Brigand TF1

Very nice display model!
No expert, but looks like a simple desktop model, like those wooden ones you can get today.

Good to see the oft’ forgotten Bristol Brigand getting some attention.

Rob

Oh, certainly not forgotten.
in game WarThunder
[ATTACH=CONFIG]261200[/ATTACH]

Wonderful!

Thank you very much Smirky.

That rig is a credit to its creator

Brigand B1

Latest picture of the Brigand rig from Cockpitfest and the picture from the Pilot’s notes … 🙂

Hello again Supermarine305, I’ll make sure that your thanks are passed on!

I can’t find any reference to alternative armaments for the torpedo bomber, but what did surprise me was that the cannon were paired, so the one large opening visible is not for one very large gun but two Hispanos.

I am going to have to ask my dad more questions about those gun openings ….. looking at one of the Brigands with a torpedo on it does look like it had 2 large openings the same as the model .. found this picture from my dads collection … i will see if he took it and knows anything about them (My dad is Terry the author of “Brigand Boys”):

[ATTACH=CONFIG]260742[/ATTACH]

Thank TwinOtter. And please pass those thanks onto your contacts too.

I am beginning to quite like the Brigand and its always nice when there news of more Brigand bits about.

Hi there Supermarine305, here’s the feedback that I have elicited so far on the cockpit photo request:

“I’m afraid I can’t help immediately as it is all in bits for painting before final assembly.

By way of limiting expectations, it is a fuselage shaped section about 18″ deep which carries the pilot’ s instrument panels and gunsight. (No yoke, seat or engines.)

I will send a picture as soon as it comes together.”

More info if and when it comes through!!

In my honest opinion I think the patina of the model is perfect.

Its showing its age well

I’ll clean up the model and (hopefully!) take better photographs of it and have them posted. I’d still like to know why a brass model was made of it! Perhaps we’ll never know

Steve P, thank you. I would’t know enough to be sure.

That looks like a 200 gal. fuel tank also fitted to the Beaufighter and Welkin in the final Tangmere shot.

TwinOtter.

Thank you.

Rosevidney1: As you say in post #6 this isn’t a windtunnel model. I would go so far as to say its is purely for display.

I do not think the large recesses were experimental and actually made it onto production aircraft. But here its sadly a case of looking at grainy images.
The last picture on the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum website. But this aircraft looks like the prototype posted my Longshot just above. And I overlooked what was slung beneath it: is that a torpedo -it looks a bit chunky- or an external fuel tank?)

The picture on the Wikipedia page also seems to show this.

And Scotavia has provided link to Brigand Boys and if you look at the top of the page, the squadron assembled before a Brigand, and I can just make out the two large recesses instead of four.

It even appears in the old Valom Brigand B1 model kit. Okay, being Valom accuracy is hardly consistent, but I doubt it would be modelled after an unbuilt prototype.

Farnborough 1945 …[ATTACH=CONFIG]260665[/ATTACH]
interesting background

Good to see the oft’ forgotten Bristol Brigand getting some attention.

Rob[ATTACH=CONFIG]260660[/ATTACH]

I’ll make some enquiries Supermarine305 and see if I can obtain any photos – if I do I’m not sure whether I’d be able to upload them!

In answer to Supermarine305: I can see why you might think that, but only the first 5 TF1s ever had a torpedo slung underneath and they were quickly modified to B1 standard. This was long before problems arose with the long barrelled 20 mm cannon.

My opinion is that it was for an unbuilt project of the TF where 2 larger calibre weapons would be employed in its anti-shipping role. What calibre these may have been is anyones guess. I also cannot understand why this model was made of brass. I had it from JD ‘Doug’ Oughton who was involved flying most of the torpedo trials. Perhaps the model is unique!

TwinOtter, I would love to see a picture of that Brigand Rig.

Longshot: That puzzled me since you brought it up and maybe it was a model experimental instillation of a heavier calibre weapon or it was a simple error in the model.
This is what I assumed all Brigand gun instillations were like: [ATTACH=CONFIG]260637[/ATTACH]

Though that isn’t what all Brigands were like. In the last image on the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum webpage on the Brigand you can just see a larger recess. (As a side note they seem to have forgotten about the fuselage of RH746 now currently in store at Cosford).

I don’t have anything on the Brigand at home and good images of the underside of Brigands seems to be thin on the ground online.
(The most clear images I have found are on the WarThunder website. No idea how accurate that is mind.)

However I recall that there was a problem with the guns on the Brigand and Wikipedia (I know) does shed light on that:

An accumulation of gases in the long cannon blast tubes, which ran under the cockpit, were igniting through use of high-explosive shells. This in turn severed hydraulic lines, which would burn, so that in effect the Brigands were shooting themselves down. This was cured by drastically reducing ammunition loads and using only ball rounds

Looks like the model shows a modification to prevent the accumulation of gas in the cannons.

Which would suggest to me that the model was made well into the service life of the Brigand (and well past the point anyone would have thought it likely to be used as a torpedo bomber)