Talk:Bristol Beaufort/Archive 1

Named after
Is the Beaufort named after anyone in particular. eg Francis Beaufort given the nautical connection? the Buckingham could be the Duke of B. as with the Blenheim, Beaufighter is presumably the "Beau" out of Beaufort + "fighter". GraemeLeggett 15:00, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


 * As far as I know, it was the result of the pan-British aircraft name alliteration campaign. Not named after anyone in particular, they just needed a "B" word. :) - Emt147 Burninate!  21:03, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Except British naming is more complex than that. There is a tendency towards alliteration eg "Handley Page Halifax" but the 4 engineed bombers where named after towns and cities hence Short Stirling (alliterative) but also Avro Lancaster. The Hawkers are H's for a while H. Hart, but after Hurricane take a meterological turn, Typhoon, Tempest (which also fits in with the Westland Whirlwind). Supermarine Spitfire but also Supermarine Walrus which matches stylewise with Fairey Swordfish etc. The predecessor to the Beaufort, the Blenheim fits with HP Hampden (Palace) but Beaufort if named after the seafaring gentleman fits with Avro Anson (after the Admiral) another maritime plane. It would be an interesting article if the acutal naming rules could be accurately summarised. GraemeLeggett 08:43, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I am aware of people attempting to, but any rationalisation seems swamped by exceptions. The latest addition of Aeroplane includes some comments about names, how they replaced letters and numbers (BE2, 504, SE5), and have not always been given, (VC10).Winstonwolfe 04:12, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The official service name was applied by the Air Ministry (AM) or Ministry of Supply (MoS) and so it is likely that the Beaufort was named after Francis Beaufort, as per the Anson mentioned above. Aircraft like the VC10 and TSR.2 were never given official specific RAF names and so they retained their previous designations, the latter being cancelled before it entered service, the former - like the Bristol Britannia - retaining its civil designation when it entered RAF service. The Short Belfast civil version was originally the "Short Britannic" - it was originally based on Britannia components - but the military name became the norm in civil service as well. Generally if an aircraft already has a well-known name prior to RAF or RN service entry then the previous name is retained, e.g., de Havilland Comet, Lockheed Hercules, otherwise if it is designed and built to an official specification then the AM or MoS would supply the service name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.24.215.49 (talk) 11:11, 11 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The Blenheim was named after the Battle of Blenheim and the Hampden was named after John Hampden. I suspect that the Fairey Battle was indirectly named after the Battle of Hastings that was actually fought at Battle in Sussex.


 * The Beaufort was named after Francis Beaufort as all the RAF's over-water reconnaissance landplane bombers were named after people with a connection with the sea, eg., Anson, Beaufort, Hudson, and Shackleton.


 * See British military aircraft designation systems.

The fastest torpedo bomber in the world
So it was called at the beginnings. Another thing: When it was forced to land on the sea, it's nose (just like He-111) showed a very nasty attitude to crash and let water flooding in the fuselage, sink quickly the aircraft. A very dangerous situation.--Stefanomencarelli (talk) 19:55, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Like many WW 2 aircraft with greenhouse bomb aimer noses; hitting water at speed is equivalent to hitting concrete so it's no real surprise that the Beaufort's nose had a tendency to collapse when ditching. The most dangerous factor was that, again like many WW 2 aircraft, immediately accessible and easy to jettison escape hatches were often of low priority in the design process. Minorhistorian (talk) 00:09, 7 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The size of escape hatches on many early British WW II aircraft was decided before much bulky clothing and equipment such as mae wests and other impedimenta were added to a crew member's standard clothing, thus the hatches were not really as large as would later prove to be desirable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.10.189 (talk) 17:00, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Heavier....or lighter?
Under Design and Development, the second para reads "Although the design looked similar in many ways to the Blenheim... it was also considerably heavier." but the next para includes "The basic structure, although similar to the Blenheim, introduced refinements... as a result the overall structural weight was lighter than that of the Blenheim." They can't both be right, can they?

I note the second is sourced, so I suggest removing the 'it was also considerably heavier' from the second para. Or am I missing something? MurfleMan (talk) 04:46, 27 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The Beaufort overall was heavier, but its "structure" (the basic airframe itself) was lighter. The footnote at the end of the sentence states "The added weight of the Beaufort was due to the additional equipment and crew accommodation, plus the heavier engines." Make sense now? - BilCat (talk) 05:24, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Editing citations
Is there an absolutely compelling reason for using the format {{HARVB|Robertson|1976 etc? This is simply adding needless complication to a perfectly good system, particularly as work is still being done to the article, including adding more cites. This is a matter of considerable frustration when I am spending several hours trying to improve the article. Minorhistorian (talk) 10:53, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I concur, as there appears to be no advantage to it despite D. Broer's protestations. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 16:23, 28 August 2010 (UTC).
 * Well, look at e.g. the Macchi C.205 article that uses the Chicago format and look what the last editors did with that all-too-free citation format....I gave up trying to make a consistent citation format there after half an hour editing. Dirk P Broer (talk) 16:37, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That's what happens in Wikiwonderland; you do know that the major contributor to Italian World War II aviation articles, Gian Piero Milanetti, is still a relative newcomer and does tend to make a few mistakes here and there. FWiW, a written Harvard citation with a Modern Language Association bibliographic reference still is the easiest and most effective referencing style, IMHO. Bzuk (talk) 16:56, 28 August 2010 (UTC).
 * I am almost certain that the 'newcomer' is our old mutual friend Stefanomencarelli under a new name....the same biased optimism about Italian design.87.212.10.211 (talk) 21:02, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Editors can take liberties with any style of formatting; I have experimented with Harvb and it is just as easy to mess it up or miss page numbers; there is still no compelling evidence that the Harvb style is significantly better or more useful, and it is a %^&* site harder to type. BTW Gian Piero is NOT Stefanomencarelli under a new name; if you have a query about this take it up with the editor concerned, instead of in a discussion page about an aircraft type! Minorhistorian (talk) 23:08, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Operation Cerberus
Does anyone have the number out of the 33 available Beauforts that actually took off to attack the ships? It would be a useful addition to the article. Scartboy (talk) 02:14, 5 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Good point...just r-e-a-ch-ing over to the bookcase...yup, according to Beaufort Special 28 set out. Now to add it to the article... ◆ 'Min✪rhist✪rian ◆  MTalk''   08:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Personal reflections/anecdote
Copyedit from recent edit: "Micky Ogden was a company test pilot involved on the testing of the Beaufort from January 1940 and reported that the 7 test pilots were killed on one particular problem involving engine failures, usually on takeoff. The aircraft went into squadron service with this fault. The engines had no means of feathering the propellor, which continued to suck in fuel into the carburettor and then into the wing. Any spark would cause the aircraft to explode mid-air. On 15.11.41, he had an engine failure on takeoff at Filton on AW290. He managed to get the aircraft back on to the ground and then told the Chief Pilot, that he would be safer in combat, having nearly become the 8th Testpilot to be killed. On 23.11.41, he reported to No2 OTU RAF Catfoss to convert to the Beaufighter, but they did not know he already had 147 hours on the Beaufighter on his logbook!" FWiW Bzuk (talk) 20:08, 28 December 2011 (UTC).


 * "The engines had no means of feathering the propellor, which continued to suck in fuel into the carburettor and then into the wing. Any spark would cause the aircraft to explode mid-air." - many aircraft were fitted with non-feathering two-pitch propellers at the time, and as a so-called 'test pilot' he should have been aware of this. The correct and normal procedure was to select coarse pitch should an engine fail - this gives the least drag whilst rotating the damaged engine at the lowest possible rpm.


 * The other normal procedure should an engine fail is to turn off the master engine fuel cock to that engine so that fuel is no longer supplied to the failed engine. This would have been expressly stated in the Type's Pilot's Notes - as would the preceding correct procedure.


 * It was because many twins would not stay in the air on one engine at high weights that the feathering airscrew was developed in the late 1930's: — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.74 (talk) 12:18, 22 May 2016 (UTC)


 * At the time the Beaufort was being designed the fully-feathering constant-speed propeller was new and had not yet been widely adopted hence the Taurus-engined Beaufort I had two-position variable pitch airscrews, but by the time the Twin Wasp-powered Mark II version was being developed fully-feathering CS propellers had become the norm. That's why a Beaufort I could not stay in the air on one engine, but a Beaufort II could. By this time however the Beaufort was being replaced by the Beaufighter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.241.96 (talk) 14:37, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Conflict of interest
I run a website dedicated to the men that flew and died in one particular Beaufort. I'd like to link from this Wikipedia page to my site but it's an obvious conflict of interest so I'm asking you lovely people to be the jury. The site is AW288 - please let me know what you think. bofh1961 21.06.2013 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bofh1961 (talk • contribs) 20:30, 21 June 2013 (UTC) I've got no idea how to sign a message but may I go ahead as no one has objected?


 * First, thanks for your honesty. Best advice is to have a read of Wikipedia Plain and Simple Guide C of I - seems to me that you're already doing what the guide suggests. Personally I have no objections to adding your site as an external link, and I'm sure other editors will say the same. Good site, BTW. Cheers ◆ 'Min✪rhist✪rian ◆  MTalk''   22:24, 9 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I like the website and the idea behind it but to be an external link it has to add something to the article, as far as I can see the aircraft and crew are no more notable than all the other crews that died in-service and wikipedia is not a just a collection of links. We rarely mention crews unless they earned the highest gallantry awards and wartime losses are rarely notable. So I think it is really good that these guy have been given a memorial but I dont think it is for wikipedia. MilborneOne (talk) 23:14, 9 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I think they are notable simply because of their ordinariness. Unfortunately it was rather too usual for the crews of the Beaufort to be killed by their own plane rather than the enemy and this crew is a good example of that. They were as valiant as you could be in a Beaufort that lost an engine shortly after takeoff.  Best regards, Mark Steele bofh1961 22:41, 10 July 2013 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bofh1961 (talk • contribs)

Size of a ship
"A ship the size and speed of Scharnhorst would look huge, filling the windscreen at well over 1 mi (1.6 km) and it was easy to underestimate the range" A vessel would have to be VERY big indeed to "fill the windscreen" at a mile range, let alone "well over" that (not only that, torpedo bomber pilots should be trained for this very reason). This sounds like an overly nice explanation for the reason why so many British Beaufort pilots launched their torpedoes far too far away from the target to destroy it. Doesn't sound so good to say "they frequently launched early weapons early so they could take evasive action and escape". Same reason Bomber Command ad a problem with creepback.

64.223.165.28 (talk) 06:27, 16 March 2018 (UTC)


 * A really interesting issue is that, unless dropping from point-blank range, the torpedo bomber had to attack warships from an angle of about 60 degrees. This was a standard piece of tactical training for TB pilots throughout WW2.
 * So, how did the target "fill the windscreen" anyway, if it was off to the side?
 * This does sound like made-up nonsense. Once you think about it for more than two seconds, that is. 2A00:23C7:3119:AD01:A275:2F3D:7328:51CF (talk) 11:24, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Port wing gun.
The specifications give a Vickers K (G/O) gun as the weapon installed in the port wing, firing ahead. This may be correct, but what an unusual choice - a drum-fed gun with a very high fire rate and limited ammunition capacity installed in the wing? By this stage, 0.303" Browning guns were available for this kind of installation and, according to our article on the Blenheim, were fitted as the single wing gun on the Blenheim MkIV. Our articles on the Battle and Hampden also list Brownings as the fixed forward-firing weapons (ie: without a gunner to reload them in action). So, was this gun really a Vickers K? 2A00:23C7:3119:AD01:A275:2F3D:7328:51CF (talk) 06:59, 24 November 2022 (UTC)


 * i can guarantee that it was a Browning. The VGO was not designed as a fixed gun. Idumea47b (talk) 23:55, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Flying coffins?
Anecdotally, I've been told, 2nd hand, from an Australian pilot these were "flying coffins" - it'd be nice to have something on that, if it's actually true.

This page says "The Australian Beauforts had been plagued with a mysterious problem which resulted in over 90 aircraft crashing. The planes were nicknamed ‘Flying Coffins’. . . .  It is reported that it turned out to be the faulty manufacturing of the elevator-trim jacking screws." CrickedBack (talk) 10:05, 12 December 2022 (UTC)