Bristol company demonstrator G-AAHH

I would love to get high res copies of the Demonstrator photos, particularly with the fairing stripped off, as they show a wealth of technical detail and bracketry. Along the bottom are the grease nipples that allowed remote greasing of hinged components throughout the airframe, a ‘selling point’ that for ‘ease of maintenance’ that nudged out Camm and Hawkers in favour of Bristol for the 1929 RAF fighter contract. The fabric work on the Demonstrator looks superb.

More Bulldog

Here’s a picture of a Bulldog ready for flight, if you can burble your lips convincingly, because too much Bulldog eye candy is not enough !

Wind generator

I have seen photos of wind powered generator in the same position, but attached only to front bracket. I have also seen photos of wind generator on starboard side, where I figure the port side was ‘reserved’ for gun camera. In this photo of a Paris Exhibition Bulldog in 1929, a wind generator with variable speed prop can be barely seen.

CS gun camera

Here is the gun camera fitted to the centre section, same squadron. I presume the gun camera was activated by the CC gear, linked to a hydraulic trigger on the gun. I would assume that the camera ended up on the CS to assist with claims arising from ‘leading in’ fire to an EA passing from right to left. How else could you claim a hit without showing the nose of the EA in the right hand of the picture frame? By the time the port wing mounted camera got a full side shot of the EA you could say the pilot was being trained to miss.

Camera gun

What a delightful series of photographs of the Demonstrator ! There look to be bags of ballast or smuggled gold in sacks, where the radio installation would be. A later, helmeted Jupiter and fancy exhaust collector I guess indicate a model that needed to be ‘all things to all people’. I cannot fathom what the larger, pitot like tube above the standard pitot is. Perhaps a more fancy pitot fitted by Martlesham to verify speed claims?

Here are some photos of a camera gun fitted to the offending brackets, same aeroplane from side and oblique view..

Thanks Schneiderman.
I just checked and I find similar brackets on Latvian Bulldogs on the port wing?
So I presume only used on export models??

This may have been an early Camera gun fitting. However on most Bulldogs fitted with a Camera Gun, this was carried on the top centre section and mounted to the port side. On Bulldogs the generator was normally carried on the position of the port front spar bracket. (41 Sqn had several a/c fitted with C/guns and generators)

I’m sure that I have seen a photo of some earlier a/c equipped with generators fitted with a long tubular ‘tail’ to the rear spar to add rigidity (but not on Bulldogs IIRC and I think that it may have been a 22 Sqn Bristol F2B).

To add to a different subject the Fox Moth has a drain fitted to the U bend (which is why it’s there). “The long straight pipe device” is the rigging wire anti chafe tube.

John

Images online show Latvian and Swedish Bulldogs with similar brackets on the starboard wing for a windmill generator

Sems rather heavy duty for a few sensors – I suggest a camera gun mounting.

Airspeed indicator measurement and altitude measurement – presumably out there clear of the prop-wash. Someone with the knowledge of how they work will be along shortly (I hope). Apparently the two small tubes on a Tiger Moth are both straight, on a Fox Moth the lower one has a ‘U-bend’ built in.

Photo is from the starboard side of DH.83C Fox Moth G-AOJH, sometime in the period 1957/60, airfield location is spelt out on the roof of Hangar 1 (that has got every viewer leaning forward tilting their head to examine their PC screen!).

Same Airport, but this ground shot is outside No.2 hangar. The twin tube device can be just about discerned mid way up on the forward strut. The longer straight ‘pipe’ device appears to be removed, the straight line I reckon to be the top of the passenger door as it does not project ahead of the wing strut. This shot is a little later 1960/1961 being my estimate. Harry Patterson is likely the pilot as the aircraft is about to depart on another pleasure flight from outside the east wing of the Airport terminal.

Hi Duggy

Just a guess on my part but it looks to me like a temperature/pressure sensor already attached to the port interplane struts so perhaps the brackets were an alternative location for the same. The positioning is obviously at the front and rear spar but the brackets barely look sufficient to attach anything more sinister like a weapon, although they are placed to put them outside of the prop arc but that could equally be a requirement for a weapon firing something or a sensor needing to be in clean air. Short answer I don’t know.

Richard