the Merlin. - Like the normal battle the early Merlins would be the generally unsatisfactory Mk I followed by the Mk II and III for the majority of production up until 1940. - Wonder what the performance would have like for a 1941 twin-engined Battle with two Merlin XX with 1,390 hp each?

The "Battle File" book says that after the original twin-engined proposal in late 1933 interest in the twin-engine version disappeared until 1937 when Fairey revived the idea, this time with the bigger P-16 engine or Merlin. The Air Ministry became interested again in 1938 but then for a year or so they were keener on the P-24 engined version of the Battle, (authorising the building of the prototype) before loosing interest altogether - by which time the Beaufighter was on the verge of entering service (with the Gloster 9/37 expected to follow).

If production of a twin-engined Battle had gone ahead then replacing the single-engined Battle in production at Austin's Longbridge plant would have presented a problem - assembled Battles there were hoisted up a steep ramp from the flight-shed assembly factory to the tiny hill-top testing aerodrome by a sort of ski-lift assembly. I doubt if it could have accommodated a twin-engined aircraft. So they would have had to adopt early the scheme they used when Battle production was switched to Short Stirlings - Shipping the major assemblies to the near-by Elmdon aerodrome (now Birmingham airport) for final assembly there before flight-testing.'

A Tentative Fleet Plan said:

That's a Grumman TBF Avenger.

The closest view of the Spearfish to the image you posted (at least if you want the internal seating arrangements) is probably this one:

View attachment 706945

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I apologize for the importunity. Are there any similar pictures, but about Fairey Battle?

Tim52413 said:

I apologize for the importunity. Are there any similar pictures, but about Fairey Battle?

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...

What about the turret conversion done by Fairchild of Canada?
It had a shortened cockpit cover and mounted a single machinegun in a turret that looked like it was "borrowed" from a Bolingbroke bomber. They all served as gunner trainers in the BCATP in Canada.

joncarrfarrelly said:

Experimental Engineering Section of the Power Plant Laboratory at Wright Field reports on Fairey P.24 engine, from the AEHS site:

http://www.enginehistory.org/Misc/P150137.pdf

http://www.enginehistory.org/Misc/P152543.pdf

http://www.enginehistory.org/Misc/P161688.pdf

Jon

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riggerrob said:

What about the turret conversion done by Fairchild of Canada?
It had a shortened cockpit cover and mounted a single machinegun in a turret that looked like it was "borrowed" from a Bolingbroke bomber. They all served as gunner trainers in the BCATP in Canada.

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Those Battle IT conversions were actually performed at the Canada Car & Foundry facility in Turcot, PQ. And you're right, they did use the same Bristol Type B.I Mk.IV turret as the Fairchild-built Bolingbroke IVTs. A less obvious change to the Battle ITs was the addition of an extended air intake dust filter housing.

A more subtle conversion at BCATP Bombing and Gunnery Schools was simply swapping the rear Vickers GO for a .303 Browning.

But Fairchild Aircraft did re-engine one of those Battle ITs with an R-1820-G3B Cyclone to become the one-off Fairey Battle IIT (RCAF R7439). The Cyclone installation was a hedge against running out of Merlin II spares (and Fairchild had Cyclone installation experience from the sole Bolingbroke IVC conversion).

Then there were the dedicated pilot trainer conversions. AFAIK, those serving BCATP in Canada had all been delivered from the UK already thus converted. I'm guessing the same for Battle target tug conversions.

The attached are all DND or Library and Archives Canada images.

Are there any drawings of Fairey Battle with a Fairey Monarch engine?

I only know of a photo.

Tim52413 said:

Are there any drawings of Fairey Battle with a Fairey Monarch engine?

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Try this:

Another image found here - link provided by @Foo Fighter :
https://oldmachinepress.com/2017/10/20/fairey-p-24-monarch-aircraft-engine/

On reddit, very short video (7") of Fairey Battle K9370 with Monarch engine in test in Wrightfield, USA

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdWings/comments/1afmshj/fairey_battle_k9370_fitted_with_a_p24_monarch/

If I may, the only surviving Battle IT is currently in the storage facility of the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, in Ottawa.

So there are an interesting articles from dingeraviation:

OK, unless anyone can produce 'reliable' evidence to the contrary I do not believe that there ever was a Fairey project for a twin-engine Battle. The only source for the idea appears to be Ian Huntley, whose writings are hardly the most factual.

Schneiderman said:

OK, unless anyone can produce 'reliable' evidence to the contrary I do not believe that there ever was a Fairey project for a twin-engine Battle. The only source for the idea appears to be Ian Huntley, whose writings are hardly the most factual.

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That is very interesting. Are his other writings/drawings in the 'net or in some books?

tomo pauk said:

That is very interesting. Are his other writings/drawings in the 'net or in some books?

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He wrote numerous articles for Aircraft Illustrated in the 60s and 70s, and in modelling magazines, also a couple of books.