The Failed Bomber/Transport That Became A Fuel Tanker - Armstrong Whitworth AW.23

[@RexsHangar]

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.

[@bernadmanny]

I just learned about the Short Brothers company, and they are so very _square_ .

[@steveshoemaker6347]

Thank you Rex..... Shoe🇺🇸

[@Lensman864]

Your work is always informative and entertaining Rex, thank you. Did you get to IWM Duxford when you were in the UK? I'm a few miles away; been there 20+ times. The Horten Ho229 would benefit from your approach as a video I think ...

[@brianedwards7142]

As a very small child I was spooked by a night-time viewing of the Vickers Vimy at Adelaide Airport so seeing those 4 bladed wooden props is sort of like seeing a ghost.

[@johnculver2519]

I feel the grappling hook refueling technique should require a pirate uniform with parrot and west country accent, but no eye patch (depth perception being essential).

[@jimtaylor294]

Ironically, Eyepatches were used by V Force pilots, with the notion being that if a nuclear flash blinded them during their final mission, they'd have one good eye left under the eyepatch.

[@bob_the_bomb4508]

Maybe two African swallows, working in tandem, could have carried an initial line between the aircraft?

[@johnculver2519]

​@@bob_the_bomb4508 A sensible suggestion, but given the peak air-speed velocity of an unladen african swallow is 35 mph I am confident that the aircraft would stall first, ah well, off to Camelot.

[@bob_the_bomb4508]

@@johnculver2519 ah you forget conservation of momentum. They’ll have the original forward motion of the aircraft as they leave it …so all we have to do is fly very close together. What could possibly go wrong?

[@bobjove6511]

Unless your last name is post. He flew with an eye patch so your wrong

[@petesheppard1709]

Actually, the way the plane handled during those incidents seemed to bode well for operating in austere conditions.

[@williamlloyd3769]

Aerial fueling tanker, what a wild process!

[@nemo6686]

Firing a line to haul a fuel-hose beam-to-beam is what you'd get if you use naval replenishment-at-sea as your starting model, though even at sea stern-to-bow refueling is still an option. Also interesting that they had the internal layouts the reverse of today, whereby modern tanker planes trail the hose from the tail and the receiver connects nearer the cockpit. I guess the chopping power of propellers governed their thinking.

[@no-legjohnny3691]

Well yeah, you let the hose drift too far and it'll probably get cut up by the props and might even cause damage to the engine. Generally however, blow jets don't really have that problem so long as they don't manage to be engulfed into the air intake.

[@nemo6686]

@@no-legjohnny3691 Thank you Johnny - that was just my attempt at irony.

[@no-legjohnny3691]

@@nemo6686 ah, sorry M8! Lol

[@alibizzle2010]

If you ever do merch "the prototype was soon flying again" needs to be on a t-shirt

[@fzyturtle]

I second this!

[@straybullitt]

😆🤣😅

[@davidwelch6796]

A most welcome and a very interesting video, thank you for making it. One tiny detail I felt was not quite accurate; you mentioned that Armstrong Whitworth developed the engines but I am pretty certain that this was done by their maker, Armstrong Siddeley. However the two companies were very closely related and were both owned by Sir J D Siddeley until 1935 when he sold his entire and extensive business empire to T O M Sopwith of Hawker Aircraft.

[@towgod7985]

Wow thats a sharp looking airplane, shame it didn't work out better.

[@williammorris584]

When the specification is for a transport and bomber, you’re going to get a bomb truck. This actually seems a relatively elegant solution including a few leading tech features. With the statements indicating that it handled well despite being a bit underpowered, I would conclude that the designer knew his business.

[@rafarosso8518]

i noticed that for suche a big main fuselage the wings look kind of small in comparison

[@gort8203]

For a bomber yes, for a cargo aircraft no. Look at the C-124 or the C-5, for example. Bombs are heavy but not bulky, but you need a large fuselage to carry bulky cargo items.

[@drstevenrey]

I am amazed that, with the inflight refueling procedure, we never heard of two aircraft exploding over the Atlantic ocean. Almost unfathomable that this procedure actually worked, flawlessly even.

[@The_Modeling_Underdog]

Looks like a Bloch 210 and Fiat Br.20 had a one-nighter in Brighton. A very interesting machine.

[@Donald.W.Rissler-ARTS]

Throw a little corrugated metal on the forward fuselage and I wouldnt be surprised to see Junkers instead A-W in a late 30's Identification guide.

[@jimdavis8391]

Hummm, I did wonder if Mr Lloyd had been peering at Junkers products or ogling Fokker machines.

[@marckyle5895]

The design is...straightforward & simplistic.

[@emmedigi89]

Just looking at the picture in the preview of the video, this plane clearly reminded me of the Italian Bomber FIAT “Cicogna”. The design of the tail and of the nose and the squared fuselage are very similar.

[@richardvonpingel2379]

To make a plane a good bomber/ transport/ cargo aircraft is something. Good work Armstrong Whitworth.

[@robbierobinson8819]

Very interesting as usual. Use of graphics very good. Those early refueling methods were pretty Heath Robinson indeed. Not for wartime use over Germany, that's for sure.

[@Kumimono]

What's that plane at 4:15? It looks anachronistic.

[@50043211]

I love it when I hear things as "experimental turret" and see a standard alu/steel frame with glas coverage. In moments like this I always wonder if the engineers back then were hampered by lack of imagination or materials available.

[@tombebop3125]

A little of column A, a little of column B.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

Or is just your own ignorance (ignorance - the state if not knowing something) coming to the fore? The first power-operated fully enclosed aircraft turret in the UK flew on a Boulton & Paul Overstrand in 1933 and that turret, looks very similar to that see here which first flew in 1935.

[@edwardscott3262]

It's very hard to come up with solutions to even fairly simple problems. People take for granted those very simple developments. How long it takes to come up with simple and better solutions. The slow evolution rather than revolutionary. As an example for decades they struggled to come up with a non water-cooled belt fed machine gun. They just couldn't figure out how to support the muzzle end of the barrel while still letting air cool the barrel. The concept of the vented barrel shroud hadn't been invented yet. No one thought hey just put holes in it. Hiram Maxim. Inventor of the machine gun, lots of big cannons, even made a very lightweight steam engine and put it on a semi functional plane. He, his employees and the world couldn't come up with the idea of a ventilated barrel shroud for a couple decades. Maxim was also hurt flying his not quite plane in the late 1800s before what we consider the first powered flight. We're not talking about a moron here. After it was developed the same idea was adapted to all sorts of things. We take the sheet metal with holes in it protecting us from something hot completely for granted today. We have no idea where it came from nor how people struggled to bring it to us. If you asked a small child today to help solve the problem they could probably do it just because they've seen them before. On semi truck exhausts, motorcycle exhausts and lots of other places. Yet before the sheet metal shroud was developed for machine guns the idea just didn't exist. Everything hot was unprotected and people just had to not touch it. So yes it's very hard to come up with new ideas.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@@edwardscott3262 you are aware of the lMG08 of 1915? This was an air cooled belt-fed machine gun with a shrouded barrel and was a version of the standard water-cooled machine gun that the German army adopted in 1908. Although this wasn't the first machine gun with an air cooled shrouded barrel, that honour I believe goes the magazine-fed Madsen LMG of 1902.

[@benjaminbarrera214]

It appears 'standard' because these were the designs that set the standard. Watch the videos about the WWI bombers, they used the 'dustbin' turrets and that's why these turrets were so advanced for their time.

[@johnjephcote7636]

Presumably that was Alan Cobham's Flight Refuelling Ltd.? I always considered those Tigers underpowered. The Ensigns had four and the Whitley, not long in RAF service, changed them for Merlins.

[@kirkmooneyham]

Yes, the very same FRL that merged with (bought out?) Sargent Fletcher in 1994 to form Cobham.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

Great video, Rex...👍

[@anlydaly5726]

The first arial gas station was British ... who would have thought.

[@TomPrickVixen]

Looks kind of like a transport cousin of the Fiat BR.20 (that actually had very bad handling, witch was the reason most foreign buyers rejected it after evaluation).

[@mikearmstrong8483]

Bruh, your fabric is dope!

[@jonesy279]

The grapnel launcher idea isn’t the most practical mid air refueling method, but it sure is the most fun!

[@kirkmooneyham]

BTW, Flight Refueling Limited is still in business, and bigger than ever, in the form of Cobham, formed in 1994 from FRL and the acquisition of Sargent Fletcher (an American maker of aerial refueling systems).

[@167curly]

An interesting episode about a little known between-th-wars aircraft. Thanks, Rex.

Didnt know that areal refueling was tried that early. Very interesting

[@kirkmooneyham]

From the Wikipedia article on the subject: "The first mid-air refueling, based on the development of Alexander P. de Seversky, between two planes occurred on 25 June 1923, between two Airco DH-4B biplanes of the United States Army Air Service."

[@stretch3281]

Well, i never new airborne refuelling happend so early!.... and no one died, which is good but somewhat surprising.

[@IncogNito-gg6uh]

From the country that also produced the most beautiful and graceful aircraft in history, the Spitfire.

[@johnholt890]

Compared to some of the stuff the French produced during this period it was a beauty.

[@jwrappuhn71]

Excellent.

[@sadwingsraging3044]

Love hearing about these basically unknown aircraft. Missing links in the record of flight.

[@mrains100]

Thank you.

[@ratofvengence]

Very interesting, thank you :)

[@drstevenrey]

At first view I thought this thing was ugly, but then I watched the Whitley story and had to concede that this was actually pretty okay looking.

[@andersbrivik2195]

Can you do an over view video of the Bell P-39 Airacobra. And still want you to cover the Sea Hurricane 😇 Love your videos. Best regards from Norway Anders

[@stefanspett7790]

It should be mentioned the machinegun turrets developed for AW 23 was later used on RAF boats.

[@lukasluger6258]

4:01 what is this aircraft?

[@yakacm]

Whoever it was who decided to call a bomber The Bombay had to be doing it to win a bet, lol. How many bombs can a Bombay hold in it's bomb bay before they all fall out of the Bombay's bomb bay doors?

[@josephking6515]

It may have been named by a _pheasant plucker's son._ 😁

[@johnladuke6475]

If you want to make the sentence even more awkward, you could suppose that particular Bombay plane was attacking the place they used to call Bombay.

[@drstevenrey]

Fascinating thing. Looks not too bad. The Whitley certainly looked worse.

[@merafirewing6591]

Big Son of a Chungus with a side of Iced Tea.

[@GrumpyGrobbyGamer]

It flew for the first time on my birthday. \o/

[@comentedonakeyboard]

Staffer: Herr Reichsmarschall, we took out part of the RAFs aerial refueling capacity! Reichsmarschall: aircraft need fuel?

[@bigblue6917]

As inflight refuelling was first trialed by the US in the early 1920's I have often wondered why it took so long before coming into use.

[@WarblesOnALot]

G'day, Probabubblie Because in the 1920s the Yanqui method of "Aerial ReFooling" Involved Lowering a Tin-Can on a Rope, out the back Door of one Hairygoplane - While the "Reciever" Aircraft had a Hatch in the Roof of the (enclosed) Cockpit/Cabin - Enabling a Crewmember to Poke their Head & Shoulders out, And catch the Fool-Can, Wrestle it into the Cabin, and then Pour the Motion-Lotion into the FoolTank Through a Chamois-Leather Filter, In a Funnel. The "Experiments" Did indeed occurr...; And they succeeded in Re-Fooling an Airborne Hairygoplane. But The Tested System was Roughly As Practical as the Teats on a Bull... Neither good for Use, Nor Ornament... Just(ifiably ?) sayin'... Such is Life, Have a good one... Stay safe. ;-p Ciao !

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

Because it was complicated and then came WW2.

[@andrewhotston983]

An aircraft that size needed four engines.

[@gort8203]

Not really. The gross weight was only 24,000 lb. The fuselage was large so it could be filled with bulky but lightweight cargo. You don't want a cargo plane to gross out before it bulks out. The later Whitley bomber had a max takeoff weight of 33,500 lb on 2 slightly more powerful engines.

[@andrewhotston983]

Ah, I see. I had no idea there was a need to transport bubble-wrap and expanded polystyrene by air in the 1930s! Those Air Ministry chaps were way ahead of their time.

[@gort8203]

@@andrewhotston983 If that is sarcasm you don't understand much about airplanes. Look at cargo planes like the C-124 or the C-5, which have a large fuselage that makes the wings look relatively small, even though they are not for the weight lifted. Why were the C-141 rebuilt and stretched? Because as it was it often grossed out before it bulked out, and USAF wanted it to transport more cubic feet of cargo.

[@_Braised]

Is it just me or is this the 'crate' from Chicken Run?

[@Ensign_Cthulhu]

It looks like a Whitley and a Wellington got it on. Imagine what it could have done with two more engines and a dorsal turret. When I saw the vid title I thought "Harrow!" but I was wrong.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

There would need to be an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine as both took to the air a year later.

[@Ensign_Cthulhu]

@@neiloflongbeck5705 Oh I know, I'm just commenting on the visual impression it gives me, what with the very Whitley-like wings and the fuselage side windows.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@@Ensign_Cthulhu well it was designed by the same person and influenced the later aircraft's design. You will find in all aircraft designed by the same person a familial resemblance often around the tin area.

[@Ensign_Cthulhu]

@@neiloflongbeck5705 I know. My original comment was made tongue-in-cheek. Please just take it as the mild joke it was meant to be and move on.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@@Ensign_Cthulhu you've never read Hitchhiker's have you? Zaphod's great-grandfather was Zaphid Beeblebrox IV due to an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine. My response was a very British joke.

[@Simon_Nonymous]

It seems to have the same wing attitudes/engine attitudes as the Whitley bomber; was I right to have read that this was to avoid fitting flaps, but ultimately was a bit of a bugger for general efficiency? If what I just typed made no sense to anyone, please ask me to rephrase my question.

[@BHuang92]

*If a plane looks ungainly, then perhaps it is.....*

[@gort8203]

It's as if the Air Ministry specified that the airplane must also be as ugly as possible.

[@jimtaylor294]

Fairey Gannet: *I'll ignore that*

[@chpet1655]

@@gort8203 that was the very last line in the specification. “ must look British “

[@robertwilloughby8050]

​@@jimtaylor294I have always thought the Gannet was like the friendly, slightly tubby barmaid that you absolutely would do... If either she had a catastrophic lapse of taste, or the two pints of beer you had ingested for Dutch courage had worn off!

[@JDSleeper]

The proportions on this aircraft are just...off. The fuselage looks too large for the engines. Perhaps if there were four instead of two.

[@gort8203]

The gross weight was only 24,000 lb. The fuselage was large so it could be filled with bulky but lightweight cargo. You don't want a cargo plane to gross out before it bulks out. The later Whitley bomber had a max takeoff weight of 33,500 lb on 2 slightly more powerful engines.

[@williamscoggin1509]

The entire tail assembly looks to be a little small to me, but I could be wrong.

[@drstevenrey]

Armstrong Whitworth was a manufacturer of both aircraft and engines. It escapes me how an engine can be built in a prototype that eventually fails on take off during trials. I sure hope they fired every single man in the engine shop immediately. I restore, rebuild and overhaul engines for a living and my engines don't fail, never have, never will. It is called testing.

[@jeebusk]

There's supplies (food and bullets), then there's fuel...

[@jayyydizzzle]

2:50 Increased thiCCness

[@PeterNebelung]

Actually not a bad looking aircraft for the times.

[@toldyouso5588]

Whitney Huston we have a problem.

[@morteforte7033]

Is it me..or does this also kind of look like a really boxy twin finned vickers wellington...if you squint.😆

[@janlindtner305]

👍👍👍

[@Wolfe_Blue]

Hi (first)

[@Mike-DuBose]

Dreams are often just a dream for most people, but not you. You had a plan, worked hard, and now are seeing the fruits of your labor. Congratulations on your fantastic achievement and many wishes for continued success.

[@josephking6515]

Who's on first? 🤷‍♂️

[@Mike-DuBose]

@@josephking6515 What's on second?

[@williamscoggin1509]

👍🏻🇺🇲

[@sim.frischh9781]

Given the large amount of successful airplanes in WWII, i should not be surprised how many UNsuccessful ones were out there, many of which i have never heard about. This is just one more.

[@coreyandnathanielchartier3749]

This plane has all the style of any Airbus jet. At least it has two rudders in case one falls off.

[@mrcat5508]

Last

[@Zlorthishen]

> "This X was important for a number of reasons" this is a poor way to begin any essay