When we last left our Flying Tigers companion series, we were discussing the almost totally unknown Vickers Vildebeest. We now come to a better known aircraft, the Bristol Blenheim.
The Blenheim wore a couple of hats over its career. Primarily a light attack bomber, it also served as a heavy fighter, an interim night fighter, and provided the basis for the Beaufort torpedo bomber. In Flying Tigers: Shadows Over China, Blenheim Mk IVs of No. 60 Squadron RAF are represented in several missions, usually placing players in combination scenarios where they play pilot/bombardier, then man a turret to fend off attacks from Japanese fighters.
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| Blenheims of No. 60 Squadron skimming VERY low over the water to attack Japanese shipping. (Wikipedia Public Domain) |
Aside from FTSOC, the Blenheim isn’t especially well represented in flight and flight-action games. The Mk IV F version appears in World of Warplanes as a decent Tier IV fighter, and it’s a flyable option in IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover Blitz Edition, but that’s mostly it. In game terms, the Blenheim is largely overlooked in favor of the Beaufighter and Mosquito.
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| Late model Blenheim Mk IV with dual gun turret from World of Warplanes. |
Surviving Blenheims can be found in a few places in Europe. The sole flying example is technically a Bolingbroke Mk IVT (the name for Canadian manufactured Blenheims built by Fairchild Aircraft and used as coastal reconnaissance/light bombers) rebuilt with a short nose to appear as a Blenheim Mk I, and operated in Britain by the Imperial War Museum Duxford. Static display examples exist in the Aviation Museum of Central Finland (A Finnish Mk IV) and at the Hellenic Air Force Museum (A Mk IVF downed by friendly fire in 1941 and recovered for restoration in 1996).