Handley Page 1937 unarmed bomber

[PMN1]

From Tony Butler's 'British Secret Projects, Fighters and Bombers 1935-1950'

In May 1937 George Volkert, chief designer at Handley Page, completed a twenty-page document called 'A Memorandum on Bombing Policy and its Influence on design'. This was prepared, possibly in response to an approach from the Air Ministry's Research & Development department, with a view to assessing the 'benefits' to a bomber if it did not have to carry defensive armament and crew, a subject about which Volkert felt most strongly.

Does anyone know if that document still exists?

He presented an unarmed bomber project as a comparison to the existing P.13/36 medium bomber - this possessed a near perfect aerodynamic fuselage with a pointed nose and tail, BSP gives this:

Wingspan 88.6ft

Length 74.6ft

Wing Area 988 sqft

With two Vultures top speed was 380mph and cruise was 300mph with 3,000lb bombs (max bomb load being 7,000lb)

This is quite a large aircraft, does anyone know how the 7,000lb max bomb load affected the size of the bomb bay and therefore the aircraft, what if it was designed for say 4 x 1,000lb bombs as the Hawker P.1005 was (span 70.0ft, length 54.0ft, WA 677sqft, 400mph with two Sabres) or kept as was but with 4 Merlins?

[Wuzak]

The largest bombs in use, as far as I can gather, by the RAF at the time of the development of the P.13/36 were 2000lb AP and 500lb GP. The successful P.13/36 (Manchester/Lancaster and Halifax) benefitted from the requirement to carry a large torpedo internally, giving the long unobstructed bomb bays that they put to good use later in the war. The Stirling, on the other hand, was designed around carrying large numbers of 250lb and 500lb bombs, which became a handicap later in the war.

If the HP high speed bomber was truly designed around the P.13/36 specifications then I should imagine it would have a decently sized bomb bay.

[Wuzak]

4 Merlins would have been good had the Vultures not continued (which happened) and no suitable replacement was available in the near future (Sabre were a way off, as were Centaurus').

[merlin]

On p.77 in the book it states: "However, Handley Page's project was never likely to be built; Volkert's 'memo' concerntrated more on the principles and ideas rather than any detail design but his document, and Handley Page and its designers, played an important part in establishing this category of aircraft in the RAF inventory. By mid-1939 discussions had moved on the some proposals from de Havilland which eventually were to fulfil all of the Service's hopes for a 'speed' bomber."

There were those in the Air Ministry who were apprenhensive that the Treasury, seeing how cheaper to build these were compared to the more traditional bomber to that spec, would demand less Stirlings and Halifaxs, and more HP 'Volkert' speed bomber.

[PMN1]

The interesting thing about the design is that it seems to be about the only design that captain Liptrot didn't downgrade the expected performance of when reviewing it.....