Bristol Beaufighter - To bulkhead or not bulkhead

[Muddyf]

I’m currently converting a Tamiya 1/48 Beaufighter TFX and detailing the interior. I have come across a problem that has me perplexed and halted work at the moment. I apologise if this has been answered before, but my google-fu (which is usually strong) has yet to give me an answer.

 

With the kit, you are supplied a bulkhead with doors that sits just behind the pilots entry hatch and separates the pilot from the observer. I have also seen this bulkhead shown in a few cutaways. I have never seen evidence of this bulkhead in any period photographs or museum/restoration projects. I have spoken to my grandmother (who built Beaufighters) and she can’t recall this bulkhead either. Now, I am aware that in later TFX and Mk.21 that a bulkhead with doors was placed just aft of the observers position and separated the area near the tail which housed flares etc from the rest of the fuselage.

 

Did Tamiya (and others) put in a bulkhead that simply wasn’t there, or am I wrong?

Edited November 15, 2018 by Muddyf

[rossm]

I have always believed there was one there with armoured doors. Where I read that I've no idea and it could be another long perpetuated myth. I've looked through the Modellers Datafile and can't find concrete evidence for it but coverage of that area is sketchy.

 

I can't lay hands on it just now but "Night Fighter" by Rawnsley and Wright has some description of the Beaufighter interior as it impacted on Rawnsley, John Cunningham's usual radar operator, when he was changing cannon drums. I'm not sure exactly how much detail though as it's years since I read it.

[neil5208]

I have a book on beaufighters which shows the bulkhead fitted in several pictures, one of a mk21 show the doors have been removed. The bristol cutaway diagram also shows the bulkhead with the hydraulic system tank and hand pump bolted to it.

[sloegin57]

On 15 November 2018 at 11:32 PM, Muddyf said:

I’m currently converting a Tamiya 1/48 Beaufighter TFX and detailing the interior. I have come across a problem that has me perplexed and halted work at the moment. I apologise if this has been answered before, but my google-fu (which is usually strong) has yet to give me an answer.

 

With the kit, you are supplied a bulkhead with doors that sits just behind the pilots entry hatch and separates the pilot from the observer. I have also seen this bulkhead shown in a few cutaways. I have never seen evidence of this bulkhead in any period photographs or museum/restoration projects. I have spoken to my grandmother (who built Beaufighters) and she can’t recall this bulkhead either. Now, I am aware that in later TFX and Mk.21 that a bulkhead with doors was placed just aft of the observers position and separated the area near the tail which housed flares etc from the rest of the fuselage.

 

Did Tamiya (and others) put in a bulkhead that simply wasn’t there, or am I wrong?

If I may quote from Victor Binghams book on the Beaufighter Chapter 4, "The Beaufighter Aircraft",  Part 1 "The fuselage", Paragraph 3.

 

"Armour plate is fitted on the front face of the rear spar and extended above it to the underside of the hydraulic tank in the roof.  Armour plate is also fitted to the aft face of the rear spar between the booms, and an armoured bulkhead is fitted aft of the observers station sloping down from former 183 to approximately former 194".......

 

I have always taken that particular Chapter, Chapter 4, as being based upon the official Air Publication for the type.  Being familiar with such publications, it has a ring of Service Writing about it.  Further more, in at least two of the books that I have concerning the Coastal Command Strike Wings, there are many references to the Observer either opening or closing the armoured doors, between himself and the pilot, during or just before the aircraft going into action. 

 

The cutaway drawings that I have,  oddly enough do not show the doors in the bulkhead but do show the bulkhead currently queried.  Then again, the drawings that I have are for the Mk.1 and the TT version.

 

To answer your question.  Yes.  There was an armoured bulkhead fitted where Tamiya have placed it but the question is, were the doors that have been mentioned in other publications always fitted to the bulkhead?.  For a TF.X, I would unhesitatingly say yes, due to the type of operations that the aircraft undertook.  With regard to other marks, and you say that you are converting the TFX but do not state to what, the question of the doors being fitted is still open.  But the armoured bulkhead was most definitely there.

 

On speculation and if you are converting the kit to Target Towing configuration, then I would say that, depending on the degree of accuracy you are aiming for, it may be advisable to cut out the doors before installing the bulkhead into the model as on the full size aircraft the only emergency exit for the Observer/TT winch operator, was out through the pilots emergency exit as the formers emergency exit had been converted for use to stream the target drogue.  For any other wartime Beaufighter, I would fit the bulkhead as is.

 

HTH

 

Dennis

[neil5208]

Just checked the book I have, Bristol Beaufighters by Victor Bingham. There is a cut away on page 41 showing the forward bulhead,  a line drawing on page 62 showing the rear bulkhead between the 20 mm ammo cans and observers position, cant find the pictures I refered to must have been online

[Muddyf]

Thanks guys.

 

I have seen the cutaways, just never a photo. That said, period photos of the interiors of Beaufighters seem to be VERY uncommon, and usually a forward facing view of the pilot/cockpit and the odd photo of the observer/navigator. Almost all the photos taken from the area of the bulkhead and thus not capturing it on film.

 

I am building an Australian Mk.21, and I have seen many period photos of manufacture and wrecks on airfields open at the cockpit/fuselage join, and again none with a bulkhead hence my query.

 

Matt