The Short Stirling an Almost Forgotten Ww2 Bomber

The short’s Stirling bomber an almost forgotten aircraft from WW2.

During the late 1930s in Europe the prospect of war with Germany was becoming more than just a rumour!  Britain and other European countries began mobilising their military forces.  The result of  Germany’s Zeppelin attacks against Britain in WW1  Lead to Britain giving the go-ahead to produce offensive bomber aircraft capable of flying to and from Germany on heavy bombing missions

A very early picture of the Stirling.

The British air ministry was pushing for a twin engined bomber that could for fill the job of bombing Germany.  Engine design was at full capacity and the requirement of an engine to satisfy the twin engined profile, meant each engine would have to produce 2,000hp!  The development of these super-power producing units was taking too long.

Due to the success of Russia developing a four engined bomber which nearly matched Britain’s requirements.  The Air-Ministry issued order B12/36 which conceded to a four engined design.  This expansion of the requirements speeded the development of four engined bombers. 

One bonus from altering the two engined bomber to a four engined bomber was survivability.  If one or even two engines failed through enemy fire or pure mechanical failure the two remaining engines should be able to carry the aircrew back to their base in England.

A rare colour picture of the forgotten Soort’s Stirling.

Many companies sent in designs for the B12/36 aircraft, among them the Supermarine 316 and Short’s S29.  These two companies were at the time leaders of the pack for this huge military contract.  Short Brothers were well know successful flying boat builders. 

In a summing up of Short’s design, which was in effect the top half of a flying boat that was married to a new lower half specifically designed as a long range bomber.  The beauty of this design was speed of production.  Short’s factory already had part fuselage’s on the production line that could be diverted to produce the “Stirling” bomber.

Prototypes were produced and fitted with Bristol Centaurus 2 engines. The Stirling bomber was similar to other WW2 designs in as much as it had a crew of seven and it had three machine gunned armed turrets for protection against enemy fighters.  The air ministry insisted to Short Brothers that the wing span of the Stirling was not to exceed 100 feet.