Bristol Brigand Question

[ejboyd5]

While assembling my references for the soon to be released (I'm an optimist) Valom offering of the Bristol Brigand, I've come across several photographs and views of the Brigand showing teardrop shaped fairings on the sides of the fuselage aft of the wings. These fairings appear randomly without regard to Mark or serial number. None of my sources mention these fairings either in photo captions or text. Can anyone provide an explanation for their intended use?

[The wooksta V2.0]

That area on the Buckingham was occupied by two small windows. It's possible that since the Brigand (originally the fuselage was a development of the Beaufighter) used a large number of the Buckingham's components that the early ones used the rear fuselage of that type. A neat theory but probably man-vegetables.

Having had a flip through the Tony Buttler Warpaint on the Brigand, most of those withough the blister appear to be the early ones for trials. The ones built as torpedo fighters were recalled and rebuilt as bombers, so some of them wouldn't have the blister. The survivor at Bristol's Filton plant doesn't have them but that was one of the Torpedo fighter trials aircraft. What it actually covers is anyone's guess - a trailing radio wire perhaps as the blister does appear to have a slot on the trailing end. That suggested a rear firing gun but there's never been any mention of that.

[Edgar]

Dredging the brain, for this one, but I have a feeling that I read (somewhere) that they were the attachment points for the cables on towed targets.

Edgar

[tonyot]

I`d always thought that the blisters on the rear fuselage od the Brigand/Buckingham were for remote controlled guns...as per the Me410........but they were not present on production aircraft...thats my theory anyway...I`m probably way off the mark though??

Cheers

Tony O

[The wooksta V2.0]

I don't think I've seen any mention of it anywhere, Tony. The TF1s, the few that were built, all had a rear firing gun in the cockpit and no blisters on the fuselage whereas most of the B1s seem to have had the blisters.

The only British aircraft to have had barbettes seem to be the Lincoln and Windsor plus the early Shackleton prototypes.

[JimInOz]

Cannon blast tubes ???? Just a thought.

Cheers

Jim