So They Converted A Halifax To Carry Spit Fuselages

A few snippets from Merrick’s “Halifax” (1980-edition):
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The last one being a much later post-war oddity.

…geoff

Sorry for not looking sooner in Merrick”s HP Halifax; From Hell to Victory and Beyond. (A must for all Halifax enthusiasts.) He doesn’t have a photo, but does describe how 144 MU at Maison Blanche converted four time-expired Mk.IIs (not completely time-expired, I hope), the first in April 1944. By October the first had flown 300 hours, in November the fleet flew the same amount. Up to this date it had carried, amongst others, 20 Merlins, 13 P&W engines, and 93 passengers.

I hadn’t seen anywhere that the C Mk.VI and C Mk.VIII had a revised fuel system, but it makes sense. The Mk.III used the outer wing bay for a fuel tank: I don’t know whether this was built in as permanent structure and the opening plated over, or left removable through the existing doors – not that I suggest it ever was. It would be logical to replace the entire inner wing with one large permanent tank and a full reskinned lower surface, particularly for the Mk.VIII although I wonder a little about it happening on the C Mk.VI.

Agreed: what the US would call war-weary airframes after squadron service. I believe that I have seen reference to these carrying Merlins around. It’s good to actually see a photo, though annoying that more can’t be made out of the fairings.

The C Mk VIII and C Mk VI were Hercules powered and fitted with an improved fuelsystem and there would be no more room for wingbays.
The cargo freight pannier was lowered to the ground as a complete unit and after loading winched back up again.
IMHO this is a makeshift improvised means of transporting truncated Spitfire fuselages probably using an Mk II series 1 Special.

By chance, I encountered the Squadron-Signal publication on the Halifax (SSP-1066). Page 46 has a number of photographs of the freighter/cargo versions of the Halifax. A number of them – C MkIII and C MkVI – were conversions built during the war period, and had a 8,000-lb pannier capacity. 246 Squadron operated the C MkIII in a freight capacity in 1944, ranging as far as Cairo, Iceland and Moscow.

I’m assuming the MU version would be of a similar timeframe and capacity/construction as the C MkIII or C MkVI.

– No idea. Hopefully that knowledge is out there to be found. TonyT at #8 might have a suggestion.
– I think its clear that the two pannier sides meet at the bottom. If you look at the…
– … aft pannier faring you can see the angle the sides modified bomb bay doors are when closed. Also the fore fairing for the pannier is in the bottom right of the photo and it allows a fair guess at the width of the bottom of the pannier.

I would love to see a photo of the complete Halifax. Just twigged that the starbord engine nachelles and u/c doors are painted a pale colour whilst the rest of what we can see is painted night.

Happy to accept it as a Spitfire/Halifax combination as captioned – but can anyone shed some light (or opinion) on how it all goes together?

– Does the Spitfire fuselage go side-by-side with the Merlin; or as a separate cargo trip? (Spitfire Mk V empty weight is just under 5,000 lb, so achievable – if there is enough width in the bomb-bay.)
– When you close the bomb-bay doors, do the pannier sides meet (at the ‘L’ shape bottom) – or is there an insert/filler piece down the centre?
– Is the “skeletal” framing just visible at the far end of the bomb-bay, the rear end of the streamline-fairing?

…geoff

Playing with contrast a bit, I see the Halifax in the foreground as H7-L. The one behind seems to be H7-J.

Those look like regular Halton panniers as they only extend the length of the bomb bay.

On spit carrier the bay doors are modified rather then replaced so the streamlined faring extends fore and aft of the bomb bay.

P.S. Interesting that H7-I/L (?) has a H2S radar fitted still. On a de-armed cargo conversion. Why?

I found this

https://tailendcharlietedchurch.wordpress.com/raf-stations/77-squadron-elvington/elvington-4344/french/raf-346-squadron/

Same conversion?

Wing bay images

a very interesting thread

The original photograph resides with the IWM

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205209429

I agree Cebro, the fuselage ends just past the rear of the cockpit.

I think the fairing that would enclose the open front end of the extended bombay is on the floor behind the guy on the right in the image, it has curved cross members that would conform with the fuselage belly skin curvature and is open at the rear allowing the merlin prop shaft and reduction case to protrude into the fairing. Also what looks like two hefty angle brackets are visible ahead of the bomb bay opening, I suspect these are the attachment points for fitting the fairing to the forward fuselage.
Its annoying because I think I have seen this picture in a book somewhere but I cannot find it, frustrating.

Richard

It is definitely not a Stirling, which would have stood much taller and the undercarriage doors would not be visible where they are. I’m not sure about the wing bays, but they do look like Halifax. Given that the Halifax has been recorded as being modified for such transport work, QED?

I don’t believe that any major work such as removing the bombbay end bulkheads (and hence extending the doors, adding more actuators, etc) would have been done, so any object carried would have to be no longer than the standard bombbay. I’ll go with the suggestion that the Spitfire engine is being removed – which I suspect would have been done elsewhere but when the press man calls for a nice posed picture…

Based on the relative sizes of the Spit V and the Halifax in my sketch, the Spit V without fin and rudder, is going to be about the length of the Halifax bomb-bay, perhaps a foot or two in length bigger. The bomb-bay in the MU photo seems to stretch much further back – as a rough gauge, perhaps 4-5 Merlin lengths. It could also be just a distorted in the photo and I’m over-analysing it.

Interesting photo in any case.

Looking closer it seems like the fuselage ends just behind frame 12. or could this be visual distortion?

Subtract the tail, and I think a fuselage without the engine would fit as in the fuselages at the MU. Maybe the fitters aren’t working on the engine as such but removing it – to me it looks like they are securing it to a cradle of some sort.