The ‘Terrifying’ British Fighter That Could Deliver A Nuclear Bomb At Treetop Level — English Electr

May 1949, Wharton Aerodrome, Lanasher.

Test pilot Roland Bemon climbed into the cockpit of an aircraft that looked nothing like a bomber.

No gun turrets, no defensive armorament whatsoever.

The fuselage was smooth and circular, the wings straight when everyone else was building them swept.

The Air Ministry had ordered 400 of them before it had even flown.

When Bemont landed 27 minutes later, he reported a single fault, a slight rudder overbalance.

Everything else was perfect.

Within 6 years, the United States Air Force would do something rare.

They would license a foreign combat aircraft for domestic production.

A major post-war example of the US adopting a foreign combat airframe for mass manufacturer.

The English Electric Canra was that aircraft, and its most terrifying role had nothing to do with conventional bombing.

The Canra emerged from a wartime requirement to replace the dehavlin mosquito.

In January 1946, the Air Ministry issued specification B345, calling for a twin engine jet bomber capable of carrying 4,000 lb of bombs to a target 700 m away at 440 knots and 45,000 ft.

The critical requirement was no defensive armament like the Mosquito before it.

This aircraft would rely on speed and altitude rather than guns.

The philosophy was straightforward.

Gun turrets added weight and drag.

They required gunners who needed training, feeding, and protection.

Every pound spent on defensive armorament was a pound not spent on bombs or fuel.

The mosquito had proven that an unarmed aircraft fast enough to outrun fighters could survive where heavily armed bombers could not.

The jet age offered even greater speed advantages.

The man who designed it was William Edward Willoughby Peta known to everyone as Teddy.

Born in 1908, the son of Sir Ernest Peter, who co-founded Westland Aircraft, he was educated at Cambridge with a first in mechanical sciences.

He became Westland’s technical director at just 26 years old, a controversial appointment that caused resignations but produced results.

He designed the Lysander Army Cooperation Aircraft and the revolutionary whirlwind twin engine fighter before a dispute sent him to English Electric in December 1944.

This was a company with no aircraft design experience whatsoever.

They built locomotives and electrical equipment.

Peta brought a concept study designated P1056 and assembled a 260 strong design team including Ray Casy for aerodynamics and Frederick Page for structures.

His approach was unconventional where American and Soviet designers were pursuing swept wings.

Peta kept his straight.

He reasoned that operational speeds did not require sweep and straight wings gave superior low-eed handling, better structural simplicity and higher lift at low speeds for shorter takeoff runs.

The wingle leading edge was formed from a single sheet of light alloy wrapped around to 40% of cordon redux bonded stiffeners with no external joints or fastenings.

This produced an aerodynamic surface of extraordinary accuracy, cleaner than anything riveted together in a conventional factory.

The engines migrated during design from a single centerline installation to twin mid-wing cells, cutting weight by 13% and solving center of gravity problems that had plagued earlier concepts.

According to English Electric Records, the B2 production variant measured 65 f’ 6 in in length with a wingspan of 63t 11 in.

Empty weight was 22,200 lb with maximum takeoff weight reaching 46,000 lb on later variants.

Power came from two Rolls-Royce Aan engines, Britain’s first axial flow turbo jet.

The B2 used the Aan RA3, producing 6,500 lb of thrust per engine.

Improved variants fitted the AAN 109 at 7,500 lb thrust, while the Ultimate PR9 reconnaissance variant carried the Avon 206 at 11,250 lb thrust per engine.

Performance was exceptional.

The B2 reached 541 mph at altitude, rising to 580 mph with the more powerful engines.

Service ceiling was 48,000 ft for standard variants with the PR9 operating routinely above 50,000 ft.

Range on internal fuel reached approximately 2 660 mi.

The standard bomb load was £6,000 internally with later variants hauling up to £10,000 including underwing stores.

What set the Canra apart from every bomber of its generation was agility.

Transition training required only 20 hours in a glouester Meteor and 3 hours in a Canra trainer.

Bomber pilots could be converted in days.

Through the early 1950s, no first generation jet fighter, not the Meteor, not the Vampire, not the American F80, could catch it in speed or altitude.

It was effectively immune to interception until the Hawker Hunter arrived at the September 1949 Farnbr Air Show.

Bemont threw the bomber through rolls, steep climbs, and fighter tight turns that stunned crowds.

American observers who had dismissed the straightwing design on the ground were silenced in seconds.

Now, before we examine the Cambra’s nuclear role, if you’re enjoying this deep dive into British Cold War engineering, consider subscribing.

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Right, let us talk about what made this aircraft terrifying.

The Canberra’s most frightening role was one it was never originally designed for.

Tactical nuclear strike at extreme low altitude.

The Soviet air defenses improved through the 1950s.

Particularly the 75 surfaceto-air missile that downed Gary P’s U2 in 1960.

High altitude bombing became suicidal.

The solution was to fly beneath the radar coverage entirely.

The CRA was rerolled from its lofty perch to scream across the landscape at 250 ft and 450 mph carrying nuclear weapons towards Soviet targets under project E.

The Anglo-American nuclear sharing arrangements agreed in 1957 selected Canberra B8s in Germany were modified to carry United States nuclear weapons.

These included the Mark 7 tactical bomb, a weapon designed to be used with loft and toss deliveries.

Britishowned weapons included Redbeard, Britain’s first tactical nuclear bomb, available in 15 kiloton and 25 koton yields, weighing 1,750 pounds with flip out fins activated by lanyard on release.

According to Federation of American Scientist documentation, approximately 8 RAF Canra squadrons were nuclear armed at peak strength.

Four were stationed in Germany with additional squadrons in Cyprus, the United Kingdom, and Singapore.

Canra squadrons were kept on high readiness states with accounts recording aircraft on alert with scramble times measured in minutes under project E arrangements.

The delivery method was called the lowaltitude bombing system abbreviated as Labs.

The aircraft carried a set of gyros and a mechanical computer linked to an instrument called the dive and roll indicator.

Understanding this system reveals why crews called their missions one-way trips.

The maneuver worked like this.

The pilot approached the target area at 250 ft altitude and over 450 mph, navigating visually by rivers, roads, and landmarks because radar would give away his position.

At a pre-identified initial point, he pressed the bomb release button to activate the timer.

At the computed pull-up point, roughly 2 and 1/2 m from the target, the horizontal needle dropped, queuing a violent 3.4G pull-up.

The nuclear weapon released automatically during the climb at approximately 45 degrees for a loft delivery or passed vertical for an over- the-sh shoulder throw.

The bomb arked upward to roughly 18,000 ft before falling back onto the target.

It was launched upward rather than dropped.

The pilot continued the half loop, rolled upright, and fled at maximum speed in the opposite direction.

The system could consistently hit within a 1,500 ft radius.

With nuclear weapons, close was good enough.

The timing was calculated to give the aircraft maximum distance from the detonation point.

A 15 kiloton weapon detonating at ground level produced lethal thermal radiation within approximately 1 and a half miles.

The fireball would rise rapidly, creating the characteristic mushroom cloud.

The Cambra crew had perhaps 90 seconds between weapon release and detonation to put as much distance as possible between themselves and ground zero.

At 450 mph, that translated to roughly 12 mi.

Whether that was far enough depended on yield, burst altitude, and weather conditions.

Mathematical survival.

Theoretical at best.

RAF air crew called the bomb a bucket of sunshine.

Wing commander Mike Brookke, who flew BI8s with number 16 squadron at RAF Larbrook from 1964, described life on nuclear quick reaction alert at less than 3 minutes notice.

His memoir left readers, according to contemporary reviews, humbled by the reality that should war have come, these crews would have been defending Britain on what was almost certainly a one-way trip for them.

The navigator in the BI8 sat in the nose compartment without an ejection seat.

Most crews, typically in their early 20s, quietly understood that the return flight was theoretical.

The Canra’s combat record spanned six decades and multiple continents.

During the Suez crisis of 1956, approximately 100 canas deployed to Cypress and Malta.

Squadrons including numbers 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 27, 35, 44, 61, and 101 flew bombing missions against 12 Egyptian airfields from October 31st to November 6th.

Nearly 2,000 bombs were delivered in 18 strikes.

No cameras were lost.

The Royal Australian Air Force wrote the most impressive chapter.

Number two, squadron deployed Canra B20s to Farnang, South Vietnam in April 1967.

According to Australian War Memorial Records, they flew 11,963 bombing missions and dropped 76,389 bombs totaling 27,158 tons over 4 years.

Their serviceability rate was 97%.

Using visual bomb sites considered obsolete by American standards, the Australians achieved 16% of total bomb damage assessment for their wing.

While flying only 6% of sorties, they lost just two aircraft and received the United States presidential unit citation.

The Indopakistani wars created the remarkable spectacle of the same aircraft fighting on both sides.

Indian Air Force Canas against Pakistani B-57s.

In 1965, Indian Canbras flew deep penetration raids against Pakistani airfields with number five squadron completing nearly 150 sorties for the loss of just one aircraft.

In 1971, Cambas spearheaded attacks on Karach’s oil installations, setting the refinery complex ablaze for nearly a week.

During the Falklands War of 1982, Argentine B62 can flew 54 sorties against British forces.

Two were shot down, including one by a Seedart missile from HMS Cardiff at 39,000 ft on the penultimate day of the war.

The most telling validation of British design came from America.

In 1951, the United States Air Force concluded that no domestic American aircraft could match the Canra.

The Americans urgently needed a replacement for the Douglas B-26 Invader during the Korean War.

The Martins B-51 and North American B-45 Tornado competed for the contract, but neither impressed.

When prototype B2WD932 crossed the Atlantic non-stop on February 21st, 1951, the first unrefueled jet transatlantic crossing completed in 4 hours and 37 minutes and demonstrated at Andrews Air Force Base.

It was judged significantly superior to any competing aircraft.

The Americans were particularly impressed by its handling qualities, its ability to operate from shorter runways, and its excellent visibility from the cockpit.

The Glennel Martin Company received a license to produce it as the B-57, building 403 aircraft between 1953 and 1957.

Martin made modifications, replacing the Avons with Wright J65 engines, which were licensed built Armstrong Cidily Sapphires, introducing tandem crew seating and adding four 20 mm cannon.

But the fundamental airframe remained Peta’s design.

This was a rare post-war example of major United States license production of a foreign combat design.

The greatest compliment the world’s most powerful air force could pay was to admit that Britain had built something better.

Against its Soviet equivalent, the Illusian Y28, the CRA was demonstrably superior in nearly every metric.

The Isle 28’s service ceiling was just 40,350 ft versus the Cambra’s 48,000, a gap of nearly 8,000 ft that made the British bomber effectively unreachable to Soviet era interceptors.

The Cambra carried a heavier bomb load, 10,000 lb versus 6,600, had greater range, and proved far more adaptable, evolving through more than 27 variants compared to relatively few Soviet modifications.

The IL28 was relegated to secondline duties by the late 1950s.

The CRA was still flying combat missions in 2006.

The altitude record cemented the Cambra’s legend and demonstrated just how far British engineering could push the boundaries of aviation.

On May 4th, 1953, test pilot Walter Gibb flew a CRA B2 fitted with experimental Bristol Olympus engines to 63,668 ft, some 4,000 ft above the previous world record.

This was higher than any production aircraft had ever flown.

On August 29th, 1955, Gibb took the same aircraft, re-engineed with more powerful Olympus turbo jets to 65,889 ft over the Bristol Channel.

He described the final 500 ft as the most difficult flying he had ever experienced.

At that altitude, the usable speed range narrowed to just 25 knots, a razor thin margin between stall and structural failure.

Pilots called this narrow band coffin corner.

Fly too slow and you stall.

Fly too fast and you exceed structural limits.

Either way, you die.

On August 28th, 1957, test pilot Michael Randrup, born in Moscow, but flying for Britain, pushed WK163 to 70,310 ft using a Napia double Scorpion rocket booster, claiming the Britannia Trophy.

The Canra had set world altitude records for its class, heights that no production jet bomber had ever reached.

The reconnaissance variants proved the most enduring.

PR9s with their powerful AAN 206 engines and operational ceiling above 50,000 ft flew missions over Bosnia locating mass graves supported operations in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan and continued serving until July 2006.

During the 2003 Iraq invasion, PR9 imagery was shown to General Colin Powell.

According to accounts from RAF personnel, Powell asked why his own forces could not produce such imagery and why he had to get it from the RAF.

The Indian Air Force retired its last Canbras in May 2007, making India the final full-time military operator after 50 years of service.

The ultimate testament to British engineering is this.

Derivatives of Teddy Petta’s 1949 design are still flying.

NASA operates three WB57F aircraft, massively modified Martin B-57s with 110 ft wingspans from Ellington Field, Houston.

These aircraft fly above 60,000 ft conducting atmospheric research, eclipse chasing missions, and satellite calibration work.

On April 8th, 2024, two WB57Fs chased a total solar eclipse at 460 mph along the path of totality, gathering scientific data at 50,000 ft.

Descendants of an aircraft first flown 77 years ago remain operational.

A testament to the fundamental soundness of British design that ranks alongside the C130 Hercules and B-52 Stratafortress for sheer longevity.

The Canra embodied a peculiarly British kind of menace.

Elegant, understated, and lethal.

In the 1950s, it operated at altitudes where nothing could touch it.

When Soviet defenses closed that sanctuary, it adapted to something far more frightening.

A twin engine jet bomber screaming across the treetops at 500 mph carrying a weapon that could vaporize a city.

For over a decade, nuclear armed can sat on alert in Germany.

Young crews waiting for the scramble order that would send them east toward targets they had memorized.

1,352 built across 27 variants.

Operated by more than 15 air forces on six continents, combat tested in at least eight conflicts across four decades.

holder of 22 world records for its class.

Still airborne in the 21st century.

A rare post-war example of a foreign design that America licensed for domestic production.

Built by a company that had never designed an aircraft before, conceived by a man who later abandoned the aviation industry entirely to join a religious commune in France.

Teddy Peter built the Cambra to replace the Mosquito.

He created something that outlasted every aircraft of its generation and most of the next generation too.

British engineering was not luck.

It was innovation under pressure.