Blenheims
I am pretty sure that I wrote a lot about Blenheims in my much earlier threads . I went to 17 OTU Upwood and have already described the days there where I flew Blenheim IV's with ,for no known reason, night flying on the shortnosed Blenheim 1. I was then posted to 105 Squadron at Horsham St. Faith who had Blenheims and I , once again, briefly, flew the Bisley which was probably the ugliest and worst aircraft I ever flew...I never flew the Botha ! The Bisley was a Blenheim IV with the turret removed but with no attempt to streamline the resulting gap ...just a [___] with the vertical line at each end rejoining the fuselage. If you could get into the cockpit of the Blenheim without breaking a limb you were lucky. You had to climb from the wing....Don't ask me how you got on the wing...to a hatch on the top of the fuselage and lower yourself, complete with seat parachute in to the Cockpit. Once there your troubles really began as there was no attempt at instrument coordination and the placing of the instruments varied from machine to machine. Even operating the U/C lever could gash your hand if you weren't careful.
The two pitch propellors had their control levers positioned in a niche behind the pilot's left so that, after takeoff, to change the pitch you had to reach blindly behind with your left hand and pull the pitch control lever. As the two fuel tank shut off levers were just underneath the pitch controls and identical in feel and shape you can imagine the frequent results .
I can't remember getting much over 200 m.p.h. in a Blenheim but ,Thank God, we were just getting delivery of the first Mosquito Mk IV and I never operated on Blenheims and I know that i would not be writing this now if I had. My cap goes off to all the brave men that flew the Blenheim on the suicidal daylight, low level, shipping strikes and such.. Bill Edrich, the England Cricketer was one of the men that I met and a Blenheim pilot who survived. Does that answer you Goose Quill ? As you might have guessed, I have no fond memories of that aircraft. Regle.