The Fairey Battle is a British single-engine light bomber that was designed and manufactured by the Fairey Aviation Company. It was developed during the mid-1930s for the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a monoplane successor to the Hawker Hart and Hind biplanes. The Battle was powered by the same high-performance Rolls-Royce Merlin piston engine that powered various contemporary British fighters such as the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire. As the Battle, with its three-man crew and bomb load, was much heavier than the fighters, it was therefore much slower. Though a great improvement over the aircraft that preceded it, its relatively slow speed, limited range and inadequate defensive armament of only two .303 (7.7 mm) machine guns left it highly vulnerable to enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire.Ethell 1995, p. 177.
The Fairey Battle was used on operations early in the Second World War. During the "Phoney War" the type achieved the distinction of scoring the first aerial victory of an RAF aircraft in the conflict. From 10 to 14 May 1940, the Battles of the Advanced Air Striking Force suffered many losses, frequently in excess of 50 per cent of aircraft sorties per mission. By the end of 1940 the type had been withdrawn from front-line service and relegated to training units overseas. As an aircraft that had been considered to hold great promise in the pre-war era, the Battle proved to be one of the most disappointing aircraft in RAF service.
Development
Origins In April 1933, the British Air Ministry issued Specification P.27/32 which sought a two-seat single-engine monoplane day bomber to replace the Hawker Hart and Hind biplane bombers then in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). A requirement of the prospective aircraft was to be capable of carrying of bombs over a distance of while flying at a speed of . According to aviation author Tony Buttler, during the early 1920s, Britain had principally envisioned that a war with France as its enemy and the range to reach Paris was sought.Buttler 2004, p. 65. According to aerospace publication Air International, a key motivational factor in the Air Ministry's development of Specification P.27/32 had been for the corresponding aircraft to act as an insurance policy in the event that heavier bombers were banned by the 1932 Geneva Disarmament Conference.Air International March 1981, p. 127.
The Fairey Aviation Company were keen to produce a design to meet the demands of Specification P.27/32 and commenced work upon such a design. The Belgian aeronautical engineer Marcel Lobelle served as the aircraft's principal designer. One of the early decisions made by Lobelle on the project was the use of the newly developed Rolls-Royce Merlin I engine, which had been selected due to its favourable power and compact frontal area. The Merlin engine was quickly paired to a de Havilland Propellers-built three-bladed variable-pitch propeller unit. The choice of engine enabled the designing of the aircraft to possess exceptionally clean lines and a subsequently generous speed performance. The resulting design was an all-metal single-engine aircraft, which adopted a low-mounted cantilever monoplane wing and was equipped with a retractable tail wheel undercarriage.
A total of four companies decided to formally respond to Specification P.27/32, these being the Fairey, Hawker Aircraft, Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft, and Bristol Aeroplane Company.Moyes 1967, p. 3. Of the submissions made, the Air Ministry selected Armstrong Whitworth and Fairey to produce prototypes to demonstrate their designs. On 10 March 1936, the first Fairey prototype, K4303, equipped with a Merlin I engine capable of generating , performed its maiden flight at Hayes, Middlesex.Mason 1994, p. 285. The prototype was promptly transferred to RAF Martlesham Heath, Woodbridge, Suffolk for service trials, during which it attained a maximum speed of 257 MPH and reportedly achieved a performance in advance of any contemporary day bomber.
Even prior to the first flight of the prototype, some members of the Air Staff had concluded that both the specified range and bomb load, to which the aircraft had been designed, were insufficient to enable its viable use in a prospective conflict with a re-emergent Germany. Despite these performance concerns, there was also considerable pressure for the Battle to be rapidly placed into mass production in order that it could contribute to a wider increase of the RAF's frontline combat aircraft strength in line with similar strides being made during the 1930s by the German Luftwaffe. As such, the initial production order placed for the type, for the manufacture of 155 aircraft built as per the requirements of Specification P.23/35, which had received the name Battle, had been issued in advance of the first flight of the prototype.
Production
In 1936, further orders were placed for Fairey to build additional Battles to Specification P.14/36. In June 1937, the first production Battle, K7558, conducted its maiden flight. K7558 was later used to perform a series of official handling and performance trials in advance to the wider introduction of the type to operational service. During these trials, it demonstrated the Battle's ability to conduct missions of a 1,000-mile range while under a full bomb load. The first 136 Fairey-built Battles were the first aircraft to be powered by the Merlin I engine. By the end of 1937, 85 Battles had been completed and a number of RAF squadrons had been re-equipped with the type, or were otherwise in the process of re-equipping. As the RAF embarked on what became a substantial pre-war expansion programme, the Battle was promptly recognised as being a priority production target. At one point a total of 2,419 aircraft were on order for the service.Moyes 1971, p. 120. In June 1937, the first aircraft was completed at Hayes, but all subsequent aircraft were manufactured at Fairey's newly completed factory at Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheshire.Orbis 1985, p. 1693.
Completed aircraft were promptly dispatched for testing at the company's facility adjacent to RAF Ringway, about 6 miles away. A total of 1,156 aircraft were produced by Fairey. Subsequently, as part of government-led wartime production planning, a shadow factory operated by the Austin Motor Company at Cofton Hackett in Longbridge, also produced the type, manufacturing a total of 1,029 aircraft to Specification P.32/36. On 22 July 1938, the first Austin-built Battle, L4935, conducted its maiden flight. Concerns that the aircraft was obsolete had become widespread but due to the difficulties associated with getting other aircraft types into production and the labour force having already been established, stop-gap orders were maintained and production continued at a steady rate until late 1940.Moyes 1967, p. 6.
Sixteen Battles were built by Fairey for the Belgian Air Force and were delivered in early 1938, differentiated from British-built examples by having a longer radiator cowling and a smoother camouflage finish.Huntley, 2004, p.8, 12 In September 1940, production ended and the final assembly lines were shuttered. Production of the Battle was 2,201 machines, including the 16 for Belgium. Battles that had been built as bombers were later converted to serve in different roles, such as target tugs and trainer aircraft.
Design
The Fairey Battle was a single-engine monoplane light bomber, powered by a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. Production aircraft were progressively powered by various models of the Merlin engine, such as the Merlin I, II, III (most numerous) and V but all bomber variants were called the Battle Mk I. The Battle had a relatively clean design, having adopted a slim oval-shaped fuselage which was manufactured in two sections. The forward section, in front of the cockpit, included a steel tubular structure to support the engine. The rear section was a metal monocoque structure, composed of hoop frames and Z-section stringers, built on jigs.Moyes 1967, pp. 3–4. The structure of the aircraft involved several innovations and firsts for Fairey: it had the distinction of being the company's first low-wing monoplane; it also was the first light-alloy stressed-skin construction aircraft to be produced by the firm.
The wing of the Battle used a two-part construction, the centre section being integral with the fuselage.Moyes 1967, p. 4. The internal structure of the wings relied upon steel spars which varied in dimension towards the wing tips; the ailerons, elevators and rudder all were metal-framed with fabric coverings, while the split trailing edge flaps were entirely composed of metal.
The Battle had a crew of three, pilot, observer/bomb aimer and radio operator/air gunner, under a continuous canopy between the two cockpits set at the leading and trailing edges of the wing. The aircraft had a fixed .303 Browning machine gun mounted in the starboard wing for the pilot and a free .303 Vickers K machine gun in the rear cockpit for the gunner. The observer–navigator was behind and below the pilot in a cabin within the fuselage. The bomb aiming position was in the bottom of the aircraft with sighting done in a prone position through an open aiming panel behind the radiator outlet. If the pilot's canopy was open a rush of hot air and oil mist from the radiator through the open panel would prevent the bomb aimer from using the Mk. VII Course Setting Bomb Sight."Fairey Battle – Designed for Mass Production". Flight , 19 August 1937, pp. 189–192.
The armament and crew of the aircraft were similar to the Bristol Blenheim bomber: three crew, 1,000 lbs standard bomb load and two machine guns, although the Battle was a single-engine bomber with less horsepower.Air International March 1981, p. 128. The Battle had a standard payload of four GP bombs which was carried in cells contained within the internal space of the wings.Huntley, 2004, pp.36–39 Maximum bomb load was , with two additional bombs on under-wing racks or with two bombs carried externally under bomb bays and two bombs on under-wing racks. The bombs were mounted on hydraulic jacks and were normally released via trap doors; during a dive bombing attack, they were lowered below the surface of the wing.
The Battle was a robust aircraft which was frequently described as being easy to fly, even for relatively inexperienced pilots.Moyes 1967, pp. 4–5. The pilot was provided with good external visibility and the cockpit was considered to be roomy and comfortable for the era but the tasks of simultaneously deploying the flaps and the retractable undercarriage, which included a safety catch, has been highlighted as posing considerable complication. Climate control within the cockpit was also reportedly poor.Moyes 1967, p. 5. By the time that the Battle was entering service in 1937 it had already been rendered obsolete by the rapid advances in aircraft technology. The performance and capabilities of fighter aircraft had increased to outstrip the modest performance gains that the light bomber had achieved over its biplane antecedents.Taylor 1969, p. 358.