GLOSTER GAUNTLET

The Gloster Gauntlet was designed by H P Folland to meet RAF requirements for a new day-and-night single-seat fighter during 1927 and entered production in 1934 to Specification 24/33. A total of 24 Gloster Gauntlet Is and 204 Gloster Gauntlet Us was built for the RAF, with 605 hp Mercury VIS engines and two fixed for-ward-firing 0.303 in (7.7 mm) machine guns. A handful remained in service with No 616 Squadron in September 1939 but were soon retired from front-line squadrons, continuing to fly in the UK as station hacks and for mete-orological duties. A few others equipped 'D' Flight of 47 Squadron (later No 430 Flight) in the Sudan and saw combat in 1940, against Italian forces; ex-RAF Gloster Gauntlets also operated briefly in North Africa with RAAF squadrons and in East Africa with the SAAF. 24 ex-RAF Gloster Gauntlets supplied to Finland in 1940 served as fighter trainers until 1945, some on skis. Seventeen Gloster Gauntlet Us were built in Denmark in 1936/38 by the Haerens Flyvertroppers Vaerksteder and equipped 1 Eskadrille of Danish Army Aviation at the time of the German invasion in April 1940.

Specifications

Wingspan: 9.99 m (32 ft 10 in)

Length: 8.0 m (26 ft 2 in)

Height: 3.12 m

Wing area: 29.26 m

Weight, Empty: 1255 kg (2770 lb)

Weight, Gross: 1800 kg (3970 lb)

Cruising Speed: Unknown

Max Speed: 370 km/h (230 mph)

Service Ceiling: 10 210 m ( 33 500 ft)

Power Plant:    one Bristol Mercury VIS2, 477kW

Armament: 2 x 7.7mm machine-guns