Talk:Handley Page Hampden

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"Flying Suitcase"[edit]

Why the "Flying Suitcase" nickname? could this be put in the article? It's mentioned in the intro paragraph but never explained. --82.133.79.7 09:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Because the flight compartment was tiny, with four men squeezed inside for hours on end. Drutt 14:13, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The cited source may say that, but it was actually just because the flat-sided forward fuselage looked like a suitcase. Cramped accommodation was not exactly unusual in fighting aircraft. The Hampden was also known as 'the Flying Panhandle' for obvious and similarly visual reasons. Khamba Tendal (talk) 21:26, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly correct. If the cited source says that, the author is just pulling stuff out of his hat. The Flying Suitcase moniker very obviously refers to the thin, slab sided, rectangular shape of the main fuselage, exactly like a suitcase. I don't know if I could find a reference for that, because it's the sort of thing most authors consider too obvious to bother spelling out. Moat of them will only say "...called the Flying Suitcase, for obvious reason", or "a glance at this photograph makes the reason for the Flying Suitcase nickname immediately apparent". If a cramped interior was all you needed to be called a piece of luggage, why isn't the A-20 Havoc "The Flying Duffel Bag", or the Fairey Battle called "Dead Man's Purse"? On the other hand, nicknames describing the external appearance of a plane are commonplace. The Flying Porcupine (for the rounded, fat fuselage and numerous ASV radar antennae sticking out of the fuselage sides, not for the number of defensive guns it carrie3d), The Flying Pencil, Forked Tailed Devil, The Flying Cigar, The Box the B-17 Came In, Duckbilled Platypus, The Jug (another one authors give a wrong explanation for, it is not short for Juggernaut, it is because it is shaped like a jug), The Flying Beer Barrel, The Flying Sewer Pipe, etc, etc.

64.222.88.237 (talk) 18:05, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Naming[edit]

Am I correct in assuming it was named for John Hampden? Drutt 14:13, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

wouldn't put a bet on it - most all bombers were named after places, few were named after people. Hampden itself is only a matter of miles from HP in Herts, though naming was in the hands of the Air Ministry I think. GraemeLeggett 15:24, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Vickers Wellesley springs to mind, but yes most seem to have been named after places. Drutt 13:43, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Page 3 of Moyes, Philip J.R. The Handley Page Hampden (Aircraft in Profile 58). Leatherhead, Surrey, UK: Profile Publications Ltd., 1965, says "named, appropriately enough, after John Hampden, the 17th-century defender of civil liberties". DuncanHill (talk) 19:30, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@DuncanHill I saw your comment on RD and checked contemporary newspaper reports - there are a few which quote Viscountess Hampden at the naming ceremony as saying "May the spirit of John Hampden, the defender of civil liberties, inspire all who fly in you", which seems about as explicit a confirmation as we could hope for. (Northern Whig, Aberdeen Press & Journal, etc) Unfortunately, it looks like this bit of her speech got cut from the Pathé clip we've footnoted! I'll add a ref to the article.
Interestingly the name seems to have been first published in late 1936 (the first public appearance of the type just called it HP.52), presumably after it was ordered into production. Andrew Gray (talk) 16:47, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Good find! DuncanHill (talk) 22:22, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Canada[edit]

After war service in Europe, about 200 "war-weary" Hampdens were flown to Canada where they were used for bombing and gunnery training. I think it is more likely that they were taken to Canada by ship. There would have been plenty of room in empty ships in the westbound convoys, and I would not like to have flown a war-weary Hampden across the Atlantic. Vgy7ujm (talk) 21:27, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is unlikely any of the transferred Hampdens had flown enough hours to be truly "war-weary" which usually denotes an aircraft that has flown so many hours that it is effectively worn out and exhibits a reduced overall performance and/or deterioration in handling qualities that cannot be restored with a simple engine change. Most RAF bombers did not last that long, and those that did, such as some Lancasters with over 100 operations, did not suffer war-weariness to any great degree.
It is possible that the 200 Hampdens sent to Canada would have been given new (zero time) engines and flown over, as there was a shorter-legged route via Iceland and Greenland to IIRC Newfoundland. It is also possible that the recipients assumed the aircraft were "war-weary" because they were no longer required by the RAF, however the Hampden had been replaced by other, better types because by 1942-43 it was by then obsolescent and, unlike the Whitley or Wellington, due to the cramped crew conditions not much use for anything other than for training or as a 'hack'.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.52 (talk) 22:17, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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"Enemy Coast Ahead"[edit]

I've just been reading "Enemy Coast Ahead", by Guy Gibson, who led the Dambusters raid of 1943. In the book, he describes his times in the RAF between August 31st 1939 (when he receives an order to "Return to Unit immediately" just before the outbreak of war) and May 17th 1943 (when the Dambusters raid concludes). Before flying the Lancaster and the Beaufighter, Guy Gibson flew the Hampden a lot, so the Hampden features prominently in the early part of the book. I get the impression that Guy Gibson liked the Hampden, which I had never heard of (I was surprised to read on Wikipedia that 1430 of them were in fact built!). The most spectacular description of the Hampden is the time when, at night, Guy Gibson flies one "as low as possible", at 200 miles per hour, along a railway track in Germany. To light the way, they use the landing light and an Aldis lamp, held shining forward by the navigator. They drop two bombs, aiming them into the opening of a railway tunnel ahead.
" 'Here comes the tunnel. Bombs...bombs gone.'
"On the word 'gone' I slammed the throttles forward and remember seeing the tunnel spotlighted in our Aldis lamp before I yanked back the stick. The old Hampden, relieved of her bombs, went up like an elevator, and we just cleared a 400-foot cliff by a few feet. I remember this well because it was a white cliff with a chalk face, and we could see it quite clearly; eleven seconds later came that pleasant muffled crump, showing that we had reached our mark." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.147.165.78 (talk) 21:43, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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