Bristol Type 159

The Bristol Type 159 was a British design for a four-engined heavy bomber by the Bristol Aeroplane Company, of Filton, Bristol. A mock-up was built but the project was cancelled and none were built.

Design and development
In March 1939 the British Air Ministry issued specification B.1/39 for a heavy bomber to replace the Avro Manchester, Short Stirling and Handley Page Halifax. Bristol had submitted the Type 159, sometimes known as the Beaubomber which was a low-wing monoplane with a twin tail and using mainly components used by the Bristol Beaufort. It had a nose-wheel landing gear with the entire 15,000lb bomb-load stored inside the inner wing. Four Hercules engines were the proposed engines with the ability to interchange with Rolls-Royce Griffons. The crew apart from the bomb aimer would be in an armoured monocoque structure with both a dorsal and ventral gun turret. The Type 159 and the Handley Page HP.60 design, a variant of the Halifax, were selected and the intention was to order two prototypes of each for evaluation. The Type 159 passed wind-tunnel for stability and low drag and with design well advanced a full-scale mock-up was ready by early 1940.

It was intended to build a half-scale aircraft for flight testing but with the Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP) concentrating on the production of fighters further work on the Type 159 was stopped and the mock-up dismantled in May 1940.