Specification O.27/34

[smurf]

This is the spec for the Blackburn Skua. In his book Skua!, Peter Smith says:

O.27/34 was restricted to three firms only. Hawker and Fairey were considered most suitable, with Armstrong [-Whitworth?], Blackburn, Bristol, Gloster, Vickers and Westland in the second group. Other commitments whittled these down to Blackburn, Hawker and Vickers, although Armstrong which had already submitted similar proposals for a fighter/dive-bomber with the Hyena power plant, were permitted to have their design evaluated in the same tests. In the event the short list included designs from just Avro and Vickers Development.

[as well as Blackburn, presumably]
Has anyone any information and ideally drawings of any of the proposals by Avro, Vickers and particularly Armstrong, please?

 

[lark]

Blackburn B-24 became Skua
Avro type 666 layout October 1934.A mock-up may have been built.
Vickers type 280 midwing monoplane.Mock up produced.It was comparable with the Ju-87.
Hawker and Boulton Paul tendered project designs but no details are available.

source : The British Aircraft Specification File :K J Meekcoms and E B Morgan-Air Britain Publication.

 

[smurf]

Thanks, Lark. Maybe with type numbers more details can be found.
The A-W design would not be in that ref, as it was not submitted to that spec.

 

[PMN1]

Has anyone been able to find anything on this?

 

[Stargazer]

My list of tenders for this specification, so far:

- Avro Type 666
- Blackburn B-24 Skua
- Boulton Paul design
- Fairey design
- Hawker design
- Vickers Type 280

 

[royabulgaf]

How closely were the design bureaus at Vickers and Supermarine tied together? You mentioned the Vickers 666 looked like a Stuka. I immediately thought of something along the lines of the Supermarine 224.

 

[Schneiderman]

Vickers and Supermarine design departments operated largely independently but there was a joint strategy committee in place to exchange ideas and coordinate activity; comprised of McLean, Bird, Mitchell, Pierson and Wallis

The Vickers Type 280 is shown in the Vickers Putnam volume. Fixed undercarriage and originally to be powered by either a Goshawk or Griffon (no not that one, the Buzzard MS), later a Merlin. The selection of an elliptical wing is interesting, and indeed more Vickers projects than Supermarine incorporated such a wing through the late 1930s, make of that what you will.

 

[hesham]

Hi,


here is a drawings to Vickers Type 280 and Avro Type 666.

 

[avion ancien]

Just an aside, but it must have been very brave on the part of Avro's design bureau to utilise the type number 666!

 

[VictorXL188]

Further to this, I have come across reference to serial numbers being allocated to both the Vickers Type 280 and also the Avro Type 666. The Type 666 was given K5117, whilst the Type 280, which was listed as merely the Vickers O.27/34 was K5177. The first two Skua prototypes were K5178 & K5179. Source was http://www.ukserials.com/serials-older-0k.htm

 

[hesham]

Nice Info Victor.