The Plane That Could Decapitate Its Pilot | Boulton Paul P.32

[@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

[@michaelfrench3396]

I wonder if they gave Ace awards to planes who took out five or more pilots? Have a great weekend everybody!

[@DukeChameleon]

If they did, every bomber hunter should be an Ace by definition

[@charliemilton5791]

Do they give ace status to defensive gunners? Always wondered

[@michaelfrench3396]

@@charliemilton5791 good question

[@ProvidenceNL]

@@charliemilton5791 Impossible to verify if you took a plane down with a lucky shot most of the time.

[@madhukarjonathanminj2772]

​@@charliemilton5791yes,they very much do infact there's a list in Wikipedia of non pilot aces

[@LaraineBouguer]

The fact that the companies that regularly made large bombers took one look at the specifications and immediately said, "Peace out, b*****s!" should've been a massive red flag to Boulton and DeHavilland.

[@alexsis1778]

Not just to them but the people writing the specifications too. If none of your experienced companies want to put in a tender on a potentially very lucrative project in their own specialty, especially when there really aren't any other projects going on, then you really should find out why none of them are interested.

[@JohnSmith-yv6eq]

They didn't talk to one another... and each company was played off against the other by the devious rsoles at the Ministry. Had all 4 manufacturers insisted on a combined meeting and specification changes conference there might have been far better results. It took War to get that shit sorted...

[@mikefed]

They probably should have made the upper engine a pusher design.

[@kyle857]

Early pushers always seemed to have problems with cooling.

[@dallesamllhals9161]

@@kyle857 Define "early"?

[@chpet1655]

Don’t be ridiculous that actually makes sense 😏

[@dallesamllhals9161]

@@chpet1655 No need for parachutes = less $€£ n' more "esprit de corps"es(tiny parts...)

[@MrLBPug]

@@kyle857 The earliest pushers (Vickers Gunbus _et al_) used rotary radial engines, which didn't have much cooling problems at all, owing to their design: they were cooled by airflow even when not in flight. However, rotary radials can only produce so much power before running into their inherent design limitations. 'Fixed' radials are much more power efficient, but you are right in stating that cooling can pose a challenge.

[@bigblue6917]

The second pilots head was just 9 inches from the propeller. A slight mistake and there is a whole new meaning to a centre parting. Mention of the onboard toilets reminded me of some I read some years ago. During WW2 Australian bomber crews were in the habit of flushing their toilets while over the target. The Germans complained about this to the Red Cross, chemical warfare or something, so they were forced to stop doing that. I do get the feeling they were not the only ones doing this but they were the ones who got caught.

[@ghost307]

I can see another problem when the chart gets blown out of the cockpit and they co-pilot instinctively grabs for it...only to find that they suddenly had nothing to grab with.

[@JohnSmith-yv6eq]

'Armless lad...completely 'armless...

[@benholroyd5221]

@@JohnSmith-yv6eq tis but a flesh wound.

[@sergeipohkerova7211]

Imagine the engineers at Boulton Paul with their drafting paper and slide rules, chuckling as they draw the seats "LOL, glad I'm not going to be THIS loser..."

[@Finnan189]

Ever heard of the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.9? It was a 2 seat experimental reconnaissance aircraft that had a gunner/observer position in the front with the engine directly behind it. So not only could the poor chap in the "pulpit" could be decapitated by the propeller behind him he also faced being crushed by the engine if the plane crashed nose first. Only one was built in 1915.

[@robertwilloughby8050]

The French had a member of the S.P.A.D family that had the same "Pulpit" design. It was not popular.

[@stevetournay6103]

​@@robertwilloughby8050 Yes, the A2. At first glance it looked fairly ordinary...until you saw where the prop was!

[@legoeasycompany]

Ah yes the red headed step sibling of the B.E.2 Variants

[@anlydaly5726]

It's really astonishing how far bombers, and really every kind of large body aircraft has come in the past 100 years. Also great video, keep up the good work.

[@jfangm]

At least it wasn't Blackburn. Pilot decapitation would have been a feature, not a bug.

[@The_Modeling_Underdog]

He's sadly no longer with us, but, mate, what I'd give for a John Le Carré novel describing the Air Ministry shenanigans of the era. Out of touch with reality is an understatement.

[@manmonkee]

Wouldn't swapping the central engine for a Pusher be an obvious design choice? some major problems exchanged for some minor ones?

[@kyle857]

Early pushers almost always had problems with cooling. It isn't always as great of a solution as it sounds.

[@manmonkee]

@@kyle857 opposed to shearing off your co pilots head I think it's the lesser of 2 evils.

[@444mopar]

I would bet the air ministry's specification was for 3 engines in tractor configuration and both companies were stuck with that

[@manmonkee]

@@444mopar I wonder if Rex's Hanger could look into if the Specification was that Specific?

[@dennismason3740]

Bomb-Aimer. I love that designation. My dad was a bomb aimer on a B-29 in 1945. Captain - "you have the airplane" - my dad - "I have the airplane..." and he dumped the load and the plane hopped way up and my dad learned to drink like a proper alcoholic because he knew that 32,000 feet below people and dogs and cats and budgies were being disintegrated and burned to death. Bomb aimer probably has a story or two. My dad transited in 1996 (North Carolina?) - he left L.A. (and his wife and kids) in 1955. Ten-year anniversary of dropping incindiaries, I guess.

[@BearfootBob]

Poor soul, let's hope he found some peace.

[@AWMJoeyjoejoe]

I never really considered the psychological effect of dropping bombs on civilians, but now I think about it you'd have to be a psychopath to not be affected in some way. I hope your dad came to terms with it in the end.

[@jakublulek3261]

Because you don't see it first-hand like an infantryman or a tanker, your mind has much more freedom to think about it and fill the blanks. Especially if you cannot rationalize to yourself, why are you doing it. My great-grandfather fought in WWII, and as a Polish legionary that lost his entire family in Holocaust and entire country to German and Soviet invasion, he didn't start to doubt himself until his 70s. And that was largely because he never forgave himself for what happened during the Malaya Emergency, which was when he left the British Army, in 1958. He was quite willing to share war stories from WWII and Korea, but he refused to say anything about his time fighting the MNLA.

[@Hartley_Hare]

This was quite a sobering story. There's a Roald Dahl short story about a pilot who starts to go mad because he realises that with left or right pressure on the rudder he can kill a completely different group of people. While I have massive admiration for every pilot on WW2, of every plane and of every service, the bomber offensive gives me some pause for thought.

[@Simon_Nonymous]

Five other people have said some very intelligent and thoughtful things already. But very grateful you took time to tell your story; my grandfather was RAF ground crew on Halifax IIIs and he never talked about his war, except to say he had an easy war. They both did their bit to bring down two horrific regimes, I raise my glass to your father.

[@kfcroc18]

The toilet was just a tube to the outside? Talk about bombs away!

[@BrassLock]

No matter how carefully the tube exit was constructed, even after exhaustive wind-tunnel tests using appropriately coloured dyes (and possibly dog-pooh samples collected from the Airfield Guard Dogs), there's always gonna be a streak down the fuselage for the ground crew to clean up with a hot mop soaked in Dettol.

[@jaws848]

"Look out below!!!"🤣🤣🤣

[@kfcroc18]

@@PADOYLE I don't think the plane can fly fast enough to do that.

[@sirflaps7619]

Chemical warfare

[@BrassLock]

@@kfcroc18 _"Haemmoroidal vacuum"_ was created by prop-wash not merely airspeed.

[@JeansWithPockets541]

I think 'enthusiastically pushing Bristol Jupiter engines on BP' consisted of backing a lorry or two of the engines up to the BP plant.

[@gerardlabelle9626]

Why wasn’t that 9” propeller clearance savagely rejected in the “rough sketch” design phase? It’s straight out criminal negligence.

[@BearfootBob]

"Dammit, Al has clogged up the tube again."

[@ThreenaddiesRexMegistus]

Boulton-Paul, best known for bird-like creations - turkeys and lame ducks!

[@TomPrickVixen]

How about instaling an engine in a "pusher" configuration?

[@killbot1974]

This is what happens when a pilot has extra-marital affairs with a designers wife.

[@IntrospectorGeneral]

This was first recorded use of the line, "Get to the chopper!"

[@toomanyhobbies2011]

That photo of the bombers and fighters arrayed on the field is a good example of the evolution of aircraft design. Very cool. Thank for your emphasis on government idiocy and bias that leads to so many failed implementations. Amazing how much more efficient things become during wartime, when survival is at stake.

[@anzaca1]

...why didn't they just make the central engine a pusher engine?

[@BigMoTheBlackDragon]

In a movie trailer announcer voice: The Bolton Paul P.32 -- this time the "P" stands for Personal. Cut to a group of P.32s gathered around them barrels of oil with rubber hoses inserted in the barrels, leading to their engines: "Pilots?! Wee don't need noo stinking Pilots!"

[@kevanhubbard9673]

Similar designs usually if you have two different designers due to convergent evolution and there's only so much you can do with a plane.

[@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935]

You must have an eye on the Supermarine Otter, I’d keep my seat belt on in that plane especially with big waves. Servo tabs, really. Even giving the surfaces trim tabs would have been advanced for the day. Servo tabs automatically moving in opposition to the control surface deflection to provide aerodynamic power assistance to the pilot’s physical strength must have been almost unique then. The Boeing 707 airliner flew on servo tabs, spring linkages gave pilot feel and surface deflection assistance at lower airspeeds.

[@perrydowd9285]

I was just surprised that, post WWI experimentation being what it was, The air Ministry never gave headlights a try (so the pilots could see where they were going). I say, let's get them to put a horn on the steering wheel. I have one on the roller and its capital!

[@wilsonj4705]

Wonder if making the upper engine a pusher would have been feasible?

[@steveshoemaker6347]

Excellent video as always.... Shoe🇺🇸

[@kfcroc18]

Are you going to make more videos about airships?

[@martindice5424]

To quote Edmund Blackadder - ‘Bloody red tape, eh?’

[@jaws848]

How ironic how many of these specs that are dangerous for the crew have the word "SLASH" in them.lol🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@zebop917]

It’s a bit ironic that whilst the DH72 looks like a dog, its fin shape is recognisably the same as on the Hornet which carries my vote for best-looking piston-powered aircraft of all time.

[@aabumble9954]

Could your next video maybe be about the IA-38, the Zhuchenko vertoplan or the lifting body aircraft?

[@andrewrichardson582]

You should do a video on the side strand and overstrand!

[@jamessquires7015]

I like how this one looks over the DH.

[@dennismason3740]

Ya got me with the title.

[@50043211]

Nonsense, the propeller directly behind the pilot keeps them focused and motivated!

[@gregmuon]

I wonder what brainiac came up with the specification for a three engine bomber that wasn't allowed to have an engine in the nose.

[@merafirewing6591]

They should've turned the third engine into a pusher.

[@Kroggnagch]

Anyone ever play the DoS game Red Barron that came with A-10 Tank Killer as well? I didn't discover the A-10 game that was on the same disc until a couple years after having been playing Red Barron. I was STOKED to suddenly have a "new" flying game. I loved those games so, so much. Anyone else who's roughly 40 remember this? Lol

[@RemusKingOfRome]

These are the people who built the Defiant, Hero of Dunkirk, so watch your language ... :D

[@calvingreene90]

When bad designer part of the specifications.

[@eyo8766]

Whenever Boulton Paul does anything: "It's Boulton Paul-ing time"

[@ruypavancardim7512]

The famous PBY Catalina had that special hability too.

[@Deviation4360]

A swapping of positions of third engine and nose turret would have solved this airplanes flaws. Field of fire would have dramatically increased, although the gunner is obviously confined to his lofty position for the flight, and a gun turret could have been placed at the trailing edge position to alleviate the tail gunner workload regards the dorsal position. Some sort of air-stair wing underside panel could have been designed to allow egress for the upper wing turret station in flight had they committed to such a direction, the gunner turret would have imposed no less drag and structural weight as the engine nacelle. Then the only danger is shooting out the front engine and not a partial pilot lobotomy.

[@brucebaxter6923]

I never can understand why cockpits look up from the top and nod down from the underside. The only danger is below you

[@thegreat_I_am]

The answer to fulfilling the spec for a 3 engine bomber with a nose gunner would’ve been an asymmetrical design with two engines on one side and one on the other, with an off-set fuselage. That’s what Blohm und Voss would’ve built.

[@keithmoore5306]

it never occured to anyone to just go straight to a 4 engine design? a twin radial pusher/tractor on each side would have worked quite well on these two!!

[@grantpratt299]

You need to do an episode on the CURTISS CONDOR

[@Del_S]

Pfft, any plane can decapitate the pilot, you just need to believe and try hard. Wait no.

[@merafirewing6591]

Darwin Award.

[@drstevenrey]

Boulton Paul. You know, I feel a little foolish, as I only ever knew the Defiant from this company. I never realized any of their other products. This is enlightening to me.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

As I commented in that other video: *_"THREE engines? How ODD."_* 😉

[@edstoro3883]

Ha Ha Ha !

[@TheEndOfNether]

Interesting

[@TheDkeeler]

I wonder exactly what radio this aircraft used or would of used Are there any working examples that have survived today? I would imagine the vacuum tubes used were very delicate under the best of conditions.

[@foreverpinkf.7603]

It is difficult to understand why companies were willing to submit proposals or prototypes in the first place, as the specifications were constantly changing.

[@SuperchargedSupercharged]

Still looking forward to the hour long format. :)

[@Itsjustme-Justme]

Air ministry specification reads like: We don't want a bomber. When you don't have engines for a specific size of aircraft, you have to adjust the size of the aircraft. With 1930 technology, a three engined bomber with defensive capability to the front was impossible for obvious reasons. The solution is just as obvious: Scale it down to 2 engines or scale it up to 4 engines.

[@gerardlabelle9626]

I have a mental image of a pilot’s long scarf getting entangled in in the propeller and strangling him, a la Isadora Duncan….

[@stephenremington8448]

Deafening roar, or deathening roar! That's appalling they'd even think 9 inches clearance was ok, one wrong absentedminded shifting of position and the pilot is history.

[@drstevenrey]

I would probably have used two engines each per side, one pusher, one tractor. Three just does not make sense when the nose needs to be free.

[@sabrekai8706]

Guess it never occured to them to extend the nose and aft fuselage a couple of feet. I imaging the test pilots took one look at that spinning prop and immediately called for a new pair of shorts. And booked off sick for the next flight.

[@teslashark]

Boulton Paul, they don't have any good ideas when it's an entire plane.

[@richardw64]

I guess they took it on because business was probably slow during the Great Depression. The Air Ministry probably had made up their mind , unknowingly to BP. A catch 22 situation.

[@darkusblader]

They should have just deleted the overhead engine and given the bristol engine to the plane.

[@PaulMcKendrick]

Thanks

[@robertbalazslorincz8218]

Ohmy

[@167curly]

They were victims of Depression economies, bureaucratic mind-sets, and were obsolete even before completed.

[@peterbrown6224]

Maybe he could have worn a crash helmet. A strong one.

[@Ba_Yegu]

But then besides the Co-pilot still being decapitated the Propeller would get damage too, probably breaking and possibly taking down the whole plane.

[@peterbrown6224]

@@Ba_Yegu You're right, and the fitters wouldn't be too happy either.. But it provides a compelling career incentive to seek promotion to first pilot, should you live that long.

[@keithmoore5306]

wonder how close some of these companies came to saying you can get stuffed we quit because of all their meddling?

[@victorboucher675]

Oh Virginia ... as in the "proper" Vickers type ... might have been the way to go go ...

[@jamesengland7461]

So Top Gear WASN'T the ones who invented the 500 horsepower blender.

[@Dave5843-d9m]

Why did it not have two engines on the top wing?

[@donaldparlett7708]

Ahhh, nothing like early aircraft designs, crew be damned.

[@Calligraphybooster]

I wonder why they bothered with the pilot’s seat instead of installing that engine in the pusher configuration.

[@tombogan03884]

RAF needed to learn from the Navy, and HMS Captain.

[@petrossteadilious]

Where would Dick Dastardly put the giant anvil? 🤔

[@jehoiakimelidoronila5450]

Name a worse thing to happen to a project caused by the military. I'll wait

[@colonthree]

Everyone stating "pusher engine" clearly haven't heard of what some random dude called "Sickorskee" or something was doing...

[@AnyoneSeenMikeHunt]

Designed by a committee.

[@Dave5843-d9m]

DeHavilland seemed to learn from their experiences with stupid War office specifications. Boulton Paul seemed to suck them in. Think this one, the Defiant and the Roc.

[@None-zc5vg]

(Wasn't the 'Roc' another Blackburn effort ?)

[@davidjones332]

@@None-zc5vg Yes, a heavily-modified derivative of the Skua. You can't really blame the manufacturer, after all they're only trying to provide what the customer asks for. It's not their job to decide what the aircraft's combat requirements or capabilities should be.

[@alexdemoya2119]

I suppose the pilot will never be the head of the airforce

[@BrassLock]

😂😂😂

[@ahseaton8353]

His head would be all over the airforce

[@madsteve9]

Make you wonder how did Boulton Paul, keep getting contracts ? Do you think it was 1) Bribery 2) A Pool of High Class Female Escorts 3) A Pool of Gay Escorts

[@patrickcloutier6801]

Boulton Paul again, eh?

[@paulsmodels]

Those designers must have been doing to much snuff or they took mind altering drugs.

[@cegicreator2476]

I am the 1,234th viewer of this episode

[@bazza945]

British aircraft design at its finest. The crew factor? Nah.

[@deeemceetooisbaesgaem7211]

jeez, I'm early

[@JohnBeadling]

The propeller of a 172 is much closer to the pilot than this airplane's propeller. Clickbait? 🤔

[@stevetournay6103]

In front. Enclosed cabin. So no.

[@The_Modeling_Underdog]

Weird 172 you know. Was it pranged up on the nose, to have the prop 9 inches away from the pilot?

[@jubb1984]

Haircut the airplane

[@williamscoggin1509]

👍🏻🇺🇲

[@maxpayne2574]

Yawn stretch and lose an arm!

[@Wolfe_Blue]

Hi (first)

[@anlydaly5726]

Hello there.