GLOSTER F.9/37 BRITISH HEAVY FIGHTER PROTOTYPE

The Gloster F.9 / 37 (another designation: Gloster G.39) was a British prototype heavy fighter aircraft from the interwar period and World War II. The flight of the prototype took place in 1939, but the machine never entered mass production. The plane was 11.29 meters long with a wingspan of 15.26 meters. The drive was provided by two Bristol Taurus TS (a) engines, 1060 HP each. The deck armament was to consist of four 7.7 mm machine guns and two 20 mm cannons. The Gloster F.9 / 37 was developed in response to the British Air Ministry's specification for a new, heavily armed fighter - later also a night fighter. The first flight tests showed that the Gloster F.9 / 37 is a very maneuverable machine, easy to pilot and has a very high top speed. However, during the tests, one of the copies was seriously damaged, which forced the engines to be replaced with weaker ones, which in turn worsened the machine's performance. Despite this, the plane was still a generally successful design - nevertheless, it lost the competition for government orders with the Bristol Beaufighter and de Havilland Mosquito machines. Interestingly, after abandoning work on the F.9 / 37 model, the Gloster aviation company focused on developing machines powered by jet engines.