Search

This paper describes an initiative of the British War Cabinet to procure thousands of aircraft to Egypt during the crucial, central years of the Second World War. The aircraft were sent crated by cargo ships to Takoradi, in the Gold Coast (current Ghana), assembled at an on-purpose facility there, and flown over Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, and Egypt to the Nile Delta, where appropriate Maintenance Units would deliver them later to fighting squadrons. More than 5000 airplanes were dispatched in this way from British harbors, arriving into the Cairo area just a few weeks later. Most aircraft flown in this trans-African route were fighters, which required fully loaded external drop tanks to cover the longest stages, commonly against prevailing trade winds. The convoys were typically formed by a light bomber, as lead aircraft, and six to eight fighters. The aerodynamic characteristics of the fighters have been modelled with first level preliminary airplane design methods, to reconstruct its performances in the route. The results, in terms of range and cruise speed, agree very well with scarce data available from literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]