Aircraft - Handley-Page Hampden Medium Bomber - limited ed. postcard

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  Handley-Page Hampden Medium Bomber on thin blue card
• Publisher:  Lewfol Ltd. collectors card no. 40 of 100 [limited edition]
• Postally used:  no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

Please ask if you need any other information and I will do the best I can to answer.

Image may be low res for illustrative purposes - if you need a higher definition image then please contact me and I may be able to send one.

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Postage & Packing:

UK (incl. IOM, CI & BFPO): 99p

Europe: £1.60

Rest of world (inc. USA etc): £2.75

No additional charges for more than one postcard. You can buy as many postcards from me as you like and you will just pay the fee above once. (If buying postcards with other things such as books, please contact or wait for invoice before paying).

Payment Methods:

UK - PayPal, Cheque (from UK bank) or postal order

Outside UK: PayPal ONLY (unless otherwise stated) please.   NO non-UK currency checks or money orders (sorry).

NOTE: All postcards are sent in brand new stiffened envelopes which I have bought for the task. These are specially made to protect postcards and you may be able to re-use them. In addition there are other costs to sending so the above charge is not just for the stamp!

I will give a full refund if you are not fully satisfied with the postcard.

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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The Handley Page HP.52 Hampden was a British twin-engine medium bomber of the Royal Air Force serving in the Second World War. With the Whitley and Wellington, the Hampden bore the brunt of the early bombing war over Europe, taking part in the first night raid on Berlin and the first 1,000-plane raid on Cologne. The newest of the three medium bombers, the Hampden, known as the ""Flying Suitcase"" because of its cramped crew conditions,^[1] was still unsuited to the modern air war and, after operating mainly at night, it was retired from Bomber Command service in late 1942.

While the Hampden was powered by Bristol Pegasus radial engines, a short-lived variant known as the Handley Page Hereford instead featured in-line Napier Daggers.

Handley Page designed the Hampden to the same specification as the Wellington (Air Ministry Specification B.9/32) for a twin-engined day bomber. One prototype HP.52 (Serial K4240) was ordered which first flew on 21 June 1936. The first production batch of 180 Mk I Hampdens was built to a production Specification 30/36 with the first aircraft flying on 24 May 1938. Lady Katharine Mary Montagu Douglas Scott, Viscountess Hampden, christened the first flight at Radlett aerodrome in 1938.^[2]

The Hampden used a stressed skin design reinforced with a mixture of bent and extruded sections with the wing having a single main spar. Construction was from sections prefabricated then joined. The fuselage was in three major sections – front, centre and rear. The centre and rear sections were themselves made of two halves. This meant the sections could be fitted out in part in better working conditions before assembly. In a similar way, the wings were made up of three large units: centre section, port outer wing and starboard outer wing, which were in turn subdivided.^[3]

The Mk I had a crew of four: pilot, navigator/bomb aimer, radio operator and rear gunner. Conceived as a fast, manoeuvrable, ""fighting bomber"", the Hampden had a fixed .303 in (7.7 mm) Browning machine gun in the forward fuselage. To avoid the weight penalties of powered-turrets, the Hampden had a curved Perspex nose fitted with a manual .303 in (7.7 mm) Vickers K machine gun and two more single .303 in (7.7 mm) Vickers K installations in the rear upper and lower positions. The layout was similar to the all-guns-forward cockpits introduced about the same time in the Luftwaffe's own medium bombers, notably the Dornier Do 17. The guns were thoroughly inadequate for defence, consequently, by 1940, the single guns had been replaced by twin Vickers K guns.

The fuselage was quite cramped, wide enough only for a single person. The navigator sat behind the pilot, and access in the cockpit required folding down the seats. Once in place, the crew had almost no room to move.

""I did my first flight and first tour on Hampdens. A beautiful aeroplane to fly, terrible to fly in! Cramped, no heat, no facilities where you could relieve yourself. You got in there and you were stuck there. The aeroplane was like a fighter. It was only 3 feet wide on the outside of the fuselage and the pilot was a very busy person. There were 111 items for the pilot to take care of because on the original aircraft he had not only to find the instruments, the engine and all that, but also he had all the bomb switches to hold the bombs. – Wilfred John 'Mike' Lewis

^[4]

type=printed postcards

theme=transportation

sub-theme=air

transportation type=air

number of items=single

period=1945 - present

postage condition=unposted