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Re: Recent books on the Westland Whirlwind Fighter
Hello Geoff
and thanks a lot for your thoughts and the trouble to type them down! And I found them helpful.
I forgot to mention that I also have the memoirs of the Westland's chief test pilot, Harald Penrose, 'Adventure with Fate'. IMHO a very nice book with info on the top personalities of Westland Aircraft Ltd (incl. Teddy Petter), on inner working of the factory and on testing of many Westland a/c.
On Merlin Whirlwind, IMHO (I'm a historian without almost any technical background) Petter had made the design very tight so adding Merlins (the dry weight of a Merlin XII was 280 lb more than that of a Peregrine I plus extra fuel) would have been very difficult, maybe thinner and shorter wing Welkin would have been better design to begin.
On ORBs, maybe I'm a bit too cynical but IMHO too often the writers do not bother crosscheck the info they have gleaned out from ORBs/KTBen, combat reports etc. against records of the opponent of that era.
Again thanks a lot for your thoughts and trouble
Juha
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