Part 5 0.6 The Butterflys appear on the flight line
Over at Fighter Command there had been changes as well, Air Commodore Arthur Harris was due to take up the post of Senior Air Staff Officer Fighter Command in July 1938. Group Captain Keith Park was scheduled to go to Palestine. Unfortunately, in April Park was hospitalised with a case of acute streptococcal pharyngitis which rendered him unfit for overseas service, coupled with Harris pestering the CAS about sending him to serve somewhere tropical with his new wife. Sir Cyril Newall simply had the appointments swapped and a happy Sir Harris and his new wife disappeared of to Palestine.
After a month on sick leave the newly promoted Air Commodore Park would arrive as the second in command of Fighter Command with responsibility for fighting efficiency. Having earlier in 1938 been flying Hawker Fury fighters as commander of Tangmere air station Park set out whilst still on leave to qualify to fly all the latest fighter aircraft either in service or proposed for Fighter Command. In short order Park had carried out a familiarisation flight in a Miles Kestrel and when he had flown solo in it had progressed on to fly a Hurricane and a Henley (at Hawker’s Great western Airfield), a Spitfire (at Eastleigh), a Folland Fulmar (the 2nd Prototype at Hamble) and at Martlesham both Defiant types, The Gloster Guardian and the little Vickers Vemon. The two aircraft on the south coast had been flown as an interluded during a weeks sailing whilst on sick leave. Hawker’s had been visited on his way to Martlesham and then onto Fighter Command headquarters at Bentley Priory in Stanmore to take up his post.
Upon commencing work at Fighter Command headquarters Park quickly struck up a rapport with Sir Hugh Dowding. Having been to Martlesham on his ‘Flying Tour’ Keith Park soon returned there as part of a visit to Bawdsey Manor to learn about RDF and how Fighter Command would utilize the CH system then being constructed and commissioned. Whilst at Bawdsey Manor Park was introduced to ‘Taffy’ Bowen who briefed him on the progress with AI RDF1.5 and 2. Then Keith Park was taken for a flight in an Anson for a practical demonstration of both system. Before returning to Bentley Priory Squadron Leader Hart and his team in operational research illustrated the limitations of the current hardware and operating procedure and the difficulties that would need to be surmounted to arrive at an operational system. Air Commodore Keith Park returned to Bentley Priory with much to ponder on. if the CH system was showing promise and could provide the answer to daytime Bombers then the AI system was struggling valiantly to catch up in the night.
At a meeting of the Air Council to consider which aircraft were to proceed to construction status and to adoption by the RAF a final decision on the production for the Bolton and Paul Defiant. The discussion on whether to proceed with the original turret fighter as conceived or to build the revised four cannon armed single seat fighter was to all intents and purpose resolved by Air Commodore Keith Park, whom Sir Hugh Dowding had arranged to attend the meeting, when he made the following observations having flown both version of the aircraft. Firstly the turret version only carried half the armament currently considered necessary to score a quick kill against an enemy bomber having only four rifle calibre machine guns against the eight carried by the Spitfire and Hurricane. Secondly unlike the Bristol fighter the success of which the turret fighter is supposed to emulate the defiant has no forward firing guns. Finally having flown in and seen combat in the Bristol Fighter during the Great War Park reiterated that most kills achieved by the Bristol Fighter were with the forward firing guns.
With the shadow factory scheme for the increase in production going ahead another means of increasing capacity was considered. This was the use of subcontractors to build aircraft sections for later assembly into complete aircraft. For this purpose a specifications 17/38 and B.18/38 were issued for a twin engine reconnaissance bomber designed for rapid construction from nonstrategic materials by labour formerly unskilled in aircraft production. Two designs were considered, the Bristol Type 155 originally designed to specification B9/38 and a design designated D.H.97 from De Haviland. The B.18/38 specification was issued to Armstrong Whitworth for the development of the design from the Bristol type 155 optimised for subcontract construction from non strategic materials. De Haviland proposed their Modified D.H.95 Flamingo design that was due to have it’s first flight in June. The AM decision was to order the Armstrong Whitworth Albermarle off the drawing board. This aircraft was to use either the Bristol Hercules or the Alvis Maeonides two row radial engines. The D.H.95 Flamingo was being built to the specification 10/36 and that had not required and was not therefore optimised for sub contract and non strategic material construction.
As scheduled in June the first prototype of the D.H. 95 Flamingo to specification 10/36 flew from the De Haviland Factory field ,This aircraft was powered by a pair of Alvis Pelides engines. The Flamingo was a modification of the private venture D.H.95 passenger aircraft modified to conform as closely as the existing De Haviland deign permitted to specification G.24/35 re issued as part of specification 10/36. To cope with the increase in weight that the design modifications would incur the engine had been changed from the original twin Bristol Perseus engines of 930 Hp each to twin Alvis Pelides engines of 1050Hp each. Initial flight testing by De Haviland indicated that the Flamingo would fulfil all the expectations of the AM. The single engine performance was particularly noted as the aircraft had the ability to climb away on a single engine once airborne from take off. With the concerns being expressed about the performance of the Blackburn Botha design, which was considered severely underpowered. Both the Beaufort and the Flamingo had been redesigned to take more powerful engine than the original 10/36 specification requested. A review was undertaken by the AEE, and the AMR&D and it was recommended that the Blackburn Botha be cancelled and the Brough factory turned over to the production of the De Haviland flamingo as The De Haviland factories were already working at very nearly their capacity.
Despite a debate which at times became quite heated regarding the waste and potential delay into service, of the aircraft to fulfil specification 10/36, which would result from this late change the advantages of the De Haviland design and it’s larger engines finally held sway. Blackburn, who were by now getting fatally familiar with having their own designs cancelled and promptly replaced with the construction of another company’s design, figuratively speaking rolled up their sleeves and simply got on with the job, reassuring the AM that they would do all possible to have the first Flamingo entering service as soon as possible and the entire Order of 240 machines completed as quickly as the original schedule for the Botha.