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Aviation History
1933
1933 - 0128.PDF
FLIGHT JULY 20, 1933 NOSE-ON " : This front view gives a good idea of the small frontal area of the " Heyford." (FLIGHT Photo.) THE HANDLEY PAGE " HEYFORD" (Concluded from page 670.) MAVING dealt, in our issue of July 6, with the structural features of the Handley Page " Hey ford " night bomber, we will turn to the finished machine, which presents many points of interest, caused mainly by the novel conception of the general arrangement of large components such as fuselage, engines and bombs. Hitherto the accepted formula for armc*nent, i.e. '?•::&::•" night bombers, at any rate as far as Great Britain is con cerned, is the biplane cellule with fuselage on the bottom centre section and engines on or but a short distance above the lower wing. This arrangement, which has served us well enough in the past, is open to criticism on several points, mainly in connection with the defensive , the position of the machine gunners. The customary twin-engined night bomber has a forward gun position in the extreme nose and another gunner's position in the ex treme stern of the fuselage. It will be obvious that the top wing, placed as it is a considerable distance above the fuselage, somewhat blankets the view and field of fire of the forward and rear gunner. In a rearward direction the machine is well protected by the gunner in the extreme tail, but it is not, perhaps, altogether satis factory to have one member of the crew so far away, as communication between him and the rest is likely to be made a little difficult during a " scrap." In the Handley Page '' Heyford '' a com plete breakaway from the orthodox arrange ment has been made by the designers. To begin with, the blind area above the machine has been eliminated by raising the fuselage to the level of the top centre sec tion. In this way the gunner in the nosf and the gunner behind the wings can see each other and can cover a complete hemi sphere above the machine. Instead of the gun position in the extreme tail, the " Hey ford " has a retractable gun turret just ait of the upper rear gunner's position. When this turret is let down, the gunner can cover the whole area behind and under the tail, while the upper gunner covers the area behind and above the tail. This feature was well brought out in the photograph- which we published in our Juiy 6 issue. As WINDING THE ELASTIC : The starting equipment is removable, and is taken from one engine to the other. (FLIGHT Pkoto. i 718
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