Westland P.12
Варианты:
Westland - P.12 - 1940 - Великобритания
Страна: Великобритания
Год: 1940


Опытный штурмовик P.12 - "летающая тачанка" на базе "Лайсендера".
The prototype Lysander, L6127, with shortened fuselage, tandem wing and four-gun Boulton-Paul turret.
Westland P.12. Одним из самых необычных экспериментальных Lysander стал изображенный здесь P.12 (июль 1941 года). Самолет, построенный по схеме "тандем", был оснащен крылом типа Delanne, двухкилевым хвостовым оперением и макетом хвостовой турели с четырьмя пулеметами (хвостовая часть фюзеляжа была укорочена). Самолет, своеобразная "летающая тачанка", должен был летать вдоль побережья Великобритании и обстреливать высаживающиеся на берег немецкие войска.
The original prototype Lysander K6127, fitted in mid-1941 with a four-gun Frazer Nash tail turret mock-up and a Delanne-style tail unit that converted it virtually to a tandem-wing type.
The Westland P.12 was originally conceived as an anti-invasion measure but was flown only with a mock-up of the intended Nash & Thompson four-gun turret. Flight trials were extremely sucessful.
Variations on a Westland Lysander theme II. During the spring of 1940 Westlands received an Air Ministry requirement to investigate the possibility of equipping the Lysander to take a rear-mounted, powered gun turret. Intrigued with results published by Maurice Delanne for his tandem-winged light aircraft, W.E.W. Petter, Westlands Technical Director, had Harold Penrose, the company's chief test pilot, fly him over to France to be briefed by Delanne. Penrose flew the tandem-winged machine and both men returned home impressed and with the solution to their problem. In due course the prototype Lysander, K 6127, emerged, modified to take a Delanne-style rear wing, plus fully weighted rear turret mock-up. As often occurred at this time, by the time Penrose took the drastically altered Lysander aloft for the first time on 27 July 1941, the need for it had evaporated. In flight, the Delanne Lysander proved a highly stable and docile machine which, according to reports, Penrose took aloft whenever possible, causing much confusion among the local aircraft spotters.