AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 28 / 146

Plate 28 of 146 · Between the wars · Single-seat day and night fighter

Bristol Bulldog

Bristol Bulldog IIA, painted as G-ABBB ‘K2227’, the Bristol Bulldog IIA displayed by the RAF Museum at Hendon: the RAF’s standard day and night fighter of the early 1930s, which equipped ten squadrons, a single-bay biplane of 33 ft 10 in span with a longer upper wing, a metal-framed fabric-covered fuselage, a 490 hp Bristol Jupiter VIIF nine-cylinder radial with its cylinders exposed behind a collector ring, a split-axle undercarriage with oleo legs and twin Vickers guns in the fuselage sides; the last Bristol company demonstrator, built in 1930, flown again in 1961, crashed at the Farnborough show in 1964 and rebuilt for the museum in the 1990s; shown as displayed in the markings of a No. 56 Squadron Bulldog of 1933: silver-doped fabric, polished aluminium forward panels and a green top decking, red and white chequers along the fuselage sides and across the upper-wing centre section, type A roundels on the fuselage, on top of the upper wing and under the lower wing, ‘K-2227’ in black on the rear fuselage and on the rudder, blue, white and red rudder stripes, black struts, red wheel discs, a red reduction-gear cover, a polished spinner and a two-bladed wooden propeller.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as G-ABBB ‘K2227’, the Bristol Bulldog IIA displayed by the RAF Museum at Hendon: the RAF’s standard day and night fighter of the early 1930s, which equipped ten squadrons, a single-bay biplane of 33 ft 10 in span with a longer upper wing, a metal-framed fabric-covered fuselage, a 490 hp Bristol Jupiter VIIF nine-cylinder radial with its cylinders exposed behind a collector ring, a split-axle undercarriage with oleo legs and twin Vickers guns in the fuselage sides; the last Bristol company demonstrator, built in 1930, flown again in 1961, crashed at the Farnborough show in 1964 and rebuilt for the museum in the 1990s; shown as displayed in the markings of a No. 56 Squadron Bulldog of 1933: silver-doped fabric, polished aluminium forward panels and a green top decking, red and white chequers along the fuselage sides and across the upper-wing centre section, type A roundels on the fuselage, on top of the upper wing and under the lower wing, ‘K-2227’ in black on the rear fuselage and on the rudder, blue, white and red rudder stripes, black struts, red wheel discs, a red reduction-gear cover, a polished spinner and a two-bladed wooden propeller. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1008 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Bristol Bulldog IIA modelled here.

History

The Bulldog

Frank Barnwell, Bristol’s chief designer, began the fighter that became the Bulldog in 1926, aiming it at the Air Ministry’s F.9/26 specification for a day and night fighter, and Bristol built the prototype as a private venture around the company’s own Jupiter radial. He drew a single-bay biplane with a longer, wider-chord upper wing, a fuselage of high-tensile steel strip rolled into girders and covered in fabric behind a metal-panelled nose, and two Vickers guns firing through the propeller from troughs in the fuselage sides. The prototype first flew on 17 May 1927.

The Bulldog was judged against the Hawker Hawfinch in a long competition at Martlesham Heath and won it, largely because it was easier to maintain. A lengthened second prototype, the Bulldog II, flew in January 1928, and the first RAF order followed that summer; No. 3 Squadron received the first aircraft in May 1929. The Bulldog IIA, with stronger spars and fuselage and the 490 hp Jupiter VIIF, became the main production version, and some 440 Bulldogs of all marks were built at Filton. By the early 1930s it equipped ten squadrons of the Air Defence of Great Britain, more than any other fighter of the time, each squadron marking its aircraft with its own coloured bars or chequers.

The Bulldog never fired a shot in anger with the RAF. No. 3 Squadron took its Bulldogs to the Sudan during the Abyssinian crisis of 1935–36, and from 1936 the Gloster Gauntlet and Gladiator replaced it, although Bulldogs served on at flying training schools for a few more years. Bristol sold the type to Australia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Japan, Latvia, Siam, Sweden and the United States Navy. Latvian Bulldogs sold on to the Basque government fought in the Spanish Civil War, and Finland’s flew against the Soviet Union in the Winter War of 1939–40, scoring the Finnish Air Force’s first victory of that war on 1 December 1939.

This airframe

Bristol Bulldog IIA G-ABBB “K2227”

G-ABBBThe airframe modelled

G-ABBB was built at Filton in 1930 as the last of Bristol’s company demonstrators, the first Bulldog with the strengthened structure that became the IIA. It was shown at the Paris Aero Salon that winter, flew a demonstration tour to Villacoublay in 1931 and was then used for development work, including endurance trials of the Bristol Aquila sleeve-valve engine in 1935–36. In 1938 Bristol gave it to the Science Museum, which lent it to the makers of Reach for the Sky in 1955. Bristol’s apprentices restored it to fly between 1957 and 1961, around a rebuilt Jupiter VIIF, and in July 1961 it was painted as K2227, a Bulldog of No. 56 Squadron at North Weald in 1933, before being presented to the Shuttleworth Trust. On 13 September 1964 its engine cut at the top of a loop at the Farnborough show and it crashed through the crowd barrier; the pilot escaped with cuts and bruises. Its scattered remains were gathered by the RAF Museum and rebuilt by Skysport Engineering at Hatch in 1994–99, with a new centre fuselage and parts from other Bulldogs, and it has been displayed at Hendon since March 1999. The model shows it as displayed: silver-doped fabric, polished aluminium forward panels and a green top decking, No. 56 Squadron’s red and white chequers along the fuselage sides and across the upper-wing centre section, type A roundels on the fuselage, on top of the upper wing and under the lower wing, ‘K-2227’ in black on the rear fuselage and the rudder, blue, white and red rudder stripes, black struts, red wheel discs and a red reduction-gear cover. No photograph shows the underside clearly, so no serials are painted under the lower wings, and the small stencils are left off.

See it at Royal Air Force Museum London

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

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

Every airframe and serial All 146 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.