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Bristol Type 142S 'Shipboard Blenheim'The 1939 Bristol Type 142S (Shipboard) was a
Blenheim Mk.I variant which was being prepared for the 1940 Paris Salon. Never completed, the Type 142S was a bit of propagandistic nonsense intended to deceive German Intelligence as to British naval capabilities.
The standard
Blenheim was far too large to operated from existing aircraft carriers. One goal of the Type 142S was to convince German planners that the Royal Navy would soon be able to launch medium bombers against targets in Germany from flight decks in the North Sea. To that end, a non-flying mockup of a shipboard
Blenheim was to created from the components of several
Blenheim Mk.I wrecks.
The Type 142S retained the identity of its forward fuselage component - K7036. To suit shipboard use, the outer wing panels were fitted with folding points. The added weight of 'navalisation' was to be countered by replacing the
Blenheim's 840 hp
Mercury engines with more powerful 1,100 hp Bristol
Taurus twin-row radials. To facilitate this engine change, K7036 received the complete nacelles and main undercarriage from the new Type 152
Beaufort torpedo bomber.
(
Top) Bristol Type 142S '
Shipboard Blenheim' airframe being test fitted with torpedo gear. For take off (and landing, if necessary), the was angled nose downward to increase ground clearance for the torpedo.
With the declaration of war, all work on the '
Shipboard Blenheim' ruse was halted. No foldable outer wing panels were ever built. The fuselage was returned to fore and aft section for use in repair of existing
Blenheims.
'Recce Blenheim' RevisedIn the lead-up to WW2, the RAF had assumed that standard
Blenheim bomber units would be capable of performing all long-range photographic reconnaissance tasks. The concept was that the bombers would be able to fight their way through aerial defences, take photographs, and then fight their way back to Allied lines. Bristol was less certain that its twin-gunned
Blenheim bomber would survive such missions.
In late 1939, Bristols re-delivered
Blenheim Mk.I L1348 reworked as a high-speed photo recce platform. The airframe was 'cleaned up' with skin joins filled with plaster of Paris and then rubbed smooth, a streamlined nose-cap added, turret removed, wingtips clipped, and other refinements. The result was a 22 mph increase in maximum speed at 8,000 feet. A useful improvement in performance but not sufficient to avoid interception by German fighters.
To increase '
Recce Blenheim' top speed further, more power was required. To that end, the wing centre section and engine nacelles from the incomplete Type 142S were transferred to the '
Recce Blenheim' prototype. At the same time, the entire airframe was stripped and refinished in a new Medium Blue paintwork. [1] At a stroke, this re-engined Type 142P '
Recce Blenheim' was capable of 'dash' speeds in excess of 320 mph at 9,000 feet.
(
Bottom) Type 142P '
Recce Blenheim' of No.2 Camouflage Unit as delivered in June 1940. This aircraft was lost on a PR mission to Ostend in September 1940.
The
Taurus-engined '
Recce Blenheim' proved a one-off. Seeking further performance gains, production Type 142Ps (all built by AV Roe at Chadderton) were powered by Rolls-Royce
Merlin inline engines.
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[1] Medium Blue (or PR Blue as it became known) replaced the earlier
Camotint finish which had proved ineffective at higher altitudes.
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