Kyt, as you know the attached photo is of a Hawker Henley equipped as a drouge/target tug. The towing arm can be seen protruding from the side of the rear cockpit. What intigues me is the mechanics behind the operation of the drouge from the side of the aircraft. It appears to me that anything released from the cockpit would be in great danger of fouling the horizontal stabilizer. Any ideas as to how this was done?
As I'm here I'll jump in before Kyt though I'm sure he will have something more definite... I think that the mechanism mounted on the side of the aircraft was not the towing arm but a windmill that powered the drogue-cable winding mechanism. The drogue deployed from under the fuselage near the tail. If it did come from a side-mounted arm, it would put a seriously assymetric load on the aircraft. The windmill is shown in the neutral position; in use the arm was rotated through 90 degrees so that the windmill faced forward into the slipstream.
DL, apologies for jumping in but here's a pic of a Henley deploying its drogue. The cable appears to either come out of the bomb bay or from the starboard side of the aircraft which would be a bit odd given the drag. Note the low position of the cable in relation to the cockpit area. Perhaps the winch was lowered when in operation and the weight of the cable helped but I think the attachment is just the wind-driven wind-in mechanism? Hawker Henley: Facts, Discussion Forum, and Encyclopedia Article EDIT: I'm just wasting space, AR to the rescue!
A&A have it spot on. The Defiant TT had virtually the same set-up, which can be seen in the attachment
I just looked up the Henley on Wikipedia, and much of the wording of the article is identical to that in the article which Kyt quotes! I wonder if the original light bomber version would have faired any better than the Battle if they had persevered with it? It seems to have been a little faster. But in the end, all light bombers had high casualty rates; they operated in daylight and the enemy fighters were always faster (until the Mosquito came along and that was becoming vulnerable by the end of the war). But its not clear why the Martinet was considered better as a target tug; it was slower than the Henley, having an 820hp Bristol Mercury.
The Martinet was specifically built for target towing and so had specific features to do so that adapted aircraft didn't, including a stronger air frame (the drag of the drogue put a lot of pressure on the airframe of aircraft like the Henley that wasn't built for that sort) and a bigger cockpit for the winch operator, which allowed him more room to operate the winch etc. And here's a lovely pic of the winch on the Martinet Miles Martinet Wind Driven Winch As far as I can tell it is basically the same as on the Henley
And the would-be successor to the Martinet was the lovely Miles M.33 Monitor Miles Monitor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The description of how the drogue would have been deployed in the Monitor is interesting. But in reality, at the end of the war aircraft such as the Tempest were used as target tugs - much faster than the old Martinet, but with a crew of only one and much less room in the fuselage (there is a Tempest Target Tug in the Hendon RAF Museum). Any idea how that would have functioned?
That explains it. What threw me is that the RAFM example has no attachments under its wings! The only image I can find of it is in this panoramic view of the Milestones of Flight Hall: Milestones of Flight Aircraft Collection
It's hung in an awkward position for decent pics Air-Britain : Hawker Tempest TT5 Hawker Tempest V airplane pictures & aircraft photos - RAF Museums Nv778 Pictures & Photos | Airliners.net
