Does anyone have additional information on the Gloster single seat twin engines fighters? The Peregrine F9/37 had a wingspan of 47ft 8”, and overall length of 37ft 6”, a max speed of 330mph and was armed with 5 x 20mm cannon. The Taurus T-S(a) F9/37 had a wingspan, an overall length of 37ft, a max sped of 360mph and again was armed with 5 x 20mm cannon. Apparently one Taurus powered F9/37 did fly operationally alongside Beaufighters but no orders were placed. Both had their cannon in a strange upward firing arrangement, 3 above the cockpit and two below. The angle of mounting begs the question, when lucky survivors of ‘schrage musik’ equipped aircraft who made it back to the UK were debriefed, did any of this filter down to anybody familiar with the Gloster design - admittedly the German guns were at a different angle but it does make you think. There was also the later Gloster Single Seat Heavy fighter – it was a single seat variant of Gloster two-seat night-fighter F18/40 spec but with the ammunition for 8 0.303” mg occupying the space for the radar operator in that aircraft and looks to be a very nasty aircraft to be on the wrong end of (4 20mm cannon and 8 0.303” MG) and had the very apt company name of ‘Reaper’. It had the earlier F9/37 wing but was Merlin powered and ‘if results from the F9/37 tests were anything to go by then the Reaper should have been quite manoeuvrable’ but it couldn’t have been brought into service any sooner than 1942. Looking at line drawings of the Gloster F9/37 spec and the ‘Reaper’ there doesn’t seem to have been all that much increase in size over the Taurus and Peregrine F9/37 so it’s a shame that Merlins weren’t put into that to begin with or was the Gloster F9/37 also sized to those smaller engines – could have made a superb Whirlwind alternative???. Line drawing from Interceptor by James Goulding – a very interesting book. [/img]
