Boulton Paul Defiant
What the outcome of the Battle of Britain would have been had the Spitfire not been available is now purely of academic interest, but what is certain is the fact that no combat aircraft ever gave better service to the country of its birth. Sadly, the same cannot be said of the Boulton Paul Defiant, the
operational record of which as a day fighter can only be described as disastrous.
The concept of a two seater-engined fighter with all its armament concentrated in a massive poweroperated turret was based in the belief that a gunner with no responsibility for flying the aircraft and able to traverse his battery of guns through 360 degrees had more chance of hitting the enemy than a pilot who had to point his aircraft in the direction in which he wished to fire.
The first prototype made its inaugural flight at Wolverhampton on August 11, 1937, and attained 302mph on the power of its Merlin 1 engine. Its flying characteristics were pronounced exellent. It displayed very few vices, stability was highly satisfactory, and there was practically no change of trim when the undercarriage and flaps were lowered.
The RAF held out great hopes for the Defiant when it entered service in 1939. It was believed that the turret, with 4four machine guns and rotating through 360 degrees, would account for many enemy aircraft. These hopes seemed to be justified when the Defiant proved quite successful during the German invasion of the Low Countries, but the German pilots soon realized that the Defiant was not very fast or manoevrable and that the turret cut out automatically in the forward position.
Two Defiant squadrons were almost wiped out by Bf109s during the Battle of Britain and the survivors were withdrawn for duties as nightfighters.
Dividing the responsibility for flying and fighting between two crew members in the Boulton Paul Defiant seemed like a good idea on paper, but when theory was put to practice, the Defiant was quickly found wanting in the day fighter role.
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