Hudsons without turrets

Flypast Dec2012—-Hudson feature

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A few points additional to the articles.

Whilst the Lockheed 14 is attributed to both Hibbard Hall and KellyJohnson, it was Johnson who got the Sperry award for its flap design, and Johnson who set up a hired drawing board in his temporary Mayfair apartment in the Summer of 1938 and produced the outline drawings of the conversion from Lockheed 14 to the Hudson whilst daily visiting the Air Ministry so it’s fair to credit him as the designer of the Hudson.

The British Airways Ltd Lockheed 14 operation at Heston was heavily involved with training future RAF Hudson pilots from November 1938 before any Hudsons arrived and from then until the war broke out RAF pilots would commonly be found acting as co-pilots on BA Ltd’s flights to Poland and Hungary across Germany

It would be interesting to find out how many Hudson turrets were manufactured by Boulton-Paul (the RAF received ca. 1600 Hudsons apparently)…a considerable number of Hudsons appear to have been pressed straight into transport use with the temporary Lockheed ferry fairing still in place including some civil specimens with BOAC (e.g. on the Sweden run) and the famous G-AGAR photo-reconnaissance mount of Sidney Cotton.

There is a letter in the NA from the British Air Commission (Jan 1942) suggesting the later Hudsons were produced with cabin fitments which could be readily converted to allow plywood seats to be fitted and 800 seat sets were mentioned

Hudsons with Sidney Cotton

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There are photos of Hudson G-AGAR and the oddly camouflaged Hudson which was shot down by friendly fire over Kent killing Dennis Slocum in 1940 on
http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=58110

and http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=28306&st=20