Gloster Gladiator

Gloster Gladiator
Restored Gloster Gladiator from the Shuttleworth Collection with Norwegian markings
Type:	Fighter plane
Design country:	United Kingdom
Manufacturer:	Gloster Aircraft Company
First flight:	September 12, 1934
Commissioning:	January 1937
Production time:	1935 - April 1940
Number of pieces:	747

The Gloster Gladiator was a single-engine fighter aircraft from British production and the last designed as a biplane in service with the Royal Air Force . It marked the end of a long development series of successful double-decker designs by the Gloster Aircraft Company . The Gladiator first flew in September 1934 and was introduced to the Royal Air Force in January 1937.

The construction of the Gladiator still showed some features typical of biplanes: braced and braced wings, a fabric-covered fuselage and a fixed landing gear. The closed cockpit and hydraulic landing flaps were more advanced.

Even before the beginning of the Second World War, the Gladiator was inferior to the more modern monoplane fighter aircraft. During the Second World War, however, there were still individual confrontations between the gladiator and other double-decker designs. So it was used over Malta in September 1940 against Italian Fiat CR.42 . Two CR.42s were probably shot down by Gladiator. In the Soviet-Finnish winter war of 1940 , too, there were aerial battles between Finnish gladiators and Soviet I-15 and I-153 double-deckers.

history

After the First World War , Henry Folland moved from the British Nieuport Company , where he had designed the Nieuport Nighthawk , to the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company and became chief designer there in 1921. Before that he worked at the Royal Aircraft Factory and was responsible for the design of the SE5 . Gloucestershire took over all remaining and unused cells and in 1920 also all reproduction rights for the Nighthawk construction. These formed the basis for a number of biplane fighter aircraft, of which the Grebe from 1923 was the first model to be produced in relatively high numbers. The Gamecock followed three years later and, like its predecessor, was used by the RAF in the 1920s and into the early 1930s.

Gloster then developed the SS.18 model in 1926 initially for the F.9 / 26 tender, but the RAF rejected all of the proposed designs. Then Gloster submitted the SS.18 for F.20 / 27; Although the Bristol Bulldog won here , the model was further developed as SS.18A, SS.18B, SS.19 and SS.19A with different engines and other modifications. The last model (SS.19B) then met the requirements of F.24 / 33 in 1933 and was used as the Gloster Gauntlet by the RAF until the end of the 1930s.

When the Air Ministry announced the call for tenders F.7 / 30 at the end of 1930 , Gloster was already relatively far advanced with the next project, the SS.37 model. This was a one-hand development of the Gauntlet and should use the required Rolls-Royce Goshawk ; Since this engine with its evaporation cooling proved to be unsuitable for fighter aircraft, Gloster used the newly developed Bristol Mercury for the prototype in 1934 at his own risk. Compared to the Gauntlet, the Gladiator was designed to be aerodynamically “cleaner”, to which the new chassis with cantilevered chassis legs without bracing and a continuous axle also contributed.

The Gladiator prototype SS.37 (K5200) was created from a Gauntlet Mk.II fuselage, with a surface oil cooler on the upper right wing and a headrest for the still open cockpit. During the first flight on September 12, 1934, a 530 hp Mercury IV was installed, which was then replaced by a Mercury VIS2 with 645 hp. Together with the competitors of the F.7 / 30 tender, the prototype first went to Martlesham to the Airplane and Armament Experimental Establishment for testing in early 1935 , and then in July 1935 at the RAF show in Hendon in the "Experimental Air Park" under the name " Gladiator ”to be exhibited. In June, the Air Ministry placed the first series order for 23 machines, which were to receive the improved 830 HP Mercury IX engine, an improved landing gear and a closed cockpit.

The last examples of series production received the Bristol Mercury VIIIAS radial engine, which also developed 830 hp, but differed from that of the Gladiator I in that the wooden propeller was replaced by a three-blade Fairey Reed metal propeller and a new carburetor with automatic mixture control . The last Gladiator II was delivered to the RAF in April 1940.

The carrier-supported version was called the Sea Gladiator . In 1938 38 of the Gladiator Mk II variants were converted accordingly. Another 60 were delivered directly from the factory. This type gained fame in the defense of Malta against Italian air raids from June 16 to 28, 1940, when three of these planes managed to protect the island relatively successfully from Italian bombers .

Sweden acquired a manufacturing license and produced the aircraft under the designation J8 (equivalent to Gladiator Mk I ) and J8A ( Gladiator Mk II ).

By the end of production in April 1940, 747 units had been built, 216 of them for export. The following table provides an overview of the type's use outside the Royal Air Force :

Gloster Gladiator with Norwegian markings

Gloster Gladiator without covering

country	number of pieces	Usage period
Egypt	18 Gladiator I + 25 Gladiator II (ex-RAF)	1939-44
Australia	39 Gladiator I and II (ex-RAF)	from 1940
Belgium	22 Gladiator I	1937-40
China	36 Gladiator I	from 1937
German Empire	13 ex-soviet gladiator I.	from 1941
Finland	12 Gladiator I + 30 Gladiator II (ex-RAF)	1940-45
Greece	27 Gladiator I + 14 Gladiator II (ex-RAF)	1937-41
Kingdom of Iraq	15 Gladiator I + 29 Gladiator I and II (ex-RAF)	1938-51
Ireland	4 Gladiator I	1938-44
Latvia	26 Gladiator I	1938-40
Lithuania	14 Gladiator I	1939-40
Norway	6 Gladiator I + 6 Gladiator II	1938-40
Portugal	15 Gladiator I + 15 Gladiator II (ex-RAF)	1938-52
Sweden	37 J8 + 18 J8A (only until 1942)	1937-47
Soviet Union	5 ex-Latvian and 12 ex-Lithuanian Gladiator I.	from 1940
South African Union	1 Gladiator I + 11 Gladiator II (ex-RAF)	1939-41

During the advance in the Baltic States, 13 Gladiator I fell into the hands of the German troops, most of them at Schaulen airfield , as a booty report from July 1941 shows. They all wore Soviet emblems when they arrived in the Reich by train. Latvian red swastikas came underneath, and some also had Lithuanian white double crosses. At least ten of the aircraft were made airworthy again and mainly used in the supplementary group (S) 1 in Langendiebach near Frankfurt for towing DFS 230 gliders .

Technical specifications

Gladiator Mk.I

Parameter	SS.37	Gladiator I (Mk.I)	Gladiator II (Mk.II)
crew	1
length	8.36 m
span	9.83 m
Wing area	30.20 m²
drive	a Bristol Mercury VIS radial engine with 645 hp	a Bristol Mercury IX radial engine with 830 hp	a radial engine Bristol Mercury VIIIA or VIIIAS with 830 hp
Top speed	378 km / h at 3050 m	405 km / h at 4420 m	414 km / h at 4450 m
Range		660 km	714 km
Service ceiling	8235 m	10,000 m
Climbing performance at 3000 m	5.25 min	4.75 min	4.5 min
Empty mass	1390 kg	1460 kg	1562 kg
Flight mass	1970 kg	2086 kg	2206 kg
Armament	four 7.7 mm machine-guns, two 45 kg bombs

See also

• List of aircraft types
• British planes in World War II

literature

• Alec Lumsden, Terry Heffernan: Gloster Gladiator (Probe Probare Part 28). In: Airplane Monthly. September 1986, pp. 460-467.
• Owen Thetford: Gloster Gladiator (On Silver Wings - The classic inter-war Royal Air Force biplane fighters, Part 20). In: Airplane Monthly. May 1992, pp. 8-15.
• Derek James: Database - Gloster Gladiator. In: Airplane Monthly. January 2005, pp. 55-71.

Web links

Commons : Gloster Gladiator  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Gloster Gladiator. The RAF's last biplane fighter that served with great distinction during the Second World War. In: Heritage. BAE Systems , accessed August 7, 2018 . 
• Information about the Gloster Gladiator at Aeroflight.co.uk
• World Air Forces Database - extensive database of information on the use of aircraft throughout history (English)
• Gloster Gladiator of the Shuttleworth Collection

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Derek James: Database - Gloster Gladiator. P. 65.
2. ↑ Deployments of the gladiator over Malta 1940
3. ↑ Known claims with the Gloster Gladiator over Malta
4. ^ Rainer Göpfert, Rolf Jakob: The Finnish Winter War. In: Flieger Revue Extra No. 11
5. ^ William Green: War Planes of the second World War, Volume Two. 6th edition 1969, p. 48.
6. ↑ AIR International. August 1980, Fighter A – Z, p. 104 f.