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. 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.52. Bristol's design, the Type 130, was a high-wing cantilever monoplane of all-metal construction. Bristol's previous monoplane design, the 1927 Bagshot, had suffered from lack of torsional rigidity in the wings leading to aileron reversal. 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. 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 was equipped with a Lewis gun on a Scarff ring but in production aircraft, both gun positions were hydraulically-operated gun turrets each armed with a Vickers K machine gun. Eight 250-pound (110 kg) bombs could be carried on racks under the fuselage. A prototype Type 130 was ordered in March 1933 and first flew on 23 June 1935, powered by two 750 horsepower (560 kW) 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. These differed from the prototype in having more powerful (1,010 hp (750 kW)) engines driving three-bladed Rotol variable-pitch propellers, discarding the wheel spats fitted to the undercarriage main wheels in the prototype. As Bristol's Filton factory was busy building the more urgent Blenheim light bomber, the production aircraft were built by Short & Harland (owned by Short Brothers and Harland and Wolff) of Belfast. The complex nature of the Bombay's wing delayed production at Belfast. The first Bombay was not delivered until 1939 and the last 30 were cancelled. No 1 Air Ambulance Unit (No 1 AAU) of the RAAF was formed at Laverton, VIC on 15 February 1941 and was one of a small number of RAAF units designated to operate under RAF control. Amongst other types, it operated the Bombay from February 1943 to February 1944 when the unit was withdrawn from the Western Desert. The unit commenced operations from Gaza in August 1941 initially operating de Havilland DH.86, Bristol Bombay, Lockheed Lodestar and Grumman Goose types. It supported Commonwealth units during the North African campaign, and operated during the Tunisian campaign and the Allied invasion of Sicily. The Bombays were received from No 216 Squadron RAF, which re-equipped with the Vickers Wellington. However, the Bombay was slow, suffered mechanical problems, and made its last evacuation operation in November 1943. The survivors of the type were used to carry medical supplies up until January 1944. Bombays evacuated over 2,000 wounded during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, and one crew was credited with carrying 6,000 casualties from Sicily and Italy before the type was finally withdrawn from use in 1944. Variants Type 130 : Prototype. Type 130A Bombay Mk I : Twin-engined medium bomber and troop transport aircraft. Original designation Type 130 Mark II. Type 137A Proposed civil transport version. Unbuilt. Type 137B Combi version of Type 137A. Unbuilt. Type 144 Unbuilt development with retractable undercarriage proposed for Specification B.4/34 (won by Handley Page Harrow). A total of 51 units were built.
