Britain's Strangest WW2 Bomber? | Vickers Wellington (Part 2)
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- Опубліковано 20 сер 2022
- Today we're looking at the many other variants of the Vickers Wellington that weren't dedicated bombers. Some of these were very weird indeed, including the DWI (or flying doughnut) Wellington, the high-altitude Wellingtons, and the numerous examples operated by Coastal Command, which helped to pioneer the use of the Leigh Light in hunting U-Boats.
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Sources:
Bowyer.C (1986), The Wellington Bomber - geni.us/4f6hAQQ
Andrews.C.F (1967), The Vickers Wellington I & II (Aircraft in Profile 125) - geni.us/wf8F40g
Delve.K (1998), Vickers Armstrong Wellington - geni.us/jU1Yv
Hall.A.W (1997), Vickers Wellington, Warpaint Series No. 10 - geni.us/HhXGzpa
Mackay.R (1986), Wellington in Action, Aircraft Number 76 - geni.us/BXCIZZK
Air Ministry (1941), Pilot's Notes, The Wellington I, IA, and IC Aeroplanes. - Наука та технологія
![Heinkel’s Failed Rival To The Bf 109 | The He 112 [Historical Deep-Dive]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rNf9RYsrHlQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![Heinkel’s Failed Rival To The Bf 109 | The He 112 [Historical Deep-Dive]](/img/tr.png)
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.
Feel free to leave you questions below - I may not be able to answer all of them, but I will keep my eyes open :)
Is the Ford Trimotor on your list? Thank you
I’ve been waiting for this one for a while thanks 😊
Whats your favorite flying boat? I really like the astatic of the Japanese's "Kawanishi H6K" if you haven't already done a video on that.
Fokker G1 please, I´m Dutch.
Ok I’ve got a huge request because it’s not a traditional video for you. PLEASE make a video on the French Leyat Helicar. Attempt #9 (also haven’t given up on asking for the SU-47 but the Leyat is even more interesting)
And yet, after all the variants and thousands of airframes built, there is only one surviving Wellington today. Tragic.
I wouldn't have cared much a few years ago but that has changed. To all the museums and people that keep them open, thank you.
Were Wellingtons harder to preserve than other aircraft (due to their structure), or were they just unlucky/not a big part of the popular consciousness?
@@kingleech16 Probably nobody gave any thought to preserving any for posterity until it was too late. There were thousands of Wellingtons, so I guess it didn't seem like a priority until they suddenly realized there were none left. The surviving example ditched in Loch Ness and had to be raised in order to get it to a museum.
@@elennapointer701 a damned shame. I know that resources were tight after the war, but it would have been nice to have saved a few more hulls and airframes.
Actually two survivors.. one at Brooklands, and one being restored at RAF Museum Cosford :)
The allies discovered that the bright spotlight made these planes invisible to their targets in broad daylight. Although this seems counter intuitive it actually makes perfect sense. A plane with a bright spotlight on is invisible against the background of a bright daylit sky. U boat crews were unable to spot such planes until they came close enough for the spotlight to come into focus and the plane became visible. By then it was too late.
@NoNamesPlease - I agree; it does seem counter-intuitive - but your explanation makes perfect sense.
Operation Yahootie by the USNavy was the name of the research and development. If I remember correctly they first tested it on land by making a truck “disappear” on top of a hill. It impressed the brass and it was tested on aircraft with some success.
Same principle applies to a M . Cycle on a bright day... Its a form of white out.
That early “stealth” research program also found *the perfect colour* to reduce the range of visual detection by up to 80% of normal. Pink, or how they described it in their reports: “An equal mixture of White and Red pigments” or “as comparable to a dulled Salmon colour.”
There was just no way the Joint Chiefs were/are ever going to paint all their aircraft:! Pink. Especially the Fighter Fleet, which would see the greatest difference in their visual signature.
Roger Waters: Response to Nancy ...
ua-cam.com/video/98WH8K2Wjck/v-deo.html
What they managed to engineer with only analog equipment, a slide rule, and pencil and paper during WW2 is truly mind blowing.
Men like Nevil Shute, whose job title at Vickers was "Computer" are no longer being produced. Despite his achievements during the war analyzing the engineering stresses of geodetic construction, I consider his greatest gifts to humanity to be the novels he wrote in which he anticipated the nuclear corner we've painted ourselves into and the importance of faith in human evolution.
You list equipment; you don't understand; it was, and still is, the human mind..
The polish guy who reverse engineered late 30s enigma with his head-math
Give a kid a Slide Rule now. They are befuddled.
I worked with an ex RCAF navigator in 1975. Apparently the Wimpy as he called would take a phenomenal amount of battle damage and still get them home.
The real Let down of the Wellington was that it had no armor and returned many more members of its air crew dead vs it’s competition. It was cheaper and faster to make but at a cost to the crews
@@mddunlap03 lol .040" of aluminum isn't armor.
As a retired aircraft engineer I'm always amazed with people who think a metal skinned aircraft affords more protection than a fabric and or wood airframe.
Geodesic construction is a incredibly resilient structure however nothing is free in life. The tradeoffs In this case being weight and production time.
Stressed skin (monocoque/semi monocoque)is the construction technique that survives to this day.
@@mddunlap03 the competition that didn't make it back with wounded...means THEY DIDN'T MAKE IT BACK!
@@brentfellers9632 funny when you think about a B-17 that landed with barely a tail, one that landed herself with no crew, a B-17 tail that landed itself(extreme grain of salt no clue if it's true the other 2 can be proven though).
Curious though if any wellington had some weird but similar stories.
It looks as though a cannon round could potentially pass right through the aircraft without doing more than leaving two holes. Maybe geodesic should be tried again.
The Captain in the picture is my father. I have his log book. He was with 407 sqdrn..
Always a great day when Rex is giving us some more Welly.
When I first saw that image of the pressurized Wellington at the end of part 1 I thought it was just such a weird looking thing. But seeing how this was essentially a pressure vessel grafted on to a Welly's frame, it makes more sense. Still a strange looking machine for sure.
That was the reason the engine of the later Spitfires and Mustangs was developed, for the high altitude Wellington.
"...After a landing that would put even RyanAir to shame..." 🤣
But seriously, the Wellington survived in service because its very geodetic structural design made the airframe extremely strong for its day. Its strong structure made the Wellington highly adaptable for numerous other roles.
Some one asked a RyanAir pilot, on disembarking, after a rather heavy landing, "Was that really a sheduled landing - or were we actually shot down??"
I've watched hundreds of WW1 and WW2 You Tube videos/documentaries,
this one is incredibly well researched/presented,
until I watched this Wellington documentary,
I had no idea that a high altitude Wellington even existed.
Awesome, I knew the Wellington was a good, versatile and usually under-rated machine, but I never knew it was this versatile!.
As WWII in general saw a massive increase in what became know as Electronic Warfare. Regarding the anti U-Boat aircraft, the loss of a Wellington over occupied territory allowed the Germans to analyse the system and build radar detectors to be fitted in U-Boats. ASW aircraft then saw their prey submerging before they could be attacked, but of course in turn the radar parameters were changed to restore the advantage to the attacker.
192 Sqn operated Wellington Xs within 100 Gp in the 'signal interception' role, later known as ESM, using sensitive receivers to establish and analyse the German electronic order of battle. This was dangerous work when for instance working to record the emissions of Luftwaffe night-fighter AI radars so that detectors and jammers could be developed. They also contributed to the discovery of radio tracking transmissions from V1s, and the geolocation of ground radar sites, leading to the famous commando operation to seize a Wurzburg radar from Bruneval on the North French coast.
Anyway, great to see some of the more arcane variants getting some lime (or Leigh) light for a change!
I believe those Wellingtons adapted for electronic warfare were known as "smeller Wellingtons". They could sniff out enemy radar frequencies !
Brilliant video! Thanks! My Dad was at Brooklands with Vickers and involved in Wellington mods and Warwick and Windsor construction.
What a brilliant and very detailed look at Barnes Wallace's beloved Wimpy! Thank you for bringing it to us. Many of these variants I had never heard of apart from the degaussing and Leigh light ones.
Thank you, Rex, for another informative and entertaining video.
P.S. It gladens this old heart to witness a presenter who is well spoken, does not mispronounce words that are in the O.E.D., and can actually concoct sentences that have a subject, predicate, and object. This might seem like setting the bar rather low, but a cringingly large percentage of your peers seem incapable of this seemingly mundane set of tasks, which would doubtless send many of my teachers from years long past spinning violently in their graves......
Don't mention robot voices.....
And from an Aussie!
@Retired Bore
Marvin..is that you?
Apart from mispronouncing "degaussing".
so I'm guessing you don't like dark skies..
Thanks Rex, that was most comprehensive, containing much I hadn't known, including why the Leigh light was so named. I've a small correction for you. Gauss is usually held to rhyme with house rather than horse. Cheers.
wow, I don't remember ever hearing of these let alone seeing a picture of one. Your efforts add to the historical record for sure.
Not heard of a Wellington Bomber? You must be a millennial.
I think he meant a Wellington with a hula hoop
@@The-Clockwork-Eye he probably meant the different modifications of the Welly
ofc I've heard of a wellington. I'm 51.
@@The-Clockwork-Eye Generation X, functionally illiterate.
A superb multi-role aircraft, I've always had a soft spot for the "Wimpy". Great video, once again. Thank you.
All in all the Wellington was a useful and I think a good aircraft design, it's geodesic structure was very innovative. I like the Wellington's looks.
A classic example of looking right and flying right.
Excellence in scholarship is the hallmark of this fine aviation channel, many years and blessings to it!
Loved hearing about all these weird and wonderful variations. I'd seen pictures of the "hula hoop" Wellington, but didn't really know about the others. (And your narration was just fine - didn't notice any impact from your local fires)
Thoroughly enjoyed this, as I did part 1. The information on the aircraft , variants, different creations and history on them is something I really enjoy! Thanks for your hard work and keep bringing us more!
P.s any chance one day you could do the CAC Boomerang in the future? Would be great! Have a soft spot for her.
I believe a post-war Vickers transport, possibly the Viking, was designed to use up a surplus of Wellington centre sections, (wing, motors and undercarriage) whose production had outstripped the fuselages.
TIL, the ford flathead also found mines in britain! an amazing bit of trivia!
"You say you need a Wellington Bomber for test drops. They're worth their weight in gold. Do you really think the authorities will lend you one? What possible argument could I put forward to get you a Wellington?"
Barnes Wallis: "Well, if you told them I designed it, do you think that might help?"
A great line - but almost certainly fictional.
@@Simon_Nonymous Believe it was true but can't prove it.
Rex, I am so glad to have stumbled upon your channel. The level of detail and the way you present information is wonderful. Keep up the great work! You've certainly earned a long time viewer, cheers.
And here we see the origin of the UFO "flying saucer".
Very well done research and presentation, I learned a lot of things. Thank you.
I have to say, this video series inspired me to buy a 1/48 scale Wellington Mk III to build
Wow, 1/48th scale - it'll be massive! I can remember building a 1/72 Airfix kit as a boy. It seems like yesterday. I can faintly recall that the kit was black before painting, but I'm not certain. Such great fun.
All the best Eric and I hope that you enjoy your build.
This is one of those videos that I had to save for a moment when I would have time to focus and enjoy.
The Wellington was truly a formidable design and flown by very brave crews.
I recently built a balsa model of one and I am hoping to get it to fly at some point (build videos and first crash on my channel)
Thank you for all the research and editing work to put these together!
Excellent stuff. I think your Wellington videos are probably the best you’ve done so far!
Fabulous video one of my favourite aircraft. Learnt a lot never knew about the high altitude version.
Excellent, excellent video! I can't imagine how long it takes to edit all this , write the script , and get all the audio on there.
Very well done and so informative!
Whats interesting that germans used the same on a Ju52s with a formation called "Minensuchgruppe Mausi"
I've read tons of ww2 history and never heard of the wellington rigged to trigger magnetic mines...great stuff
The Ju 52 was used for the same role with a similar device , called Mausi-Schleife.
Consistently well produced and informative with just the right amount of snark.
Very cool followup.
It's not "degauzing" - it's 'degaussing' pronounced 'de-gow-sing". I used to work at Dowty Magnetics, where we made various magnetic ranges used to set the back-off coils on Naval ships. Ships have a magnetic field, whose orientation changes due to the Earth's magnetic field. After a couple of months, say, in UK waters, any ship will have a magnetic field similar to its surrounding, due to slowly perming up. Move that ship to the Mediterranean, and it's magnetic field sticks out like a sore thumb. For this reason, ships were built with 3 magnetic coils surrounding the hull, which could be electrified to produce a magnetic field which cancelled out the field of the ship. The Dowty ranges allowed the scanning of ships and rapid calculation of the settings of these coils.
I had no idea a ship has a significant magnetic field, let alone one that varied with the sea it’s in, this is a very interesting bit of info.
It was essential for a minesweeper (even if built of wood and aluminium) to get periodic degaussing over buried undersea cables.
You can see parts of the degaussing system if you ever do a tour of the “Lane Victory” a victory ship preserved in LA Harbor
Roger Waters: Response to Nancy ...
ua-cam.com/video/98WH8K2Wjck/v-deo.html
Nice reply with the exception of correcting the pronunciation. Why be arrogant? Is it that important to be right?
that feeling of quiet happiness when you luck onto a channel that has copious content on a subject you like and,more importantly, is presented in a clear informative manner by somebodythat obviously enjoys their subject/job.. :-) having spent many hours taking marine warfare lessons with dracinfel i am now lookkng forward to the ariel class ...a thankyou in advance mr hanger..
I've been looking forward to this video for a while now and it didn't disappoint! Thank you for doing the Wimpy justice and I hope you are feeling much better now.
I am most enjoying this spate of videos covering the more insane aircraft good sir 👍
This is a very interesting and informative video. Well done! The geodetic airframe deserves further comment. I understand that they were difficult to destroy.
Lancasters, Fortresses, and Liberators get all the press. But this workhorse is another unsung heroes of the war.
Had a model of the Whimpie as a kid. I remember the box art showed one in flames going down rather unflatteringly. I always thought the fuel dump pipes were some fancy exhaust system until thay were accidently broken of during play. The model was inherently strong and lasted for some time until dads epoxy had encrusted the smaller parts too much to warrant reattachment.
This was well worth the wait, a marvellous tribute to one of the best aircraft of WW2. Loved it!!!
A slight correction here, from someone who has actually been working with both dropping and clearing of sea mines both along the Swedish coast but also mine clearing operations off the coast of the Baltic countries when they became independent nations; mines usually are not laid to be floating on the surface, that would become a danger and a nuisance to all shipping including your own, you normally anchor mines on the seabed and set the depth to be just below the surface deep enough to avoid smaller shipping to hit them.
There were instances where you dropped mines to drift to enemy shipping but that was generally practiced on few occasions like in the Dardanelles during the first world war by the Turks against the Entente warships, mostly pre-dreadnoughts and HMS Queen Elisabeth and other smaller vessels.
After the first world war, most drift mines were by accident as the mines broke their mooring lines.
My grandfather was a recon pilot until he burst an eardrum and then moved over to aircraft transfer and pilot training. The Wellington and Halifax were his least favourite aircraft to fly, he complained about both of them being horrifically underpowered. Was about all he really spoke about from his time as a Pilot in the War...
As mentioned on your previous vid, my dear old dad was a navigator in the RAAF, flying Coastal Command Wimpys. He told me about the magnetic ring thing when I was a little kid, also there is a photo somewhere, looking UP at a lighthouse, taken out his window as they passed by at 'low' level :-) Also, I think Coastal Command paint schemes make the Wellington look super cool.
Ideal to relax and enjoy on a Sunday night, thanks!
An excellent video Rex many of these variants I had never heard of. But I knew about the degaussing and Leigh Light variants. You must have spent a great deal of time researching this one episode, so thank you for all your efforts! And hopefully your asthma gets better.
Absolutely loved this video! Well researched and super interesting content.
At a couple points of this presentation I tried explaining the skeleton of the Wellington to a friend watching the show too. The 2 or 4 seconds it was displayed at the end of the show before fabric was applied was all that was necessary for complete understanding. A picture is worth a thousand words - absolutely.
Don't know what it would take to move that picture to the first few minutes of the program but a neophyte would definitely get a better appreciation of the aircraft.
An incredible amount of information of modifications and results, along with crew opinions. Superb presentation.
Thank you ...
Another excellent video. Look forward to more :)
Excellent follow-up episode Rex! :)
Lovely stuff, wishing you a continued recovery. 🙂
I am so glad you got over Covid. Keep on with the awesome vids.
These videos are fantastic, not long found this channel and now binge watching your videos.
Subject matter spot on, well explained and enunciated, in particularly I enjoyed the asides about, covid, asthma etc! I just had covid and seems to take ages to get back to normal! Well done for a very slick production and looking forward to future broadcasts.
There was a Wellington that was used as an engine tested at RAE Weybridge. I saw a photo of it with a pair of RR Dart turbo props as used in the Vickers Viscount and Fokker F27.
Six Lincoln bombers were also fitted with RR Dart turboprop engines and used for bombing trials in Australia from 50,000 ft…
@@allangibson8494 interesting indeed. Vickers Viking was a development of the 'wimpey'; it was a wonder that they did not engine them with Darts. There was the 'Lancastrian' too. Did that not have 2 jet engines and 2 Merlins? I suppose the Avro York was limited in her capacity for passengers but the Americans had a huge advantage of her transports for post-war civil aviation.
@@guywillson1549 To really make use of turboprop engines for civilian service you need a pressurised cabin. Fokker showed the way with the Friendship (which was a pressurised extrapolation of the preWW2 DC-5 that Fokker sold to KLM).
The “Whale” Wellingtons showed the problems with a simple conversion.
Turboprops have to cruise at above 20,000 ft to get cold enough air to be efficient. Pure jets need 30,000 ft.
Modern passenger jets are limited to 45,000ft because of the survival time on oxygen required to get to 14,000ft.
(At 50,000ft loss of consciousness occurs 30seconds after loss of pressurisation without a pressure fed oxygen system).
@@allangibson8494 thanks, that's interesting.
Wow what an interesting fact filled video! Thank you Rex .
Wonderful presentation! Thank you!
Top job, putting this video out despite plague, etc., highly apreciated!
Now give yourself a rest. :)
2:30 - degaussing : "gauss" rhymes with "house". The gauss is the SI unit of magnetic flux, named after Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss.
Great info , I spent a life time in in aviation and thought Id seen it all . Thank you
Good to see you back mate. Another good one.
Excellent presentation, thank you!
Thank you so much for this video. I had seen pictures of the DWI in my now distant youth, but had never been able to find any information on it, so that is one thing that you have solved for me.
As an aside, my uncle must have worked on those jet engine tests, as he was on Frank Whittle's team and actually ran the test program. You probably already know of Bob Feilden.
Glad to hear you seam to have recovered from your bout with the "Cantonese Coffin Sneeze". I am glad to see part 2 no matter how late, your excuse is totally valid to me. Thank you for the videos that you upload on youtube.
Thoroughly enjoyed this pair of videos.. More videos along this storyline..
Another superb presentation - thank you again. And, I must add, congratulations on overcoming the Covid bug !
Hey Rex great pt2 Video about the Wellington. Just thought you'd like to know as interest, in March 1940 No.2 General Reconnaissance Unit Formed at RAF Bircham Newton, in Norfolk they operated them from there for around 2 months before moving on. I'm Chairman of the RAF Bircham Newton Heritage Centre, I was told by an elderly gentleman who visited us a on one of our open days a fer weeks ago who's now in his early 90s, he lived in the area at the time as a young boy he and his friends used to wait every morning in the nearby village for the Wellington DWIs to pass overhead flying out of Bircham Newton heading towards the North Sea. He told me it was an incredible sight to see one of them flying something he'll never forget.
Many thanks for your uploads on the aerial weapons of ww2.From this older Canuck.
This was very interesting. Thanks Rex.
Glad yer feeling better mate. Love when you have new content out. I consider you the air equal to Drachinifel. Please keep up the good work sir
ehh.... maybe?
I would nominate Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles for that. but he might even go beyond Drach.
An uncle of mine served in the RAF as an armourer on Wellingtons. He could not fly because of inner ear problems, so was assigned as groundcrew.
Great video! I must say, you have a very smooth, calming voice; I felt my eyelids dip once as you were hypnotizing me. This is not a criticism; keep up the great work!
It's not "degauzing" it's de-Gaussing, Gauss's law for magnetism can be written in two forms, a differential form and an integral form. These forms are equivalent due to the divergence theorem. I am far far nerdier than anyone reading. Yes, its a competition....
Very interesting, and I think, well presented.
Glad you are back
Bristol actually won the B1/39 contract (8x20mm or 4x40mm in dorsal and ventral turrets) and had begun construction on a prototype, when the project was cancelled in the aftermath of Dunkirk.
Potentially, these aircraft could've been superb U-boat hunters (large number of depth-charges and Cannon that could fire forwards) but the notion was never seriously entertained.
A truly great and exceptional video !
Dang! I never knew any of this, Great presentation.
Excellent Video - but you missed out on one of the strangest but most prescient Wellington variants - The AWACs Wellington (Ic Air Controlled Interception) used to vector British night fighters onto German Heinkel III bombers that were air-launching VI doodlebugs towards Britain from over the North Sea.
very interesting. I would also like to know more about the jet engine equipped wellingtons. I wonder about their top speed and thrust characteristics.
An excellent presentation
Awesome thanks for the great work Sir 👍
The wellington was indeed a workhorse, it does not get the recognition it deserves!!! Thank You Rex!!!!
Cool, I've been patiently waiting for the follow-up. If I've nothing else to add, you've won me over.
What a impressive production!
*_GREAT_** video, **_Rex!_*
A Barnes Wallace designed airframe carrying a Barnes Wallace designed bomb. At the Vickers works at Barrow in Furness is a blue plaque to Barnes Wallace for his time designing airships built there. I spent time there in his shadow making totally different weapons.
Barnes Wallis, not "Wallace" stood on the shoulders of men such as Nevil Shute, without whom the Wellington would not have existed.
Awesome job buds,
Thank you!
Have you thought about covering the Catalinas with rear firing hedgehogs. They basically stuck a magnetic mine fuse at the back. They over flew the target twice to see if it was moving, on the third run the rockets fired on the indication and by by Uboat!
Did they ever hit anything?
At last!!! Love the DWI Wellingtons 😁
I built a model of this 'minesweeper' wellington somewhere in the late 70s.
the ring was a complete bind to set.
it was either a tamiya or airfix kit with a sub surfacing on the carton image.
Excellent addition to a great channel.
Finally! I've been waiting for this one 🙂
Rex, excellent work sir.
I didn't know the RAF had those as well and also before the Luftwaffe. A number of Ju 52s was converted similarly.
One of my uncles was a Wellington captain with the RNZAF during WW2. His aircraft was downed by flak somewhere over Croatia. His crew managed to vacate the aircraft and were captured by Axis forces and repatriated to NZ when hostilities ceased. The story goes that my uncle kept the aircraft upright while his crew jumped out and there was an idea postulated that my uncle may also have survived, getting picked up by Soviet forces. His mother (my grandmother) hung on to this hope until the mid 1960s hoping a telegram would arrive telling her that he had been found alive. No such news ever came.
Having been an AME for nearly 50 years, I have to think that the Wellington was an aircraft that flight and maintenance crews developed a great loyalty to. Maybe a bit of a love/hate thing but loyalty none the less. “They want us to do What?!!!”