Gloster Reaper

[andrewj]

During the desert battles in North Africa during 1941/42 it was realised that a good ground attack aircraft was able to dominate the battlefield if handled correctly. the Curtis Hawks and Hawker Hurricanes of the RAF were able to decimate Rommels lines of supply and when fitted with a 40mm cannon under each wing were able to knock out enemy armour. Further evidence of the effectiveness of these tactics began to filter back from observers in Russia, of the early use of the IL-2.
The Air Ministry approached several British companies with a view to obtaining a dedicated ground attack aircraft for the projected invasion of Europe. Martin Baker responded with an unorthodox twin tail, pusher aircraft ,whilst the Gloster company proposed an even more radical design.
Originally the Gloster GA 10A, [ Ground Attack model 1/0A ], was to have been powered by two Rolls Royce Merlin engines driving pusher propellers in order to keep the vunerable parts of the aircraft away from ground fire as much as possible. However, the Gloster designers heard about the new jet engines then in developement, they realised immediately the potential of these new engines for their new aircraft. No cooling system meant no vunerable radiators and also that the fuel used was much less volatile than the high octane fuel used in piston engines. They petitioned the Air Ministry to allow the use of the new engines in the new aircraft.
The design as finalised used many common parts from the Meteor Mk I fighter ,then in parallel developement, the basic fuselage , outer wing panels and undercarriage were all common parts. The aircraft had new inner wing panels with armoured fuel tanks, a twin tail, an armoured cockpit, two Halford H1 engines mounted inpods slightly above and behind the wing centre section.
This layout was chosen so that the armoured fuselage and wing centre section shielded the engines from groud fire,armament consisted of four 20mm Hispano cannon in the nose and bombs or 60lb rockets under the wings.
The production Reaper FI was powered by two Welland engines, [the H1 engines having been reserved for the DH Vampire ] in self contained "power eggs" which meant they could be easily replaced in the field, and began to enter service in August 1944.
This of course meant they were availible for the Invasion of Normandy, which had been postponed from June due to very stormy weather around the original date. The Gloster aircraft quickly replaced Hawkers Typhoon in squadrons due to the unreliability and vunerability to ground fire, of their Napier Sabre engins.
The Reaper proved devastating in its designed role ,leading the breakout from the Caen area, being mostly responsible for the devastation of the German forces at Falaise and helping to repel the German ofensive in the Ardennes at Christmas 1944. The Reaper was also well able to defend itself in air to air combat and several Me 262 jets fell to their guns.
With the end of hostilities in Europe the Reapper was unable to find a place in a peacetime airforce and quickly faded from the scene, in some cases being replaced by its stablemate the Meteor.
Forgotten by many the Reaper may have influenced the design of the similar Republic A10 in the USA many years later. The aircraft pictured here served with 247sqd RAF in December 1944

[bobbo]

The A-10's granddaddy!

Two Thumbs Up!   

Bobbo

[flappydaffy]

The A-10's granddaddy!

Two Thumbs Up!   

Bobbo

My thaughts exactly 

[The Rat]

That models speaks for itself, and it says "I'm GREAT!" 

[Aircav]

Excellent bit of modelling and well thought out too, super build.  

[dogsbody]

Bravo!

[Hobbes]

Wow, that's inspired!

[kitbasher]

That is excellent genius.  Retro A-10 like everyone says!  Seriously so good and an obvious - yet not done until now (as far as I know) - whif possibility.  Fantastic.

[Gondor]

Well thought out and executed

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

Positively BRILLIANT!    

[Slerski]

Heu... Very nice

[Steel Penguin]

simply splended!

[RussC]

That is a really unique concept and build. Well Done 

[ChernayaAkula]

Hot damn, that's brilliant!  

[Martin H]

Andrew my friend. You really need to get out to more shows. Your builds really need to be seen by the rest of the modeling world