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Posted by Mikael Olrog on Fri Apr 26, 2002 01:09:07 PM
In reply top Finnish built Blenheim using parts from Yugoslavia posted by Mikael Olrog on Fri Apr 26, 2002 12:47:08 PM
Yugoslavia bought two Blenheims from Britain and Ikarus AD Company near Belgrad built 40 short nosed Blenheims with Licence. First was finished 15.4.1939. In the same year Yugoslavia bought 20 more short nosed Blenheims that were delivered feb-march 1940. Yugoslavians thought Blenheim a better bomber than the others they had and wanted more of them, but Britain refused to sell long nosed Blenheim's licence, so Yugoslavians started to design it by themselves, using photographs and industrial espionage. Later Bristol factories delivered the design paper for long nosed BL, but only one test plane modified from a Mark I was finished before German attack. The design papers were sold to Finland in 1941.
The factory had started to build 20 long nose Blenheims and given them name Ikarus B-4. These half finished planes and all other Blenheim equipment of Ikarus were then sold to Finland.
During late 1940 and year 1941 the deliveries of engines and spare parts and other equipment had been getting worse to Finland. The state aircraft manufacturer Valtion Lentokonetehdas had been forced to design and build own equipments, especially when the Blenheim manufacturing had been given a priority. The delivery of engines stopped altogether after the continuation War against Soviet Union began in summer 41. A replacement source was found surprisingly from the war booty stores of Germany, where could be found spare engines from the PZL Mercury-factory of Poland, and other engines/spares from shot down British bombers, that could be sold to Finland.
Already when building the II-series of Blenheims in Finland there had been willingness to build better "long nosed" Blenheims instead the short nosed ones. This could be done through a lucky chance. When Germany conquered Yugoslavia the Ikarus manufacturer now had plenty ("huge amount") of Blenheim materials unused. The Germans wanted to get rid of those, as they now harassed the operations of the newly christened "Wiener Neust?dter Flugzeugwerken" factory. Information about this "lottery win" came 25.8.1941. Professor Arvo Ylinen was given the mission of buying these
planes and spares. In middle of August it was found that altogether 18
planes were in various state of building. Engineer Major Lauri Vuolasvirta travelled to Ikarus factories 26.9.1941. In middle of November the deal included Blenheim materials worth 20 million Finnish Marks. The deal was accepted in Berlin 24.10.1941. Finland got to buy the "whole loot", though 5% of the spares had to be given to Romanians. Even these spares were still bought to Finland later. Finland also got the "jig" and design papers from Ikarus. The designs were so wanted that one of the Finnish staff at Ikarus factory had to bring them to Finland immediately, straight from the factory.
Because this deal the decision to build VI-series of BLenheims was made
in the end of 1941. First it was supposed to continue building the V-series with 10 more planes. Because the "jig" found from Ikarus these 10 planes were changed to the VI series though. The train deliveries of the Blenheim materials from Belgrad started in middle January 1942, and then they arrived to Finland during spring/summer. In total 400 crates of material was sent, 9 lost en route. VI-series of Blenheims were built largely from the Yugoslavian party built Blenheims and own "kaputt" spares taken from own damaged Blenheims. The VI-series was described to State Aircraft Factory as "foreign planes being repaired to flying condition".