Boulton Paul Defiant
| Defiant | |
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| Boulton Paul Defiant Mk I | |
| Role | Two-seat fighter, night fighter, trainer, target tug |
| Manufacturer | Boulton Paul Aircraft |
| Designer | John Dudley North |
| First flight | 11 August 1937 |
| Introduction | December 1939 |
| Status | Retired |
| Primary users |
Royal Air Force Royal Australian Air Force Royal Canadian Air Force Polish Air Force |
| Number built | 1,064 |
 A compilation of information and period footage of the Defiant
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Slideshow of a preserved Defiant on static display
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British Pathé newsreel on the manufacturing of the Defiant
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The Boulton Paul Defiant was a British interceptor aircraft that served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II. The Defiant was designed and built by Boulton Paul Aircraft as a "turret fighter", without any forward-firing guns. It was a contemporary of the Royal Navy's Blackburn Roc. The concept of a turret fighter related directly to the successful First World War-era Bristol F.2 Fighter.
In combat, the Defiant was found to be reasonably effective at its intended task of destroying bombers but was vulnerable to the Luftwaffe's more manoeuvrable, single-seat Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters. The lack of forward-firing armament proved to be a great weakness in daylight combat and its potential was only realised when it was converted to night fighting. It was supplanted in the night fighter role by the Bristol Beaufighter and de Havilland Mosquito. The Defiant found use in gunnery training, target towing, electronic countermeasures and air-sea rescue. Among RAF pilots it had the nickname "Daffy".
During the 1930s, the increasing speed of military aircraft posed a particular challenge to anti-aircraft defences. Advances in aircraft design achieved during the 1920s and 1930s had resulted in a generation of multi-engined monoplane bombers that were substantially faster than their contemporary single-engined biplane fighters then in service. The RAF came to believe that its new generation of turret-armed bombers, such as the Vickers Wellington, would be capable of readily penetrating enemy airspace and of defending themselves without any accompanying fighter escort, but also recognised that the bombers of other European air forces, such as the Luftwaffe, would similarly be able to penetrate British airspace with impunity.
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Wikipedia