Bristol Buckmaster

The Bristol Buckmaster was a twin-engined advanced training aircraft built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company for the Royal Air Force in the closing months of the Second World War and used through the early 1950s. It answered Air Ministry Specification T.13/43, which asked for a trainer whose performance came close to the combat aircraft that graduating pilots would go on to fly. Bristol designated it the Type 166 and based it on the Buckingham bomber, widening the front fuselage so that an instructor and a trainee could sit side by side, with room for a radio operator behind, and removing all armament and armour. Two partly completed Buckinghams served as prototypes, the first flying on 27 October 1944, and unused sets of Buckingham components were then used to build 110 production aircraft, delivered in 1945 and 1946. The Buckmaster was meant to prepare crews for the similar Brigand, carried a crew of three, and was regarded as the highest performance trainer the RAF had used when it entered service. The last examples served at No. 238 Operational Conversion Unit at Colerne before retiring in the mid-1950s.