..and not used in the BoB for two reasons, neither of which appear in the ‘established’ history. One, horrible fat prop blades kept its operational ceiling below what Dowding thought critical to take on the 109 and two, Dowding was instead keeping his few delivered Whirlwinds up North in reserve as the only ‘tank buster’ we had in the event of an invasion.
I get the logic, but a pity it wasn’t tried against bomber formations.
The archive shows that the programme was cancelled because it was generally agreed that RR shouldn’t go on making two Peregrines (or Merlins – it was seriously discussed) for every aircraft.
Not necessarily underrated, but largely unrecognised.
I thought you might have an opinion on the Whirlwind:)
I can see the reasoning for single engined a/c during 1940, but had it been used in the BoB the programme wouldn’t have been cancelled.
Johnny, the last update from Mike was on the 11th.
“Just want a nice dry spell for about two weeks.Our contractors sent a guy down on Wednesday to survey the site to start work on our hanger base and he declared the site to wet .he said the equipment would chew the place to much so it needed to dry out a bit.”
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