East Kirkby Hampden rebuild

I would take with a pinch of salt what Guy Gibson quotes, as he claims to have shot down two German bombers at night in a Hampden, with one fixed 303 Browning machine gun with 400 rounds of ammo aimed by a ring and bead sight, in the dark, at night !

I can’t find any reference to these claims. Only one claim for a probable over Lorient 24/24 August ’40 on behalf of his gunners. This is referenced to ‘Those Other Eagles’, Shores, 2004, page 210, but unless this was some form of freelance intruder op the raid certainly doesn’t show in Middlebrook/Everett for that date.

Enemy Coast Ahead (full version) mentions the incident, during a minelaying trip to Lorient, giving full credit to the gunners.

Can you point us in the direction?

Moggy

I would take with a pinch of salt what Guy Gibson quotes, as he claims to have shot down two German bombers at night in a Hampden, with one fixed 303 Browning machine gun with 400 rounds of ammo aimed by a ring and bead sight, in the dark, at night !

I can’t find any reference to these claims. Only one claim for a probable over Lorient 24/24 August ’40 on behalf of his gunners. This is referenced to ‘Those Other Eagles’, Shores, 2004, page 210, but unless this was some form of freelance intruder op the raid certainly doesn’t show in Middlebrook/Everett for that date.

Enemy Coast Ahead (full version) mentions the incident, during a minelaying trip to Lorient, giving full credit to the gunners.

Can you point us in the direction?

Moggy

I love the website update, especially about the history of the Hampden in Sweden, the recovery, the beginning of the project and the current progress.

Thanks very much, the pics are a great help.
🙂
Cees

I love the website update, especially about the history of the Hampden in Sweden, the recovery, the beginning of the project and the current progress.

Thanks very much, the pics are a great help.
🙂
Cees

I’m not sure about the quoted bombload HP – contemporary reports suggest that actually the bombload carried in war operations was much less. Guy Gibson was reported as writing that he was not sure he would be able to take off with a 2,000lb bomb load when he was on Hampdens..

I have the drawings to prove the bomb loads, but you are right, in operational conditions the bomb load could be less, especially when heading for targets at extreme range and operating from grass airfields.

I would take with a pinch of salt what Guy Gibson quotes, as he claims to have shot down two German bombers at night in a Hampden, with one fixed 303 Browning machine gun with 400 rounds of ammo aimed by a ring and bead sight, in the dark, at night !

Drawings

I was at Woodford when one day many ,many moons ago large delta things arrived (18 victors by air and one by road) followed by lorry loads of stuff including the drawings and archives from HP at Radlet. Now I know a lot of time was spent putting drawings on to film and it was all stored in the tech archive library at Woodford. Now then where it has all gone since BA shut Woodford i don’t know but the stuff did survive as myself and a few others spent many happy lunch hours browsing through the stuff and you would be amazed at the stuff that was in there.Yes the actual drawings lofts etc all got thrown into skips but some of it did not stay there but sadly you can only get so much in the boot of ones car during Saturday morning overtime before the skips went to the tip.

You could try Avro heritage at Woodford they may know to the fate of some of it but if its anything like the Whirlwind archive drawings they are around about eight different collections un indexed or because they haven’t got time to deal with your inquiries as its to much hassle.Thankfully Westland still exist and they have been great but sadly their archive is very incomplete after bomb and flood damage as regards our beast.But for anyone Fairey sorry I digress they have a lot of Faireys stuff.

I have some very vague stuff on Hampden in some war time engineering books I will see if anything is relevant need to dig stuff out anyway as I have some Lancaster stuff I keep promising to send to EK,and one of our young Ladies ex Manchester now living in Lincs is helping with the project.

Mike E

www.whirlwindfighterproject.org

I’m not sure about the quoted bombload HP – contemporary reports suggest that actually the bombload carried in war operations was much less. Guy Gibson was reported as writing that he was not sure he would be able to take off with a 2,000lb bomb load when he was on Hampdens.

Official figures sometimes need to be taken with a pinch of salt – the Whitleys cruising speed was officially around 180mph. Unfortunately it was considerably slower than that.

Fantastic work and progress there HP, very sobering account of the tragic transit flight aswel.
Sorry to ask a general question here, but why was the Hampden of such limited use, lack of weapons capacity, design problems?
It looks sleek and powerful enough for a twin bomber of the period.

The Hampden was not of limited use, it could carry 4 1000lb bombs in the bomb bay, or 6 500lb bombs in the bomb bay, plus one 250 or 500lb bomb under each wing. It could also carry 2 small bomb containers or 1 1000lb sea mine. The Hampdens problems were the limited defensive armament ( it was designed in 1936 to fly faster than the fighters ) and if the pilot was killed there was no easy way to take over control of the aircraft other than to sit on his lap!. Hampdens saw widespread use in every role until larger heavy bombers came into service.

Is’nt there a rebuild project currently on the go in Linc’s ?, I had heard that a large amount of parts etc had been brought over from Canada a few years ago, to somewhere in Linc’s. Probably just wishfull thinking ?.

Bob T.

We seem to have drifted off topic! I only mentioned the Battle as an example
in respect of using 3D CAD to build up the missing parts of a restoration project.

Graham

all I can say is, total respect to those who have the effort and determination to see these projects through. A Fairey Battle would be great here in Lincs.

Is’nt there a rebuild project currently on the go in Linc’s ?, I had heard that a large amount of parts etc had been brought over from Canada a few years ago, to somewhere in Linc’s. Probably just wishfull thinking ?.

Bob T.

re;

all I can say is, total respect to those who have the effort and determination to see these projects through. A Fairey Battle would be great here in Lincs.

For recent photos of the project look at http://silksheenphotography.co.uk/ and klick on the AE436 gallery page, more images from the archives will be added soon.

Fantastic work and progress there HP, very sobering account of the tragic transit flight aswel.
Sorry to ask a general question here, but why was the Hampden of such limited use, lack of weapons capacity, design problems?
It looks sleek and powerful enough for a twin bomber of the period.

The drawings for the Hampden are far from complete, small drawings seem to have survived quite well but drawings for some of the major components i.e. the bottom longeron for the rear fuselage ( quite important ) were disgarded when Handley Page folded. Using old photos, recovered wreckage ( mostley from L4063 ) and gleaning information from assembly drawings where the part is included but there are no dimentions, this was the case for the lower part of frame 2a where I projected the assembly drawing full scale onto the wall and got the rough dimentions from that, a bit of tweaking and frame 2a was recreated.

Sounds like you need to use some CAD draughting, MAPS in Rochester
used it to good effect with the Battle cockpit using Rhino to ‘ Join up the dots ‘ If you need any assistance on that drop me a line.

Graham

Elliott,

That would be nice too, but space is one thing to consider, available drawings would be nice too. The Hampden is on in my case. I spoke to Harry Fraser-Mitchell last evening to see what’s out there and got some leads.

At the moment I am doing some research about what there is, what is needed etc (the fun bit). Are any reproduction pilot’s notes out there? Have seen the Blenheim ones, Hampden must be similar (orange cover instead of pale blue?)
Do you all want me to start a seperate thread about it?

Cees

I think it would be great if you built a Hampden.

What about a Whitley cockpit? I have tons of material including a spare pilots seat and throttle and a pattern for the control wheel. I do wish someone else would think about it.

Hi Mathieu,

Are you back yet? We have to discuss some T V business now the Aviodrome has closed it’s archives and we cannot get in Roger told me.

For what it’s worth, to make such a thing as a cockpit you have to really love the subject. The B10 doesn’t tick any boxes with me.

The Fokker T V (which looks like the prototype HP56 to me) and the
Hampden absolutely do however.

Space is an issue here, the museum doesn’t have another room spare for such a project (roughly the size of the Halifax). The Hampden is half as wide and also shorter to make the pilot’s position. Decisions decisions.
So further investigation is needed to see what’s the best option.

Cees

If the Fokker is a no-go, the Hamdpen is a very good candidate.

What do you think?

Cees

The Fokker is a go:cool:, but there is another interesting candidate. As far I know all the drawings still exist, smaller in size than the Halifax and flew for both, The Netherlands and England. Unfortunately this aircraft and its brave crewmembers are largely forgotten. A cockpit project of this aircraft could change that a little, I am talking about the:

Glenn Martin B 10!

Regards,

Mathieu.

For recent photos of the project look at http://silksheenphotography.co.uk/ and klick on the AE436 gallery page.

Just had a look……exceptional work. particularly if as you say you do not have all the drawings!

Sounds like a good idea for a project Cees – there’s plenty of reference material around. Didn’t you say there were no drawings for the Fokker?

All of the drawings for the pilots seat and panels exist, not sure about the throttle box, there is only the assembly drawing for the obsevers position nose framework (no measurments). For recent photos of the project look at http://silksheenphotography.co.uk/ and klick on the AE436 gallery page, more images from the archives will be added soon.