Sometimes, as a reporter for Air Action Weekly, I get a chance to fly a plane I wouldn't expect to see the inside of. Last month, while visiting Ontario I had the opportunity to fly an older British light bomber, the Type 140 Balmoral—one of the post-War mainstays of the British Royal Air Force. The Balmorral has seen service around the world in the service of the British Empire and is now the backbone of British colonial bomber support in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.

The Plane
The Balmoral Type 140 bomber was one of the first monoplane bombers produced by Bristol after the Great War. Slow, sluggish, and heavily armored, the Balmoral served across the Empire in pinpoint bombing runs on rebels and enemies of the Crown. The Balmoral continues in this role for British Dominions and possessions, but has been shouldered aside in the RAF by even heavier strategic bombers. The Balmoral does have the winning feature of being small enough to fit in a zeppelin hangar, with its fold-up wings and stubby features (which has extended its useful lifespan with the RAF considerably).

Balmorals can be found all over the globe in Dominion air forces. Properly used as a hammering bomber, it serves for pinpoint bombing of nearly any target; it has terrible range, however, and is usually used against known, pre-scouted targets.

The Balmoral mounts an astonishing ten rocket hardpoints, two .30-caliber turrets, one forward and one rear, and four pilot-fired .50-caliber machine guns, which are often upgraded to .60- or even .70-caliber guns in the field. The Balmoral is also heavily armored and reinforced; this kind of firepower draws a lot of enemy attention, and the Balmoral is widely known to evade like an overfed bull.

The Test
My test craft was a stock Balmoral seconded to the Royal Canadian Air Force by the RAF. This plane had a standard weapon load-out: ten rocket points, four .50s, two .30 turrets.

My co-pilot was Captain Wesley Dawes, an RACF squadron commander. My test was to destroy a series of ground targets on Fitzwilliam Island, followed immediately by a series of blimp targets off the island shore.

Evaluation
The Balmoral's twin Bristol Mercury V engines are fairly powerful, with a total of 1,040 horsepower, and this is enough to lift off and perform standard evasion maneuvers, and leaves a little power for serious jinking and swinging emergency aerobatics. Take-off was slow, but smooth and steady, and the handling was a bit sluggish but strong with proper follow-through.

My run required me to make a series of close-in pinpoint rocket attacks with high explosive rockets. I was a little hesitant to take the Balmoral down too close to the terrain until Captain Dawes urged me to "clip the tree-tops."

I managed a decent 34% for direct hits, with a 68% for destroyed targets. The Balmoral isn't exceptionally accurate compared to a fighter-bomber, but is quite good for a light bomber and packs enough of a payload to hammer targets with a double dose of rocket fire. The wing-mounted cannon didn't do much for accuracy, but did allow me to strafe the area, and the four .50s deliver a respectable punch to sand-bagged guns and targets. An interesting tactic that slipped out was the habit of the tail gunner to fire a burst on whatever target I just bombed, probably a follow-through tactic to make sure the surviving gunners don't snap a shot at my tail.

Overall, the combination of toughness reliability and firepower makes the Balmoral a sturdy classic. Hardly surprising the Balmoral is still in service across the Empire.