Biggles and the Big Bristol

“What ho chaps, I’m looking for a couple of volunteer to test drive this new crate we’ve just been sent, and at the same time to get some photos of the big guns the Boshe have located over to the west of Nieuville”. “It’s only about 20 miles over their side of the lines, it’ll be a doddle chaps”. That’s the Skipper, a jolly lively chap, a bit too lively at times.

“Pilot Officer Vagabond you look a likely volunteer, when were you last up on patrol”. “Dawn sir” I responded rather glumly, I don’t do mornings well and it was still only 09:00 hours. “Come on look lively, go find your gunner chappie, the days not getting any younger”. I muttered “breakfast sir, is it possible to have my breakfast before we go”. “No time young man, your country needs you, get them to put some bacon between a couple of bits of bread, you can eat it on the way”.

“Don’t suppose you’ve even seen the new Bristol F2.B” he guffawed, “dashed good plane they tell me, it will win the war and we can all go home for Christmas, but first we need you to get these photo’s. Off you go and let me know how you get on with the bally crate, especially fuel consumption. For some reasons the boffins haven’t sent me many flying characteristics yet. Make sure you take a dip stick with you. Pip pip”, and he left.

My giddy Aunt Gemmima what’s he got me into now.

I went looking for the dip stick, that’s Jack my gunner by the way, we’ve been together for ever, well it must be 2 weeks but it seems like forever. He has this nasty habit of referring to me as the taxi driver. He tells all the girls I’m the driver and he’s the brains doing all the work, mainly recce photography but we have been given bombs to drop as well. I don’t like that so much because generally if our Brass wants us to blow something up, the Huns don’t want us to and they can get very nasty about it.

I explain the situation to him and he’s not as upset about it as I am, two reasons really, firstly he thinks I can fly and all planes are the same to the man who uses it as a platform to take photographs, but more importantly he’s had his breakfast.

Well we got off the ground, a bit too quickly for my liking this lump of canvas and wood is rather faster than what I’m used to, but she’s a nice looking plane and responds well to the controls, fast is good right - get to Nieuville and back in time for lunch. Climbs a lot faster than our current crate, which is more of a canvas coffin if you ask me - but no one does.

We arrived over Nieuville and could see the netting covering the big guns to the north and south of the town, but there was a slight problem. A pair of Albatros DIII from the look of them but it could be the DV, let it be DIII’s I pray, they are not so fast and with my new found speedy steed we might be able to out run them, but first the photographs, we’ve not come all this way for nothing and the skipper won’t like it if we go home empty handed.

Sorry the game photo’s are on a plain board, but I’m so envious of the printed mats that I wanted to try and emulate them, not very well but it’s the thought that counts. These bad boys below landed this morning along with the Bristol so first time out. Mind you it’s only my 4th sortie, I’m flying them using Richard Bradley’s AI system, and am a bit concerned because it’s better than I am.

I’m not used to having a gun firing forward, Jack’s the one who gets all the fun and so our usual tactic would be to try and get him in a position to shoot, that’s a bit theoretical because he’s not a good shot and usually we have a fighter escort that are there to protect us. However they weren’t at the rendezvous today and in view of the cryptic comment about fuel consumption we decided not to hang about. Looks like that might have been a mistake.

Well they came at us in the same old way and I expect they thought we would run in the same old way, but I now have a gun and went straight at them, they weren’t expecting that.

The Red plane turned to starboard S and then to port P and then jinked a bit to S and they closed the gap between them very neatly.

This Richard Bradley knows his stuff.

Here we go, “Tally Ho” I shouted as I flew straight at them.

There is some nonsense in the Mess about never flinching from a head on attack, anyone in their right mind knows this is bound to lead to a collision, but the received wisdom is the Hun will always loose his nerve first.

I believe that we don’t duck left or right because we think they will go the same way and we’ll have a collision, it’s much safer to stay on a straight course and then they know what we are going to do and avoid us.

Oh no the Red plane doesn’t know this.

But at the last minute Red dived under my wing and missed by a hairs breath. We were in spitting distance but of course we are gentlemen – the Knights of the Air. If we’d been those oiks in the trenches we probably would have spat, and thrown stones for good measure.

Too damn close to shoot though.

We all broke to port P and Jack got to fire the twin Lewis guns at Green. He was going to fire at Red but I had yelled over my shoulder don’t shoot the bloody tail off – AGAIN. He doesn’t like me to refer to that incident.

Smoke started to pour out of Greens engine, I’ve hit him, I’ve hit him Jack was shouting. There’s a first time for everything I thought and now was a good time to start shooting straight.

We continued to circle, they were keeping a tight formation, and the smoke stopped. Humm not so good.

About this time I realised they were circling in a tighter circle than us and that Red plane was going to have us in his sights soon.

And that’s when they made their big mistake, they both straightened up but I continued my turn to port. Green is in range and I open fire, it’s glorious having a gun, de, de, de, de it went and I missed. Bugger I’m never going to hear the end of this.

I’m still turning to port and so are the Hun, I fire another blast at Green and miss again, Jack’s never going to let me forget this, but I feel the crate shake as Jack lets rip, but a quick glance over my shoulder and I see he’s missed. Well that’s good and bad - good that it’s not just me missing, but it’s bad that we aren’t dishing out the damage when we have the chance.

We are all still circling to port, I just miss the tail of the Green Albatros and it is a DIII, that’s a bit of a relief but I am going to bring stones next time, they might be more effective than this damn gun. We’re certainly getting close enough to use them…..

 Red continues a long turn to port, and is out of the action for a while.

I continue to turn to port but the idiot in the Green plane swings to Starboard, what the hell is he doing – he’s going to get us all killed if he carries on like this. I pull back on the stick and just scrape over the top of him.

It’s OK to take avoiding action now because this wasn’t head to head, and I’ve ceased caring I just want my lunch.

This is known as a Bristol sandwich on Albatros. One out of range and one out of angle. The Red plane and I continue with our circle of death to port, but I think I’ve got him next phase.

Wrong he is turning tighter than I am and we are both shooting lumps off each other. Of course his lumps are bigger than mine and we take 4 damage and he takes none.

I swing to starboard giving Jack a clear shot at point blank range. He hits doing 4 points of damage, get him Jack I yell, but he can’t hear me above the sound of the twin Lewis guns, and that’s when Red made his big mistake. I swung back to port and he did an Immelmann turn, right in front of Jack.

Of course it wasn’t looking so good for us either, I’d been concentrating so much on Red that I’d given the Green Albatros the opportunity to come straight at us. Jack put a long burst into the Red plane, bits were flying off it, he was causing a lot of damage and.

There was a loud explosion and the Red plane blew up in mid air, it shook me I can tell you, one minute he is there fighting like a good un and then he’s gone.

It must have shook Green because he fired and the bullets went wide causing no damage.

I’m still swinging to port, it’s like being on one of those fairground rides, round and round, but Jack gets another clear shot but his guns are quiet. Looking back I can see him hitting the damn things with his gloved hands, come on lad that’s not the way to do it.

I need to create a bit of space to give him time to get up and running again, so fly straight away from the Hun, a bit of a turn and then straight’ I’m lining up to do an Immelmann of my own, wonder if this machine will take the stress, should do. We’ll soon find out.

We come flying back straight at the Green Albatros, he turns.

But not fast enough and I’m on him, the shots are slightly off and I’m hitting his tail, causing 1 damage and jamming the tail so he can’t turn to starboard, but he’s going to port, so am I.

This gives Jack another clear shot but his deflection shooting is off and he also hits around the tail, he’s caused 2 damage but also jammed the rudder from turning to port. Bloody good shooting Jack.

I swing round and give chase, the Albatros is diving to get as much speed as possible he can’t turn to port or starboard and we’re gaining. We get too low, ground fire is putting holes in the plane and I pull up and let him go. No one chases a wounded fox, where’s the sport in that.

He made it off the board.

The stick felt a bit loose when we landed, quite a few wires were damaged holes all over but nothing too bad, Jack jumped down whooping with joy, relief, who knows, we had our first kill. The Skipper seemed quite buoyed up about it, said maybe we could keep the bus but his face fell when he asked after the recognisance photographs and we dragged the camera out of the plane. It had a neat bullet hole just behind the lens and had been useless.

Better luck next time.