F.A.Q Section Q: Do you take aircraft requests? A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:) Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others? A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both. Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos? A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :) Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators? A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.

Bristol really was the master of missed opportunities, wild designs and incredible 'what-ifs'!

This was definatelly a lost opportunity that makes you wonder about what the RAF would have looked like in 1939.

Well done Rex - another almost completely unrecognised or covered aircraft.

I have to give that aircraft my highest award..."The I want to fly it" rating... it just look like it would be an awesome plane to fly.

The RR Goshawk killed off more fighter designs in the early '30s than pretty much anything else.

This has always been one of my interwar favourites since playing WoWP, where it features prominently. Would love to build a model kit of it and maybe do a What-If? Scheme for it. I can see these taking the historical place of the Gloster Gladiator in places like Finland, the Middle East or China

What I’m learning is that you should just start with a large rudder.

Huh, i did know ABOUT this plane, but i hadn't realised how ridiculously unfortunate it was in being written off.

It was a very beautiful aircraft at a time when biplanes were the norm. A very lost chance due to only one air frame being made. You should always have a back up. The air frame is very reminiscent of a Corsair with its gull wings, but it fuselage shows hints of Seversky /Republic models

Looks like a cross between a Zero and Corsair ! :D

I think a deep dive into the Hawker Hurricane is in order. She doesn't get enough love.

Never heard of it. Thanks

Some of my favourite subjects all together.

Inverted gull wing aircraft look so attractive to me even if this planform is not particularly aerodynamically advantageous. If for no other reason, thank you for this discourse on a poorly known, potential Battle of Britain fighter. From your detailed coverage of the plane and its teething problems, I rather think that the crash of the single prototype due to a really pretty basic pilot error was a blessing. Had there been competition from the Bristol plane there might have been less Hurricanes produced. The Spitfire might well have still been developed and ordered in numbers, but IMO the Bristol would have been even less competent than the Hurricane against the ME109. As we know, the Hurricane bore the brunt of the battle in the early part of the Battle of Britain.

Rex, check the specs again at 9:05, the metric equivalent of the length and wingspan are mixed up with the imperial measurements. Very interesting story.

The one that really intrigues me is the Blackburn B.20, which seemed to be a really good solution to lots of problems with flying boats or floatplanes. Imagine a 300mph flying boat bomber. It was scuppered (word fully intended) by using Vulture engines.

Awesome presentation Sir. Thank you Rex

I really love your videos on the (mostly unknown) aircraft of the Interwar period! 👍👏 You are a real strong (subsonic?!) wind of fresh air to the Aviation video scholarship. I am a little bored on the interminable rehashing on the more famous WW2 airplanes ... 😴

Another cracking video,Mr Rexy👍👍👍

Welcome back. Thank you for the great video and hope you enjoyed your break.

Great video!

Really fascinating, as are all Your videos, thanks for all the hard work

"A British Corsair"? A closer comparison might be as "a British Seversky P-35".

Thank you for another very informative plane that I did not know about. Well done! Looking forward to your video on the Fiat CR 42.

The side view at 8:42 conjured up the early P-47 Thunderbolt for a brief moment.

Neato. Thanks for posting this.

The lovechild of a Seversky P-35 and an F4U Corsair!

Love your work

That smiley face on the Bristol 123!

Another aircraft I never heard of! Great video! Have you covered the Swedish stop gap fighter J22 of WW2? There's a restoration project ongoing in Sweden right now, where they are trying to get one back flying. The aircraft was a real hotrod, down low. They claimed it was the fastest aircraft with a 1000 hp engine in the world. Unfortunately, not everyone else was restricted to a 1000 hp engine in October 1943 when it entered service... Still, a very impressive stop gap fighter.

Look at those Bristols!

Thanks, Rex.

Love these interwar planes, Golden Age. Anything was on the table.

Good luck with the house hunting! 👍

Understandable forgetting the undercart was down at that time period. Many pilots trained on the Tutor and Gladiator forgot to 'Lower' their wheels while flying their new Hurris and Spits.

Interesting video

Dora Wings. Your next idea for a kit.

Looking forward to your hawker history part 2, and hoping it covered the Hart and its variation.

"Extended the rudder after initial trials showed a lack of directional control" seems to be a recurring theme with these interwar aircraft. Was this due to some basic principle that wasn't yet understood or was it just an attempt to make a drag-inducing element as small as possible and incrementally expand it to what was determined to be the minimum viable size?

OK, you're right, I hadn't heard of it, but that's why I watch your (excellent) channel. A serious leap forward in design and concept which could have changed the whole RAF paradigm, but had to sit back and watch Hawker's Hurricane do that instead. Bristol just didn't get the breaks, did they?

If you want massive range, one way to do it is through the use of a 'wet' fin, or building internal conforming fuel tanks between the cockpit and rudder if possible.

Thanks

Fascinating! You give ed nash a run for his money!!

That 129 was fantastic.

This prototype was 18mph than the prototype that became the gladiator with the same engine. I can imagine with the uprated mercury that was used in the production version of the gladiator it could have topped 280mph with a supieror climb and dive rate. Thus of 150-200 of these were ordered instead of the gladiator the early stages of the desert campaign and the defence of malta would have been rather more successful/less costly. It would also have got the RAF ground crew familiar with repair and maintenance of stressed metal airframes a good three years before the arrival of the spitfire.

0:45 This Gloster G.38 F.5/34 metal monoplane looks very similar to the PZL P.50 "Jastrząb" (pol. Hawk). She has also similar armament and performance

Neat!🐿

The _Type 129_ might not have performed well as a fighter, but IMO it looked _COOL._

It does look a lot like the American Seversky P-35, and that spawned a whole series of successful radial engine fighters, so that is interesting to think about what could have been if the 133 had survived.

As usual, Air Ministry involvement proved damaging. Those companies that managed to privately develop projects without government involvement fared better.

I wonder if anybody's got a list of all the aircraft programs that went t$ts up because of a prototype crash. XB-70, this thing, etc.

The follow up, the Type 146, was much sleeker, with an 'almost bubble canopy'. It too had no chance to enter production.

Okay then Now I know where the Pitts came from, the Bristol 123 actually looks like a what if the Pitts was made back in the 30s.

That Gloster aeroplane looks a bit like the Gloster Whittle.

This aircraft would have most certainly been obsolete once the Hurricane started flying. Any fighter saddled with a British radial engine would be, given how under-powered British radials were at the time. Perhaps with an inline engine it might have amounted to something, similar to the evolution of the unspectacular Hawk 75 into the ubiquitous Warhawk series.

Just imagine if they had built two airframes for the testing program.

i really appreciate your content. i was wondering if you might do a review of the Northrop model 3A? ive always been fascinated with this aircraft in that there's no longer any example in existent. typical stubby fighter of the time in development during WW2. thak you regards Brian

Great job! I am surprised again ;-) This is not easy considering that I am flying since 1986, and started to be interested in aviation at least 10 yeas earlier . Your way of presenting , speech , fun and comments are exceptional. Please keep up your great work. All the beast! W.R.

Mr. Rex's Hangar, have you treated what could have been the WW2 Italian "Stuka" made by Piaggio ? I believe it's the Piaggio P119. Let us know. Thanks !

It reminds me of the P-47A

Ah that was absolutely fantastic. 1934...

As a 'What could have been' aircraft, it is interesting to note the similarities it has with the Seversky P 35, & then consider how this aircraft evolved through the P 43 Lancer and into the P 47 Thunderbolt! Imagine a similar genesis occuring with the Bristol 133! A bubble canopy, cranked wings, and Centaurus 18cylinder engine! Model scratchbuilders. Your challenge awaits!

Stability problems apparently from an undersized rudder, really. That is not a rudder, that is a bump in the rear fuselage.

My favourite ride in World of Warplanes

Please do one on the he 100, bf 109, f4f

I have noticed that many aircraft that failed not because of the basic design or concept of the aircraft but the failure of the power plants. I would be interested in the reason or reasons for so many power plants not reaching their expected specs. Was it the metallurgy, engineering knowledge or capability or other factors that were involved.

I reckon the gull wing design would have soon disappeared from successive models (with stronger undercarriage strut design) and essentially became sea fury like in the same manner the P-35 became the Thunderbolt. The F4U never really needed its fancy wing after 1940, it was just Chance Voughts own stubborn fetish. Willy Messerschmitt with his gawdy undercarriage et all.

Seems stupid not to equip the plane with some kind of reminder of the position of the undercarriage. This incident seems so familiar . Losing your only prototype over such a silly mistake is so disappointing.

One look at this lovely design & the air service clearly would have had the potential of a great carrier based airframe ahead of time. Sheesh… Oh to be able to go back in a Time Machine to the 1930’s and have a few quiet words in the right ears to: 1: Build several test airframes. 2: Make sure test pilots remember to retract undercarriage after takeoff 3: develop an automated system for said undercarriage!!! This aircraft clearly was by implication a decade ahead of its time.

I get shit happens, but as a test pilot how do you just "forget" your landing gear is down, or forget to raise it on the first place.

Corsair and a Zero had a baby.

And that were the days of I-16 production. How can GB be so down?

ERROR: at 9:20, the length and wingspan of the wings is wrong, either in Imperial units or in metric units

So, this wasn't actually a failure, but unfortunate.

Pretty sure all the British Corsairs came from Vought. They worked out pretty well, too, aside from the accident rate.

I never understood the British fascination with steam cooling.

The Hurricane was streets ahead.

Oh Britain...

looks like a lockheed aircraft

Wekcome back 👍

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the inverted gull-wings?

In ways it kinda looks like the Breda Ba.27 Metallico but with Gull wings

Some test pilot SKIMPING the Hasell checks 🙄 Interesting sidenote to British Aero development for all that

The semi-flush landing gear is similar to the p-35's. Also, lesson learned: if there's any promising British designs that never made it passed eyes of RAF *and* RAE, *BLAME THE RAF AND RAE FOR THEIR CHILD-LIKE SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS*

Imagine if they had fitted a Merlin II to it .....

The 146?

Compare that one page requirements sheet to today's fighter requirements volumes.

Enlarge the rudder to get the spin characteristics right, put in a 800+ hp version of the Mercury engine and it will be at least on par with the first generation of Italian low wing fighters and superior to the very last generation of Polish high wing fighters and to the whole last generation of biplane fighters. Even if the RAF didn't want it, it could have been a successful export aircraft.

And speaking of the Gohawk engine, 20 (twenty) were built. LOL. Fail on the entire idea.

Ugly little bugger that one. It is hard to say if it was a blessing or a curse that this aircraft crashed. By the time it was flying we had F.5/34 issued. Bristol put forward the Type 146 which was basically a Type 133 only completely different. To me this suggests that despite the moderate success of the Type 133 in the trials Bristol had already decided this aircraft was a bit of an evolutionary dead end. Also to be considered in the timeline is that Hawker is starting to push the 'Fury Monoplane' and the RAF are starting to push for 6 or 8 gun fighters and the word 'Hurricane' is going to soon start being popular closely followed by the word 'Spitfire'. Sure the RAF got the Gladiator, but less so because it was great improvement they had been hoping for, but more that F.7/30 had been a bit of a fizz. So... what if it hadn't been? Let us say the Type 133 hadn't crashed. I would argue that the RAF were already looking towards the F.5/34 and the associated evolution and that Gladiators may still have been ordered to take up some slack while waiting for Bristol to move from prototype to production. As shown with the Type 146 Bristol was probably wanting to move past the Type 133 and so production numbers of the Type 133 may have ended up being relatively small. So... best case for the Type 133 was limited production and squadron service with the aging aircraft being regarded unfavorably c.f the newer Hurricanes by 1939. The aircraft would have limited combat during the first year or so of the war but, not being a biplane, would never get the romantic respect the Gladiator managed to collect. Worse case would if the type had gone into massive production to become the prime single seat fighter for the entire RAF. With funding going to this aircraft there would have been limited funding to go towards Hurricanes and Spitfire. The RAF had just received 1000 of the type, and they were only a few years old. Waste of money to throw them out straight away and all that. This would end up in a similar state to what happened historically with the Battle and Blenheim. Technically advanced bombers that were a big leap up from the biplanes they replaced and put into service in great numbers... but aging quickly and due to the numbers invested in, delaying development of a replacement. Maybe. Maybe not. Hidesight is a great thing and pretending cost nothing, but like I said, the Battle and Blenheim showed what happens when you get the 'timing wrong' in a rapidly changing tech field. Great video.

The only reason why I've heard of this plane before today is World of Warplanes.

Wow, that Type 129 looks like something out of a "Smilin' Jack" comic strip. I wish we'd stop getting more kits of stupid Luft '46 stuff and weird, never happened German tanks and get some kits of stuff like this!

:)

Next war thunder premium

Lol not surprised to see something like this

5:30 I expected “… and after changes in his underwear….

Air Ministry told all the AC manufacturers, "you can use any engine you please, as long as it's made by Rolls-Royce". Another clever British design sandbagged by dependence on the Government darling, RR.

I see this aircraft as a lost opportunity for Britain. 133 with Mercury VIII could reach 450 km/h, with its advanced design it would be enough to be considered a very modern aircraft in 1938, during the Munich crisis! This way the RAF would not be considered inferior and history could be much better for Britain, without appeasement policy.

Its not a British Cosair it's a British Sea Ruffian