Four-engined Whitley and Wellington?

I think the question to the original question would have to be “to what end?”
The Whitley and Wellington were both firmly medium bombers, with maximum bomb loads of 7000lb and 4500lb respectively. The Manchester was always intended to be a heavy, with a bombload over 10,000lb. On checking, the MTOW for the Whitley was around 33,000lb – HALF that of a Lancaster!

Also the Manchester was more aerodynamically refined, and a pioneering airframe in modular construction – the same basic design was stretched into the Lancaster and later the Lincoln by such simple measures as increasing the spacing of the ribs in the wings, adding wingtip extensions etc.

Really, what it boils down to is that the Whitley and Wellington were first generation monoplane bombers, whereas the Manchester was second generation.

The Windsor is an odd thing in hindsight, and it would seem useless at the time.
However it was designed to a 1942 spec as a high level, presurized heavy bomber which there weren’t too many of at the time.
I’m guessing that the fact that Bomber command medium level operations was working, and the arrival of the far superior B-29 put pay to the outdated design.

Yes the Windsor was a very different beast to the Wellington / Windsor line, it shared the same geodetic construction (surely a backward idea by 1943!)

Ahh, but geodetic was the only thing the Vickers factories were tooled up for and it was causing headaches for MAP by the end of 1941, there was a suggestion of them making a geodetic version of the Buckingham just to keep them employed.

The time that the Wellington was in construction must have a lot to do with the inability of the factories to make anything else.

Makes you wonder why the Windsor got anywhere when the idea of Barnes Wallis’s ‘Victory Bomber’ had been floating around for so long, after all it would seem to make far better use of that ‘problem’ capacity than the Windsor ever could..

Yes the Windsor was a very different beast to the Wellington / Windsor line, it shared the same geodetic construction (surely a backward idea by 1943!) but was a far bigger, faster, and striking aircraft with pressurized crew compartments, for a different spec.
I’ve certainly never heard of four engine plans for Whitley or Wellington, did the requirement exist when the Stirling and Halifax were already ordered, and the larger Manchester was looking good.

Vickers Windsor?

That was using a completely new fuselage, I was thinking minimum chnages as with Manchester/Lancaster.

I presume Vickers must have at least doodled a four-engined Warwick rather than a twin-Centaurus machine. Might have been a more realistic proposition than the Windsor, but alongside the Lanc and Halifax it would have just been more of the same.

Vickers Windsor?