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Old 17th February 2016, 09:06
bearoutwest bearoutwest is offline
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Re: Recent books on the Westland Whirlwind Fighter

Hello Juha,

I’m not sure I can answer your question comprehensively, without going through in fine detail all the scraps of data that I have on each pilot or operation. (I don’t go into that level of detail, in any case, for my own interest.) Let me describe my own level of interest, and then give you my impression of what I’ve read in the new books; compared to what I remember of the older books/articles/etc.
Most recently, what interests me most about various aircraft is the engineering development …airframe, engine choices, armament, etc. However, this understanding of how an aircraft changed or improved, is incomplete without a reasonably detailed perspective of operational use.
What I find from these two new books, is that they are written from a compatible research timeline – i.e. from similar amounts of available data and within the same couple of years. Bingham’s book was the pinnacle of Whirlwind research of its time, but that was quite a few decades ago. The development history seems more updated and comprehensive in the Corduroy book (certainly – from memory – it discussed the background problems encountered at Westlands in greater depth). Compared to the Bingham book, the operation history seems to be dealt with in greater detail in the new Corduroy/Bowater books than the Bingham book – but you would expect that in respect to the larger number of pages in the new books.
The older Air International/ Flypast/ Aeroplane, etc magazine articles – about the aircraft in general would be very lightweight, but when dealing with individual pilots or aircraft losses do cover these incidences in much greater detail. I also remember a couple of SAMI or Scale Aviation Modeller articles about kit-building specific Whirlwinds, which had very good, detailed data on the history of an individual aircraft ….photos, profiles, etc. The Bowater book does cover the following pilots in individual chapters: Sgt Geoffrey Buckwell, F/Sgt George Wood, F/S Leonard Gray. There is also a potted history of each individual Whirlwind airframe, and a short bio of each Whirlwind pilot in 263 Sqn and 137 Sqn.
So, my overall impression is that these two new books form a good companion set, with a greater amount of detail than in the original Bingham book – and compiled with more recently available information. (As for the accuracy of this more recent data, ….well I don’t consider myself an expert on the Whirlwind, but there are no MAJOR errors that I would notice. The smaller errors would not be detected by me in any case.) I like the two new books, as they seem to fill in some gaps and answer some of my questions arising from my reading of the original Bingham book.
As for a comparison against the ORB forms 540 & 541 – can’t comment. From the ones that I have access to (none of the Whirlwind ones) and read or researched from – well they are only as accurate as the person recording it. They need to be read with a reasonable background knowledge anyway.
Hope that’s of some help. It’s always a difficult choice to buy a new book on a subject where you have already a wealth of data. My criteria is: a) is it a step change in available data compared to when the earlier book was prepared (in this case yes); b) is it more convenient to access than the 10+/20+/50+ etc magazine articles/research papers I already have (in my case, yes).
The only part that I thought could have done with a little more discussion is the projected development of a Merlin-engined Whirlwind Mk2 – perhaps as a short Appendix. What I find satisfying about discussion “what-ifs” is that if the discussion is framed appropriately, then ideas on what might have been, can often explain why things didn’t work out that way when compared to historical context – e.g. what was the reason that a longer range twin-Merlin airframe wasn’t developed by Westland several years ahead of the dH Hornet? Lack of confidence in Westland, lack of fore-sight in Air Ministry planning, greater expense in Merlin engines away from other necessary airframes ….etc?

Regards, …geoff
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