Why ? Why making a flying jet coffin ? Why making the Avro Bumblebee ? Well, the engineers at Avro would answer: because we could. By capturing an unexploded V-1, the engineers at Avro retro-engineered its pulsejet reactor. Hoping to make a jet-plane before the competition, notably thanks to the Gloster Meteor engines, the Rolls-Royce Welland turbojet, being troublesome and late, Avro pushed a pulsejet plane project to cut the grass right under Gloster's feet. With the German engineers having done the brunt of the job for them, they simply enlarged the engine and refined the concept before slapping it on a plane.
The early prototypes had, however, a very poor power-to-mass ratio, due to the plane being much more heavy then the simple flying bomb, even with a larger engine (or maybe because of it), they had difficulties to compress and ignite the combustion gas, leading to poor thrust. Modifications to injection and fuel, like adding high purity Peroxide to the new Kerosene fuel (replacing the Gasoline), helped to gain enough power to lift the plane without a catapult, although it could only fly for less then 5 minutes.
Finally, by giving the plane extra fuel tanks and launching them with a steam catapult (similar to carrier ones), their prototype was capable of 20 minutes flight at over 800 km/h (500 mph).
After arming it with 6 .50 caliber machine gun, Avro officially presented it to the RAF as the Avro Bumblebee. Impressed at the speed, simplicity and the possibility to match the newly arrived Me-163 Komet, the RAF authorized a testing batch to be produced. These 20 planes would however be the last ones produced. The test pilots of the RAF were pretty unsure if inexperienced pilots could handle the Bumblebee: due to the compression problems, the engine could barely be throttled thus meaning that the plane was virtually under a constant acceleration for 20 minutes. Unforgiving, any mistakes pretty much meant either the death of the pilot, plane, or both, as Eric Brown almost learned the hard way when he tried to restart the engine after voluntarily stopping it mid-flight. Refusing to restart, the critical engine failure forced Brown to parachute after making gliding maneuvers to slow down. With the
Supermarine Comet coming into production to fill the gap until the Gloster Meteor arrival, the RAF didn't needed the dangerous plane anymore.
Despite fixing many problems, making the combustion frequency adjustable for better throttling, adding advanced components like a single-seat Radar lay-out and pushing the Bumblebee again, the firm refusal from the government and the end of the war meant that the Avro Bumblebee was forced into early retirement. While the RAF pilots corps might have collectively sighted of relief, the Avro engineers mourned what they considered one of the most advanced British design.
