Bristol Beaufort T II

[Larry]

A bit of a long short; a contact I had in the Fleet Air Arm in WW2, was taken for a flight in a Beaufort that was attached to HMS Raven. It was just two on board when on of the Bristal Taurus Engines burst in to fames and as they were not far from the airfield the pilot made a hasty retreat and landed okay. The point is that my contact swears that he was sitting next to the pilot for the flight and not in the nose. So did the T Mk II in FAA service allow for a dual pilot position or at least a seat next to the pilot, even if there were no controls?

[brewerjerry]

Hi
just a small bit
beauforts II's had P&W twin wasp engines

scroll down link to see interior photo it seems to show dual control on a beaufort in canada

https://www.silverhawkauthor.com/pos...istol-beaufort

cheers
jerry

[bearoutwest]

Looked up Beaufort Mk.IIA(T) cockpit photos, and found a few examples:

From ww2aircraft forum's page - dual control set-up for Beuafort trainer:
https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/media/...erior-1.27435/

Operational use of second seat - RAAF example over New Guinea (probably without 2nd set of controls), photo in Aus War Memorial archives, but linked here from wiki:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...AWM_050517.jpg

By the way, you mean Taurus engines, not Centaurus (as per Sea Fury)? Though, I believe the Mk.II had Pratt Whitneys.

...geoff

[Larry]

Well thanks all!

It was me, that assumed it was a T II, as the aircraft was a non-operational type used by the FAA, with no rear turret and a paint scheme of green & grey upper fuselage and wings and white sides and white undersides, from his description. I have seen pictures of 1/72 models like this but none in reality (yet)

My contact was one of several FAA aircraft engineers, (that probably had a trade name like 'air fitter' in FAA) and he said that the aircraft in question was powered by Bristol Taurus, and he knew his engines, and said in service the Bristol Taurus engines were sometimes troublesome.

I forgot there were other P&W engines that powered the Beaufort and any incorrect mention of Centaurus, instead of Taurus has been amended!

As for the photos of the cockpit they show the kind of arrangement he described, as being in the cockpit 'near the pilot' and not in the Observers 'office' in the nose.

Thanks all