AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 62 / 154

Plate 62 of 154 · Second World War · Two-seat turret fighter

Boulton Paul Defiant Mk I

Defiant Mk I, painted as N1671, the RAF Museum’s Boulton Paul Defiant Mk I, built at Pendeford, Wolverhampton with a Rolls-Royce Merlin III and taken on charge in August 1940, flown as ‘EW-D’ by No. 307 (Lwów) Squadron, the first Polish night-fighter unit, from September 1940, later with No. 153 Squadron and No. 285 (Anti-Aircraft Co-operation) Squadron, set aside for preservation in 1944, displayed at Hendon from 1972 and at Cosford since its restoration in 2012: the only complete surviving Defiant, a two-seat turret fighter of 39 ft 4 in span with no forward-firing guns, its four Brownings in a power-operated Boulton Paul Type A turret behind the pilot, flanked by retractable fairings, a ventral radiator and inward-retracting main wheels, shown as it is displayed there: matt black overall, type A1 fuselage roundels between pale grey ‘EW’ and ‘D’ codes, the serial in dull red, type B roundels above the wings, a red, white and blue fin flash, a Polish red and white checkerboard below the port windscreen, the turret’s guns raised and a black three-blade propeller with yellow tips.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as N1671, the RAF Museum’s Boulton Paul Defiant Mk I, built at Pendeford, Wolverhampton with a Rolls-Royce Merlin III and taken on charge in August 1940, flown as ‘EW-D’ by No. 307 (Lwów) Squadron, the first Polish night-fighter unit, from September 1940, later with No. 153 Squadron and No. 285 (Anti-Aircraft Co-operation) Squadron, set aside for preservation in 1944, displayed at Hendon from 1972 and at Cosford since its restoration in 2012: the only complete surviving Defiant, a two-seat turret fighter of 39 ft 4 in span with no forward-firing guns, its four Brownings in a power-operated Boulton Paul Type A turret behind the pilot, flanked by retractable fairings, a ventral radiator and inward-retracting main wheels, shown as it is displayed there: matt black overall, type A1 fuselage roundels between pale grey ‘EW’ and ‘D’ codes, the serial in dull red, type B roundels above the wings, a red, white and blue fin flash, a Polish red and white checkerboard below the port windscreen, the turret’s guns raised and a black three-blade propeller with yellow tips. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1011 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Defiant Mk I modelled here.

History

The Defiant

The Defiant was built to Air Ministry specification F.9/35, which called for a two-seat fighter with all its guns in a power-operated turret. The idea was that it would fly alongside or beneath unescorted enemy bombers, so that its gunner could fire broadside into them while the pilot simply flew the aircraft. Boulton Paul, which had moved from Norwich to a new factory at Pendeford, Wolverhampton, held the licence for a French electro-hydraulic turret designed by J. B. A. de Boysson, and John Dudley North’s team built the aircraft around it: a clean, all-metal low-wing monoplane the size of a Hurricane, powered by the same Merlin, with four .303 in Brownings in the turret and none firing forward. The prototype, K8310, first flew without its turret on 11 August 1937.

No. 264 Squadron received the first Defiants in December 1939. Over Dunkirk in May 1940 they did well, because German fighter pilots took them for Hurricanes and attacked from behind, into the turret guns; on 29 May the squadron claimed more than 30 enemy aircraft. The Germans soon learned to attack from head-on or below, where the turret could not reach. On 19 July 1940 No. 141 Squadron lost six of its nine Defiants to Messerschmitt Bf 109s off Folkestone, and after heavy losses by No. 264 Squadron in late August the type was taken off day fighting.

It found a better role at night. Painted black, the Defiants flew against the night Blitz of the winter of 1940–41 with Nos. 141, 151, 255, 256, 264 and the Polish No. 307 Squadrons, and for a time they destroyed more enemy bombers per sortie than any other RAF night fighter. Later aircraft carried airborne radar, and the Mk II had the more powerful Merlin XX. As the Beaufighter and Mosquito replaced them from 1942, Defiants became target tugs, air-sea rescue aircraft and gunnery trainers. Of the 1,064 built, only one complete example survives.

This airframe

Defiant Mk I N1671 “EW-D”

N1671The airframe modelled

N1671 was built at Pendeford with a Merlin III and taken on charge at No. 6 Maintenance Unit, Brize Norton, on 7 August 1940. On 17 September it joined No. 307 (Lwów) Squadron at Kirton-in-Lindsey, the first Polish night-fighter squadron, and was coded EW-D. It flew its first operational sortie, a daylight convoy patrol, on 12 December 1940. Early in 1941 it was fitted with VHF radio and IFF and repainted black, and it flew night patrols from Colerne; on 15 April 1941 its crew sighted an enemy aircraft, which fired on them before the contact was lost. It was damaged when it swung off the runway at Church Stanton in June 1941, and after repair it flew one sortie with No. 153 Squadron in Northern Ireland and then went to No. 285 (Anti-Aircraft Co-operation) Squadron before going into store. In all it flew 15 operational sorties. It was set aside for a museum in 1944, was on display at Hendon from the opening of the RAF Museum in 1972, apart from four years of restoration with the Medway Aircraft Preservation Society, during which markings on its turret showed it had first been made for a Blackburn Roc, and after a further restoration at Cosford it has been on show there since 2012. The model shows it as it is displayed: matt black overall, yellow-ringed roundels on the fuselage between pale grey “EW” and “D” codes, the serial in dull red, blue and red roundels above the wings and none beneath, a red, white and blue fin flash, the Polish red and white checkerboard below the port side of the windscreen, the turret fairings raised, the guns elevated and a black propeller with yellow tips. The stencils are left off.

See it at Royal Air Force Museum Midlands

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Defiant in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 154 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.