I have long heard of the above aircraft of course and assumed it to be a bit like one of those gawky and weird looking interwar types like the Wellesley or Heyford. Seeing for the first time today a picture of it, I now realise that it wasn't a bad looking plane and looked a bit like a Marauder. It is surprising, therefore, that they never saw service in greater numbers. BG
Basic problem was that it was critically underpowered and handled badly. It was apparently a struggle to get airborne while carrying a torpedo, which is a problem for a torpedo bomber... Maybe with more powerful engines it might have been a different story.
Indeed. When first flown a test pilot wrote in his flight report "The cockpit is difficult to get into, it should be made impossible" :lol:
It was a waste of time as a combat aircraft, a failure as a training aircraft and only saw useful service as instructional airframes for RAF fitters and riggers. This one usually makes its way into my worst top ten list. There's more important factors that determine an aircraft's success or failure than how it looks. To round off the Botha's failings, it was slow, underpowered, difficult to fly and poorly armed.
Bloody Botha ! What a great phrase from the test pilot ! Looking again, I see that the Bristol Perseus engines were only 800 horse power each, as against the Lancs. Merlins with over double that ! BG
Botha To Simonr1978. I know what you mean about there is more to an aircraft's suitability or success than it's looks, but there is that very well know old adage that " If it looks right, it'll fly right " Cheers, BG
Which the Botha conclusively disproves... To be honest I always quite liked the look of the Botha (In profile at least, face on it's asymetrical cockpit makes the long nose Blenheims look a thing of beauty!), but there can be no doubt that looks in this case were very definitely skin deep and in every other respect the Botha was a monument to British ability to underperform. "If it lookss right..." I guess only refers to an vague instinctive appreciation of aerodynamics, if it looks sleek and sporty then it'll probably be faster and therefore better than something with all the aerodynamic capabilities of a house brick (See practically anything French made that (Astonishingly in some cases) flew from the 20s or 30s), there are however plenty of counter cases besides the Botha.
Amusing, but not true: IIRC one of Winkle Brown's books mentions this. He said that he'd like to to take the credit for it, but since he didn't say it (or write it) he couldn't. PS his biography has just been re-released (Wings on My Sleeve, Phoenix, £8.99 in paperback) and all of the previously-censored information is back in. Bought it yesterday, so I haven't finished it yet, but it promises to be a really good read.
