Target Towing Beaufighter

[Mark Cassidy]

I wonder if anyone would like to profer a pov, I am thinking of doing a 287 sqn beaufighter. They were effectively a training sqn towing banners for gunnery students. They operated beaufighters from November 44 till the end of the war. 

 

I've had a good old rake around the web and my library for images of wartime target towing bueaufighters and the only scheme I seem to come up with is the silver Upper, tiger stripe undersides. 

 

Is my understanding correct that this was a post war scheme? Ive looked at other tugs and some have been all over tiger stripes I the case of lysanders and battles , and there are some that retain a standard camo upper and tiger stripe undersides ,typhoon and henley

 

Do any of you fine folks have a thought on this?

[Mark Harmsworth]

According to Modelers Datafile 6 by Richard Franks the target tug's first flight was May 1948 with NT913 and the 36 TTs were converted from TF Mk Xs. 

 

287 sqn is shown as being equipped with the Mk VIf from September 1944 and re-equipping with the Spitfire Mk XVI in July 1945.

 

No idea if this info is correct but it is the only reference I have on the Beaufighter.

 

Not sure if this helps but the RAFCommands site has this image for NT913:

http://www.rafcommands.com/database/serials/details.php?uniq=NT913

Mark

Edited September 25, 2021 by Mark Harmsworth
show link to NT913

[BillF67]

I will be building a 17Sqn TT Mk10. It will have Silver over Yellow/Black. Sources are: The Long Drag by Don Evans, Warpaint Series 1, Beaufighter, by Alan Hall and a b/w photo of RD751, UT*10 in Aviation News, Vol22 No9. Good enough for me!

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

Beaufighter X RD751 was taken on charge 1 May 1945.

 

287 squadron as of September 1944, when the first Beaufighter VI arrived, also had Hurricanes, Martinets and Oxfords.  Spitfire IX and Tempest V were added in November, the last of the Hurricanes left in March 1945, the Beaufighters in July, the Spitfire IX in September, but Spitfire XVI joined in August.  Squadron disbanded in June 1946.  Apart from target towing the squadron was also tasked with simulating attacks.  No idea whether its Beaufighters did target towing but I suspect not.

[tonyot]

Fighters like the Spitfire could act as target tugs with a single banner attached via a hook behind the tail wheel,..... so a wartime Beaufighter `might' have had a similar fitting,...... but with the availability of sufficient proper TT`s like the Martinet, Vengeance and Defiant by this stage which could deploy multiple banners etc for each sortie,... I cannot see it myself. 

The role they were most probably used for was as radar targets for trainee fighter controllers etc and as gunnery targets for AA gunners,...... for the latter the gunners would either fire offset or use camera guns or predictors? 

I suggest doing a bit of research into the unit to find out the roles it undertook maybe?

Cheers

          Tony 

[Seahawk]

Air Britain's Squadrons of the Royal Air Force...  says of 287 Sq "formed on 19 Nov 1941 at Croydon from 11 Group AAC Flight.  It provided detachments at various airfields in southern England for target-towing and gun-laying exercises until the end of the war and disbanded on 15 June 1944."  Better still, it has a starboard rear quarter view of a Hercules-engined Beaufighter coded KZ-R: it is captioned as a Beaufighter VI.  The colour scheme looks to be standard night-fighter Medium Sea Grey and Dark Green.  The codes look red to me (same tone as the roundel centre and are carried slightly high on the fuselage (with the bottoms more or less in line with the bottom of the red portion of the roundel.  No target-towing modifications are apparent but a. the photo is small and a bit murky and b. as Tony says, they needn't have been extensive anyway.

 

John Rawlings' RAF Coastal, Support and Special Squadrons lists 287 Sq in Appendix 4 Anti-Aircraft Cooperation Squadrons.  History as above: disbandment was at West Malling.  Squadron had Beaufighters I, VI and X from Nov 1944 to July 1946.  Two of these were V8159, KZ-F and X7626 (no code given).  This is problematic.  1.  Air Britain's RAF Aircraft T1000-V9999 confirms 287 as the 2nd of 2 squadrons V8159 served with but gives it as a (Merlin-engined) Beaufighter II.  With plenty of second-hand Beaufighter VIs around from units re-equipping with the Mosquito, I would have expected the RAF to have palmed off its Beaufighter IIs onto the FAA by then.  2.  The same source gives V8159 as Struck Off Charge on 15 Nov 1944 - so maybe 287 wrote it off as soon as they received it?  Anyway, I am wary of a typo or transcription error possibly having crept in along the way.

 

Anti-aircraft cooperation takes many forms.  Part of their role may have been no more than preparing AA crews psychologically for coming under attack from high performance aircraft by screaming in at 0 ft and scaring the bejasus out of them.  No special modifications required for that.

 

 

Edited September 27, 2021 by Seahawk

[Mark Cassidy]

Folks,

 

Just wanted to say thank you all for taking the time to respond to my query, you have provided me all with a wealth of information I had no idea where to start looking, 

 

Am genuinely in your debt in regards to this, you even managed to turn up a set of codes so you guys have saved me that chore as well , I will post the finished results for anyone interested.

 

Seahawk I love your last paragraph, how much would we all pay to have that experience now?