Boulton Paul Defiant

what is it?

The Boulton Paul Defiant is 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" to meet the RAF requirement for day and night fighters that could concentrate their firepower on enemy bombers which were not expected to have fighter escorts due to the distance from Germany to the United Kingdom. The Defiant had all its armament in a dorsal turret offering the ability to fire in most directions. The same principle was used in the Royal Navy's Blackburn Roc which was also built by Boulton Paul.

🔎How to recognise it: 1 piston engine with propeller · 12 m wingspan

base stats

• speed 489 km/htop speed
• size 3,901 kgmax take-off weight
• built 1,072made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

• 🎂First flew 89 years ago, in 1937.
• 🏎️Top speed is 3.8× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• 🚗Wingspan of 12 m: about 3 cars parked nose to tail.
• 🏔️Can fly 1.1× higher than Mount Everest (8,849 m).

piston: A car-like piston engine turning a propeller: simple and cheap, the classic small plane.

spec sheet

first flight

1937-08-11

introduced

1939

status

retired

number built

1,072

role

two-seat fighter, night fighter, trainer, target tug

makers

Boulton Paul Aircraft

engines

1× Rolls-Royce Merlin III

length

10.8 m

wingspan

12 m

height

3.5 m

max take-off weight

3,901 kg

top speed

489 km/h

cruise speed

282 km/h

range

—

ceiling

9,449 m

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.