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The Bristol Bombay was a British troop transport aircraft adaptable for use as a medium bomber flown by the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War. ==Development== The Bristol Bombay was built to Air Ministry Specification C.26/31 which called for a monoplane bomber-transport aircraft to replace the Vickers Valentia biplane in use in the Middle East and India. The aircraft was required to be capable of carrying 24 troops or an equivalent load of cargo as a transport, while carrying bombs and defensive guns for use as a bomber.〔 This dual-purpose design concept was common to British pre-war designs. Other entries for the specification were the Armstrong Whitworth A.W.23 and the Handley Page HP.51.〔Lewis 1980, pp. 256–259.〕 Bristol's design, the Type 130, was a high-wing cantilever monoplane of all-metal construction.〔 Bristol's last monoplane design, the 1927 Bagshot, had suffered from lack of torsional rigidity in the wings leading to aileron reversal.〔Barnes 1964, pp. 202–203.〕 This led to an extensive research program at Bristol which resulted in a wing design with a stressed metal skin rivetted to an internal framework consisting of multiple spars and the ribs. This was the basis of the Bombay's wing, which had seven spars, with high-tensile steel flanges and alclad webs.〔Barnes 1964, p. 249.〕 The aircraft had a twin-tail and a fixed tailwheel undercarriage.〔〔 The aircraft's crew consisted of a pilot, who sat in an enclosed cockpit, a navigator/bomb-aimer, whose working position was in the nose, and a radio-operator/gunner, who divided his time between the radio operator's position behind the cockpit and a gun turret in the nose. When the aircraft was operated as a bomber, an additional gunner was carried to man the tail gun position. In the prototype, this position cockpit equipped with a single Lewis gun on a Scarff ring, but in production aircraft, both gun positions were hydraulically-operated gun turrets armed with single Vickers K machine guns. Eight bombs could be carried on racks under the fuselage.〔〔〔Cooling 1982, p. 8.〕 The prototype Type 130 first flew on 23 June 1935,〔Mason 1994, p. 277.〕 powered by two Bristol Pegasus III radial engines driving two-bladed propellers. Testing was successful and an order for 80 was placed as the Bombay in July 1937.〔〔Cooling 1982, p. 4.〕 These differed from the prototype in having more powerful () driving three-bladed Rotol variable-pitch propellers, and discarding the wheel spats fitting to the undercarriage mainwheels in the prototype.〔Mason 1994, pp. 277–278.〕〔Barnes 1964, pp. 250–251.〕 As Bristol's Filton factory was busy building the more urgent Blenheim, the production aircraft were built by Short & Harland of Belfast.〔〔Barnes 1964, p. 251.〕 However, the complex nature of the Bombay's wing delayed production at Belfast, with the first Bombay not being delivered until 1939,〔 and the last 30 being cancelled.〔Mason 1994, p. 278.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bristol Bombay」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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