Bristol Bombay
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox aircraft
The Bristol Bombay was a British troop transport aircraft adaptable for use as a medium bomber flown by the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War.
Design and development
The Bristol Bombay was built to Air Ministry Specification C.26/31 which called for a monoplane bomber-transport aircraft to replace the Vickers Valentia biplane in use in the Middle East and India. The aircraft was required to be capable of carrying 24 troops or an equivalent load of cargo as a transport, while carrying bombs and defensive guns for use as a bomber.<ref name="barnes p249"/> This dual-purpose design concept was common to British pre-war designs. Other entries for the specification were the Armstrong Whitworth A.W.23 and the Handley Page HP.51.<ref name="lewis bomb p256-9">Lewis 1980, pp. 256–259.</ref>
Bristol's design, the Type 130, was a high-wing cantilever monoplane of all-metal construction.<ref name="barnes p249"/> Bristol's previous monoplane design, the 1927 Bagshot, had suffered from lack of torsional rigidity in the wings leading to aileron reversal.<ref name="barnes p201-2">Barnes 1964, pp. 202–203.</ref> This led to an extensive research program at Bristol which resulted in a wing design with a stressed metal skin rivetted to an internal framework consisting of multiple spars and the ribs. This was the basis of the Bombay's wing, which had seven spars, with high-tensile steel flanges and alclad webs.<ref name="barnes p249">Barnes 1964, p. 249.</ref> The aircraft had a twin-tail and a fixed tailwheel undercarriage.<ref name="barnes p249"/><ref name="mason bomber p277"/>
The aircraft's crew consisted of a pilot, who sat in an enclosed cockpit, a navigator/bomb-aimer, whose working position was in the nose, and a radio-operator/gunner, who divided his time between the radio operator's position behind the cockpit and a gun turret in the nose. When the aircraft was operated as a bomber, an additional gunner was carried to man the tail gun position. In the prototype, this position was equipped with a Lewis gun on a Scarff ring but in production aircraft, both gun positions were hydraulically operated gun turrets each armed with a Vickers K machine gun. Eight Template:Convert bombs could be carried on racks under the fuselage.<ref name="barnes p249"/><ref name="mason bomber p277"/><ref name="AE18 p8">Cooling 1982, p. 8.</ref>
A prototype Type 130 was ordered in March 1933 and first flew on 23 June 1935, powered by two Template:Convert Bristol Pegasus III radial engines driving two-bladed propellers.<ref name ="mason bomber p277">Mason 1994, p. 277.</ref> Testing was successful and an order for 80 was placed as the Bombay in July 1937.<ref name ="mason bomber p277"/><ref name="AE18 p4">Cooling 1982, p. 4.</ref> These differed from the prototype in having more powerful (Template:Convert) engines driving three-bladed Rotol variable-pitch propellers, discarding the wheel spats fitted to the undercarriage main wheels in the prototype.<ref name ="mason bomber p277-8">Mason 1994, pp. 277–278.</ref><ref name="barnes p250-1">Barnes 1964, pp. 250–251.</ref> As Bristol's Filton factory was busy building the more urgent Blenheim light bomber, the production aircraft were built by Short & Harland (owned by Short Brothers and Harland and Wolff) of Belfast.<ref name="mason bomber p277"/><ref name="barnes p251">Barnes 1964, p. 251.</ref> The complex nature of the Bombay's wing delayed production at Belfast. The first Bombay was not delivered until 1939 and the last 30 were cancelled.<ref name="mason bomber p277"/><ref name ="mason bomber p278">Mason 1994, p. 278.</ref>
Operational history
The first production Bombay flew in March 1939, with deliveries to No. 216 Squadron RAF based in Egypt beginning in September that year.<ref name="barnes p251"/> Although it was outclassed as a bomber for the European theatre, it saw some service with British-based 271 Squadron ferrying supplies to the British Expeditionary Force in France in 1940.<ref name="barnes p251"/><ref name="mason bomber p278"/> In June 1940, French pilot Jean Demozay used an abandoned Bombay to ferry himself and 15 troops from France to England, after which he became an ace with the RAF.<ref name ="Demozay">Ketley 1999, p. 45.</ref>
The Bombay's main service was in the Middle East, particularly with 216 Squadron, which operated most of the Bombays built at some stage.<ref name="mason bomber p278"/> When the war with Italy began in June 1940, in the absence of more modern aircraft, 216 Squadron's Bombays were used as night bombers as well as in their principal role as transport aircraft.<ref name="medair1 p448">Shores, Massimello and Guest 2012, p. 448.</ref><ref name="AE18 p4-5">Cooling 1982, pp. 4–5.</ref> The design bombload of Template:Cvt bombs under the fuselage was supplemented by improvised bombs thrown out of the cargo door by hand.<ref name="mason bomber p278"/><ref name="AE18 p4-5"/> The aircraft flew bombing sorties against targets in the Western Desert, including Benghazi and Tobruk, and against Italian Somaliland, until the buildup of Vickers Wellington bombers in Egypt allowed the Bombays to concentrate on transport operations.<ref name="medair1 p448-1">Shores, Massimello and Guest 2012, pp. 448–451.</ref><ref name="dust p44">Shores 1992, p. 44.</ref>
As transports, they ferried supplies and evacuated the wounded during the Siege of Tobruk,<ref name="AE p5">Cooling 1982, p. 5.</ref> and on 2 May 1941, Bombays of 216 Squadron evacuated the Greek Royal Family from Crete to Egypt.<ref name="barnes p251"/> Later that month, Bombays played an important role in ferrying troops during the Anglo-Iraqi War.<ref name="barnes p251"/><ref name="dust p176,89,93">Shores 1992, pp. 176, 189, 193.</ref> Five Bombays were used by the fledgling SAS in their first official operation in the Middle East, a parachute drop on five forward German aerodromes on 17 November 1941.<ref name="medair1 p309-0">Shores, Massimello and Guest 2012, pp. 309–310</ref>
Lieutenant General William Gott, the highest ranking British officer killed in the war, died when a Bombay piloted by Hugh James in which he was being carried was shot down in the Western Desert on 7 August 1942. He was about to assume command of Eighth Army from General Claude Auchinleck who had been removed as Commander-in-Chief Middle East and had been directing the Army directly after dismissing its commander Neil Ritchie. His death opened the way for General Bernard Montgomery to take over.<ref name="ae18 p7">Cooling 1982, p. 17.</ref>
Bombays evacuated over 2,000 wounded during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, and one crew was credited with carrying 6,000 casualties from Sicily and Italy before the type was finally withdrawn from use in 1944.<ref name="barnes p251-2">Barnes 1964, pp. 251–252.</ref><ref name="AE18 p10"/>
Variants
- Type 130 : Prototype.<ref name="barnes p249"/>
- Type 130A Bombay Mk I : Twin-engined medium bomber and troop transport aircraft. Original designation Type 130 Mark II.<ref name="barnes p250"/><ref name="barnes p386">Barnes 1964, p. 386.</ref>
- Type 137A Proposed civil transport version. Unbuilt.<ref name="barnes p250">Barnes 1964, p. 250.</ref>
- Type 137B Combi version of Type 137A. Unbuilt.
- Type 144 Unbuilt development with retractable undercarriage proposed for Specification B.4/34 (won by Handley Page Harrow).<ref name="barnes p250"/>
Operators
- Royal Australian Air Force
- No. 1 Air Ambulance Unit RAAF<ref name="AE18 p10">Cooling 1982, p. 10.</ref>
- Royal Air Force<ref name="mason bomber p278"/>
- No. 117 Squadron RAF formed from C Flight of 216 Squadron in Apr 1941 and used the Bombay until November 1941 at Khartoum
- No. 216 Squadron RAF used the Bombay from October 1939 to May 1943 and based in Egypt (Heliopolis, El Khnaka and Cairo West)
- No. 271 Squadron RAF used the Bombay from May 1940 to February 1941 at RAF Doncaster, England