Bristol Blenheim

The Bristol Blenheim was a British light bomber designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company and used heavily in the first two years of the Second World War. It grew from the Type 142, a civil airliner built after newspaper proprietor Lord Rothermere challenged industry to produce the fastest commercial aircraft in Europe. The Type 142 first flew in April 1935, and the Air Ministry ordered a bomber development, the Type 142M, which became the Blenheim Mk.I and entered RAF service in 1937. It was then developed into the long-nosed Type 149, the Mk.IV, which Fairchild Canada built under licence as the Bolingbroke. It was among the first British aircraft with all-metal stressed-skin construction, retractable landing gear, flaps, a powered gun turret and variable-pitch propellers.