To Vickers Wellesley’s experts : technical questions

[BABIN]

Hello,

Please have a look on the attached picture :

- What is the use of both antennas : the right antenna (probably radio) and the circular antenna ?

- I think the containers hooked under the wings, are bombs containers, not gas tanks … could you confirm ? additional question : could the Wellesleys hook, under their wings, simultaneously, bombs containers and gas tanks ?

- It seems the machine gun of the rear gunner is a double-barelled machine gun …. is it possible ?

- It seems, too, that an additional machine gun is installed into the fuselage, just under the circular antenna … is it correct, or is it an optical illusion ?

- What is the “prominence”, under the front part of the fuselage ?

- Sometimes, three men were part of the crew of the Wellesleys … where was located the seat of the third man ?

And a no technical question : to which Middle East RAF unit was delivered the Wellesley K8525 ?

Many thanks in advance

Pierre

[Juha]

Hello Babin
not being Wellesley specialist and I don't even have time to dig out my Wellesley material but some short comment
the circular antenna is a normal direction finding antenna

Yes Wellesley carried its bombs in underwinging panniers

Twin rear gun wasn't standard but IIRC at least during the East-Africa Campaign at least in one Wellesley sqn they upgunned their a/c, for ex installed the side gun, so a twin rear mount is entirely possible

Juha

[dp_burke]

The detail under the DF antenae whihc you thought might be a gun is the window structure. There was a trangular window made up from the geodetic structure on each side of the fuselage.

Do a google image search for Vickers Wellesley and you will see it much clearer on photos and models.

Perhaps you can read French better than me:
http://www.airwar.ru/image/idop/bww2...ellesley-2.gif


A well finished model of a Wellesley
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...%3Divns&itbs=1

I explect that the third seat is inside whre the windows are.

[Graham Boak]

K8525 went to 47 Sq.

The item under the forward fuselage looks like an oil cooler, as seen on other types of this period.

It could not carry extra tanks under the wings - and didn't need to.

I believe you are right about the forward-firing machine gun, but can't confirm it at the moment.

[Bill Walker]

Just a minor addition: the vertical strut in front of the circular ADF antenna is actually a mast. The antenna it supports is a piece of wire coming out of the fuselage, to the top of the mast, and then back to the fixed vertical fin. The long length was needed because of the low frequency (and therefore long wavelength) of radios of that time.

[BABIN]

Thank you very much to Juha, Graham, Dennis and Bill.

Pierre