PROFILE # 218

BRISTOL BLENHEIM Mk. IV

(JAMES D. OUGHTON)

This series was started back in the early 1960s and takes the form of a small format, soft cover booklet with 12 or more pages.  Illustrations are generally black & white photographs (though some later ones had some colour) with two or more pages of colour profiles.  In addition, summaries of aircraft specification, performance and armament are detailed.  Many of these booklets can still be a useful reference tool and are highly sought-after little books are an invaluable resource for aviation historians, modellers, and collectors alike.

This issue is of the new series which commences with issue No. 205 to continue the pattern of the complete history of the aircraft of the world established with the early Aircraft Profiles (red colour) numbered 1 to 204.

This new series is different in each part contains around 24 pages, approximately 6/7000 words of text, 40 plus photographs, and a detailed, full-colour, generalarrangement drawing of a specific aeroplane.

Contents:

            Development

          Production

          Operations

          A page of Profile Camouflage Illustrations of 5 examples: A highly polished Blenheim Mk. IV shown in Paris in 1938, the prototype “long nose” form in October 1937, the prototype with its second nose configuration, one of the 12 export Mk. IVs for the Royal Hellenic Air Force and a Blenheim Mk. IVF of the South African Air Force with a 20mm long-barrel cannon field modification.

          Double-page of 5 Camouflage Illustrations of the Blenheim Mk. IV aircraft of Wing Commander Hughie I. Edwards V.C, D.F.C. of No. 105 Bomber Squadron; the only Blenheim Mk. IV squadron with a recipient of the Victoria Cross.

          A page of Profile Camouflage Illustrations of 5 examples: Blenheim Mk. IVF of the ‘Forces Francaises Libres’ in North Africa, a Portuguese Navy Blenheim Mk. IVF, a Canadian-built Bolingbroke Mk. IV-T, the Ottawa Air Museum Bolingbroke Mk. IV-T and a Finnish Blenheim Mk. IV preserved at Luonetjaervi Air Force Base.

          Order of Battle: Middle East

          The Bolingbroke

Specification of Blenheim Mk. IV

Blenheim Mk. IV production details

Blenheim Mk. IV (Finnish Production)

Bolingbroke (Canadian Production)

Production Summary

Pages:  24  (25cm x 18.5cm)

Condition: Very good, staples virtually rust-free and sound with pages well secured.  Negligible rubbing, and only minor bumps and knocks to the edges and corners evident.  Only very light marking and bumps to the front cover page and some internal pages (see photographs).  Internally generally clean and bright.   

Publication:  1970