Bristol Type 161 and 162 drawings

[Alex Crawford]

Hi,

I am gathering material for a book on the Bristol Buckingham/Buckmaster/Brigand. I want to add some of the early designs that were proposed but never got anywhere, possibly in the shape of 1/72 scale plans and colour profiles.

I have seen the small drawing of the Type 161 in the Putnam Bristol Aircraft book. Would anyone know if better plans/drawings exist for the Type 161, Type 162 and the H.7/42. I have seen the photo of the H.7/42 mock up. Would that have been fitted with standard Beaufighter wings and engines?

Any help in locating plans/drawings would be appreciated.

Kind regards, and stay safe.

Alex

 

[DWG]

I have seen the photo of the H.7/42 mock up. Would that have been fitted with standard Beaufighter wings and engines?

I suspect that's a more complicated question than it looks. Using Beaufighter wings and Hercules engines was certainly the initial intention, but as the design became subject to requirements creep and weight growth the Hercules+Beaufighter wings would have become less and less appropriate, until eventually they just had to toss everything aside and start over with the Centaurus and the Buckingham wing. I suspect Beaufighter wing/Hercules was possibly only valid between the issuing of the draft specification S.7/42 in August 1942, and the issuing of the full H.7/42 specification in December 1942. At that point it would have become obvious the Hercules couldn't manage the weight and they needed the Centaurus, which makes it more sensible to use the Buckingham wing. But that's all hypothesizing from published sources.

 

[Hood]

Agreed, a good description for these Beaufighter developments that I've seen is in Tony Buttler's British Secret Projects Volumes 3 and 4.
It seems the H.7/42 did start out with the Beaufighter wing (the latest edition of the book has a GA dated 3/11/42 that seems to show a Beaufighter wing), but as AUW rose over 27,000lb additional span was needed to keep the wing loading down. This lead to a completely redesigned wing and a undercarriage, then the nacelles were altered to reduce drag and then they went for Centaurus and took the whole Buckingham wing and tail unit to save further work. These changes were agreed on 11 March 1943.
So a Beaufighter-winged H.7/42 probably only lasted July - circa December 1942.

 

[Alex Crawford]

Thank you DWG and Hood for your replies. So I can show the initial H.7/42 design with Beaufighter wings/engine and then progress through the various other designs until we come to the end product. That would work. I want to be able to show the lineage of the progress from start to finish.

 

[Halfbad]

The development of the Bristol Buckingham and Buckmaster are described in a two part article (Volume 1 Nos. 10 and 13) of the defunct 21st Profile magazine. No drawings of the Type 160 or 162. I've attached a one page excerpt.

 

[Alex Crawford]

Thanks for that Halfbad. I have the first part but not found a copy of the Buckmaster part yet.

 

[Halfbad]

I can provide the Buckmaster article but I would have to split it up since the 9 page PDF file size is too large for uploading. I am not sure if any copyright restrictions would apply since the magazine ceased publication in 1992, the author (R.C.B. Ashworth) died in 2004, and the publisher (Edward Shacklady) died in 2017. The attached document, found after googling/oogling, indicates that typescripts from the author, R.C.B. (Chris) Ashworth, were donated to the Royal Aeronautical Society Library in 2005. Please Moderators let me know if it is OK to upload the Buckmaster article.