The Westland Witch was an unsuccessful British
bomber
A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped ...
prototype, first flown in 1928. Only a single aircraft of this type was built.
Development
The Witch was developed to
specification 23/25 for a single-engined day bomber operating at high altitude.
[K.J. Meekcoms and E.B. Morgan ''The British Aircraft Specifications File'', Air-Britain, UK 1994.] This specification initially requested the use of the Bristol Orion, a turbocharged version of the
Bristol Jupiter
The Bristol Jupiter was a British nine-cylinder single-row piston radial engine built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Originally designed late in World War I and known as the Cosmos Jupiter, a lengthy series of upgrades and developments turn ...
, but other variants of the Jupiter were substituted after development of the Orion encountered difficulties. All aircraft submitted to 23/25 suffered from engine problems, and none of them were put into production.
The Witch employed a strut-braced
parasol monoplane
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes.
A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...
configuration. The wing was of wood and steel construction and spanned a generous . The fuselage was built from duralumin and steel tubes, covered with fabric, with an uncowled Jupiter engine in the nose. The Witch had a crew of two, pilot and gunner/bombardier. The latter had a cockpit with a
Lewis gun on a
Scarff ring
The Scarff ring was a type of machine gun mounting developed during the First World War by Warrant Officer (Gunner) F. W. Scarff of the Admiralty Air Department for use on two-seater aircraft. The mount incorporated bungee cord suspension in eleva ...
aft of the pilot, but could also employ this for a prone bomb-aiming position.
A bomb bay was incorporated in the fuselage in front of the pilot, with four doors which could be opened by the bombardier or would open under the weight of the dropped bombs. As specified in 23/25, a single 520 lb bomb could be carried, or a number of smaller weapons.
[H.F. King, ''Armament of British Aircraft 1909-1939'', Military Book Society, UK 1971.] The presence of a bomb bay in the fuselage required a complicated split-axle arrangement for the fixed undercarriage, which was braced to the fuselage and the wing struts. A cross-axle would have been in path of the falling bombs.
[F.K. Mason, ''The British Bomber since 1914'', Putnam UK 1994]
The prototype of the Witch, serial J8596, was first flown on 30 January 1928 at
RAF Andover
RAF Andover is a former Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force station in England, west of Andover, Hampshire. As well as RFC and RAF units, units of the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, Royal Canadian Air Force, United States Army Air ...
, with Louis Paget at the controls. The type was praised for its stability as a bombing platform, and its 138 mph maximum speed was good, although its 62 mph landing speed was felt to be too fast. However, the Witch was judged unsuitable for service due to structural weaknesses, including a number of failures of the landing gear struts and other components.
[T. Mason, ''British Flight Testing Martlesham Heath 1920-1939'', Putnam UK 1993]
The same aircraft was nevertheless presented again the next year in Mk.II form, with a Jupiter VIIIF engine replacing the earlier Jupiter VI, and was used for testing of parachutes until 1931.
Specifications (Witch Mk.I)
See also
References
{{Westland aircraft
1920s British bomber aircraft
Witch
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of Magic (supernatural), magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In Middle Ages, medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually ...
Single-engined tractor aircraft