HANDLEY PAGE HEREFORD

While the Hereford1938 campaign has been rediscovering the Vickers Venom and even 'disinterring' the Elstree Mongrel day bomber from the VBCW vault, the RAF aircraft most closely associated with the County has been awaiting its own blogpost - the Handley-Page HP53 Hereford "heavy bomber":

Handley Page HP53 Hereford

The Hereford was a variant of the better known Handley Page HP52 Hampden, a twin engine bomber developed by the RAF and Air Ministry from 1936 on, alongside the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley and the Vickers Wellington. Full details HERE. While the Hampden was powered by Bristol Pegasus engines, the Hereford had in-line Napier Dagger engines. A first prototype Hereford flew in June 1937. A production order was placed with Short Brothers and Harland in Belfast, for 100 aircraft, and the first production aircraft flew on 17th May 1939. However, the Napier Dagger engines were its downfall:

"They tended to overheat when used to take off from the grass runways common in the RAF at the time, then cool down too much in the air. Engine failure was too common, and even when the engine worked it was both noisy and high pitched! When the engines worked, performance figures were similar to those for the Hampden, but the engine problems meant that the Hereford never became operational. A small number were used by training units in 1940, but many were converted back to the Hampden standard by swapping the Dagger engines for the more reliable Bristol Pegasus radial engines." [note 1]

None of this, of course was known to modellers at the time. Here is the Hereford on the cover of  the January 1939 edition of "Model Airplane News", a US publication - four months before it went into actual production - and in wholly realistic VBCW colour scheme:

The Hereford in that famous RAF camouflage scheme  - "all over orange"

Although no major kit manufacturer has produced a model of the Handley Page Hereford, Airfix produced a Hampden 1/72 kit in 1968, with relatively regular re-issues over the years until 2010:

Airfix Handley Page Hampden

The February 1969 edition of Airfix Magazine carried an article by Alan W. Hall detailing how an Airfix Hampden could be converted to a Hereford, with a painting and squadron guide:

The conversion was principally centred on re-modelling the shape of the engine nacelles, from the round radials of the Hampden:

Bristol Perseus engines being checked on a Hampden HP52

to the narrower and squarer nacelles of the Hereford:

On the ground - the best place for the Napier Dagger engines of the HP53

which conversion was achieved, back in 1968, by the careful carving of balsa wood, then coating the nacelle shape(s) with "a thick solution of talcum powder and clear dope....left to dry....and then rubbed down with fine sandpaper until smooth"!!

Unfortunately, even the last (2010) production run of the Airfix Hampden now seems rather rare, and prices are therefore ridiculously high. If you're not into talcum powder and dope conversions, the alternative is an equally highly priced kit of a 1/72 Hereford occasionally available from the specialist producer,Valom:

It may therefore be some time before the Handley Page HP53 is spotted in the skies above VBCW Hereford. That may not produce too much difficulty (although some regret) as the Hereford's better known brother, the HP52 Hampden, ultimately proved to be highly vulnerable to German fighters. It was removed from daylight operations as early as December 1939. In short, it seems that the Hampden, likely many 'early war' British bomber designs (cf. the Battle, blogposts passim), was just a bit rubbish and was ultimately to be replaced (along with the Whitley and Wellington, from 1942 on) by the Lancaster. Absent a 1/72 Hereford, the VBCW just seems to be five years ahead of the alternative timeline.

[note 1]: Rickard, J (22 March 2007), Handley Page H.P. 53 Hereford, http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_hereford.html