Westland Whirlwind

[JJC]

Hey there,
I'm looking for more info on the Westland Whirlwind and can't find anything so far. I know it wasn't the most famous of all British planes but I can't believe there's nothing interesting on the web about it.
Thanks

[simon]

The Westland Whirlwind was a twin enginned single seat fighter powered by Rolls Royce Peregrine engines. It was armed with 4 20mm Hispano cannon and entered service in summer 1940.

In terms of it's capabilities it was quite a remarkable aircraft, fast, especially at lower altitudes, really quite manouevrable for a twin engined plane, and compared to it's contemporaries it carried a potent armament, only being outgunned in the west by the Bristol Beaufighter, at the time of its entry.

The first sortie by Whirlwinds led to their first kill over the channel, which I believe, although I'm going from memory here, was a Dornier Wal Flying boat, it also led to the first combat fatality as one of the Whirlwinds was shot down and the pilot killed in the engagement.

From 1941 onwards the Whirlwind MkII became available, equipped with bomb racks, and made itself felt as a useful cross channel nuisance raider attacking airfields and other installations.

The reason little is written about the Whirlwind is that they were only built in small numbers, and only equipped two squadrons, lasting in service until 1944. The problem with the Whirlwind, and the reason it did not achieve greater prominance was that it required a lengthy take off run which severely limited its potential for deployment overseas where airfield conditions might be less than ideal.

I have also read that it was supposed to be a somewhat tricky aircraft to handle for less experienced pilots, and as its entry came at a time that the RAF was suffering heavy pilot losses this was understandably not ideal for a new front line fighter.

It also suffered significantly from reliability problems associated with the Peregrine engines. In itself this might not have been too much of a problem, as potentially it could have been re-enginned to take Merlins, or the Peregrine could have been developed further to improve reliability. Unfortunately at the time Rolls Royce were being pushed to produce the Merlin in ever greater numbers for the Spitfire, Hurricane and later the Lancaster, so neither spare Merlins, nor spare R&D for the Peregrine was available.

I believe one Whirlwind did survive the war and was retained in it's RAF colours, being used as a private aircraft by Westland until it was dismantled in the 1950's.

I'm aware that a book has recently been published about the Whirlwind, if you would like me to dig out the ISBN Number, or you would like anymore information I can find in my own books at home, please feel free to e-mail me at simonr1978@aol.com

[JJC]

Hey Simon,

Thanks a lot for your help. I'll certainly try to order that book.

So long

[simon]

Two minor corrections to what I wrote, there never was a Whirlwind MkII, the version with bombracks was known as the MkIa. Also Whirlwinds only lasted in sevice until 1943, other than thatthe rest was all right.

Not bad considering it was from memory...