72 Vol. 10 / No. 4 / April 2018 Global Aviator
A bit of history
During the early-1930s the
concept of a turret-armed two
seat fighter seemed a natural
progression from the current
types in RAF service. The
genesis of that theory could
well be traced to the Bristol
F2B, one of the most successful
aircraft to emerge from
World War I. Its achievements
bore comparison with such
iconic types as the Sopwith
Camel and SE5A.
While the Bristol was to remain
in overseas RAF service until 1930,
both the Camel and SE5 were rapidly
withdrawn from operations following
the armistice. Clearly there was no
future for the fractious Camel in the
civil domain, but the more amenable
SE5 did find a niche in post war air
races, and with some examples doing
service as advertising skywriters.
Financial restrictions hampered
fighter development during the 1920s;
and until 1922 Great Britain’s sole fighter
defence was represented by a single
squadron of the Camel’s successor,
the Sopwith Snipe. As a typical rotary-
engined scout from the Great War it was
already an anachronism among the new
types that had begun to replace it around- The Snipe’s successors, typified by
the Woodcock, Siskin and Grebe showed
some advances but realistically, with
their open cockpits and two machine
guns, no great changes had occurred.
Meanwhile at Hawkers, Sydney
Camm and his design team had created
a day bomber that would change
completely the current fighter tactics.
This was the Hart, which proved to
be one of the RAF’s most adaptable
biplanes and for its time one of the
fastest. Its superiority was graphically
shown at the 1930 Air Exercises
when the defending Siskins tried in
vain to catch them. It was patently
clear to the Air Ministry that it was
time for meaningful advancement in
fighter aircraft. Again it was Hawkers
who provided the solution. Their
response was the Fury; surely the most
elegant of biplane interceptors, with
a maximum speed over 200mph
Since 1918 the two-seat fighter
concept had been largely ignored; so it
was a straightforward step for Hawkers
to design a fighter version of the Hart.
This emerged as the Demon, armed with
two forward-firing Vickers guns and a
Lewis gun mounted on a ring in the cut-
away rear cockpit. But with increasing
speeds the problems of accuracy and
comfort for the gunner were becoming
manifest. This led to a partial solution,
with the so-called ‘Lobster back’
hydraulic turret, which went some way
to improve conditions for the gunner.
However, it was not only the
fighter crew that were experiencing
slipstream problems. Boulton Paul
had produced a promising biplane
medium bomber, and in 1926 it wentThe flawed Defiant
By Murray McLeodRoyal Air Force Boulton Paul Defiant Mk Is of
No. 264 Squadron RAF (including L7026 "PS-V"
and N1535 "PS-A") based at Kirton-in-Lindsey,
Lincolnshire, August 1940 - B.J. Daventry, Royal
Air Force official photographer.