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Aviation History
1941
1941 - 1594.PDF
J Twenty-eighth of the Series FLIGHT JULY 17TH, 1941. FRIEND or FOE? Two Twin-engined Fighters You May Not Yet Have Seen : The Beaufighter and the Lockheed Lightning Bristol Beaufighter. Mid-wing tapers to small rounded tips;dihedral from centre-section. Twin radial engines. Fuse- lage has short, rounded nose and gun-turret amidships.Tailplane has straight leading-edge, tapered trailing-edge and rounded tips. Fin and rudder similar to Blenheim.Undercarriage retracts into nacelles. NOTHING beyond visible externals may yet be men-tioned in describing the Bristol Beaufighter, thegeneral arrangement drawings of which, given on this page, have only lately been released for publication. As is well known, this machine is pre-eminently a night fighter, and few readers of Flight will yet have had an opportunity of seeing one of them, though many may have heard them on their way to seek out the enemy raiders in the night sky. The Lockheed Lightning, too, is yet to be seen over here, though this unusual type is among those American aircraft destined for service with the R.A.F. in due course and, for that reason, the spotter will want to familiarise himself with* its appearance. The best and quickest way to describe the Beau- fighter is to say that it is typically "Bristol," with a strong family like- ness to the familiar Blenheim 1. Any difference which may exist in over- all dimensions is not sufficient to be observable in flight and so can be dis- regarded for the purposes of this article. As in the case of the Blen- heim, the mid- wings have a dihe- dral angle from the centre section and taper in plan to fairly small rounded tips. The fuselage, however, is even shorter- Lockheed Lightning. Mid-wing, tapers sharply on trailing-edge to very small rounded tips. Double fuselage with in-line engines and air-scoops aft of trailing-edge. Noseof streamlined nacelle projects well forward; pilot's cock- pit well back between wings. High aspect-ratio tailplaneattached to fuselage tails carrying twin fins and rudders nosed than the Blenheim r. and does not project quite as far forward as the twin radial engines, and instead of the sloping "sun-lounge" the snout is streamlined (like the blunt end of an egg) above which a nicely faired pilot's cockpit cover runs back in a smooth line, broken only by the gun-turret amidships, to the tail assembly, which is identical with that of the Beaufort. A small but important difference in the Beaufighter, which was clearly shown in the photographs of the machine published in the June 5th issue of Flight, is that when the undercarriage is retracted the wheels disappear completely within the nacelles; on the Beaufort and Blenheim types the lower periphery pro jects and remains visible Apart from be ing also a twin engined fighter, the Lockheed Light ning is a very dil ferent type of air- craft . Its main characteristic, in which it resembles the German Fw 189, is that it has twin fuselages with an in-line engine in the nose of each, the pilot being housed in a stream lined nacelle be tween the two. The- mid-wing has a small dihedral angle from the nacelle, which pro jects well forward but terminates at the centre of the sharply tapered trailing edge There is also a
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