Volume 40 of the Wingleader Photo Archive series. The Fairey Battle was elegant, solid and thoroughly capable for its time, representing a technological advance over the biplanes it replaced. However, the Battle was doomed to failure from the outset due to a ludicrous specification that required an aircraft that was a third heavier than a Spitfire, had twice the wingspan and was to carry 1,000 pounds of bombs and three crew members... but was to be powered by the same single Merlin engine as the Spitfire. Even Fairey's design team strongly recommended a twin-engine version to the Air Ministry, but to no avail. The intensive study of the Fairey Battle has brought to light many previously unknown details about the aircraft. RAF expert Andy Thomas was asked to compile everything, as his knowledge of RAF squadrons, codes and operations in the period before and at the beginning of the war is unrivalled. As always, the best press photos were selected from the Wingleader archive collection and combined with some very rare private photos showing squadron codes that had never before been seen in print on Fairey Battles.
Group
Books (first-hand)
Author
Thomas, Peter
Title
Consolidated Liberator. Part 2: RAF & RCAF Bomber and Transport variants
Details
English text, brochure, approx. 120 contemporary black-and-white photos, 6 colour aircraft profiles, large landscape format. 72 pages.
State
new
Wing Leader Ltd PO Box 223 Surrey KT1 Walton on Thames, Vereinigtes Königreich
