Design and Development
Designed to Air Ministry Specification 27/24, which called for a single-seat night fighter for use against enemy bomber aircraft, the Bittern design was unusual for its time in that it was a twin-engined shoulder wing monoplane rather than a single-engine biplane.
Two prototypes were built, both very underpowered. As a result, during testing performance was so poor that further development was abandoned.
The first prototype had fixed .303 in (7.7 mm) Vickers machine guns, the second had guns that could be angled from 0-45° upwards so the fighter could attack bombers from below without having to put the aircraft into a climb. The wingspan of the second prototype was increased by about 5 ft (1.5 m).
Read more about this topic: Boulton Paul Bittern
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