page_title: Fairey Battle
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Fairey Battle / Development / Production
caption_attribution_description: English: Royal Air Force- France, 1939-1940. Airmen of No. 226 Squadron RAF present cheerful faces for the photographer while pushing one of their Fairey Battles through the snow to its hangar at Reims.
context_page_description: The Fairey Battle was a British single-engine light bomber that was designed and manufactured by the Fairey Aviation Company. It was developed during the mid-1930s for the Royal Air Force as a monoplane successor to the Hawker Hart and Hind biplanes. The Battle was powered by the same high-performance Rolls-Royce Merlin piston engine that powered various contemporary British fighters like the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire. The Battle was much heavier, with its three-man crew and bomb load. Though a great improvement over the aircraft that preceded it, the Battle was relatively slow and limited in range. With only two .303 in machine guns as defensive armament, it was found to be highly vulnerable to enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire.
  The Fairey Battle was used on operations early in the Second World War. During the "Phoney War" the type achieved the distinction of scoring the first aerial victory of an RAF aircraft in the conflict. In May 1940, the Battles of the Advanced Air Striking Force suffered many losses, frequently in excess of 50 percent of aircraft sorties per mission.
context_section_description: In 1936, further orders were placed for Fairey to build additional Battles to Specification P.14/36. In June 1937, the first production Battle, K7558, conducted its maiden flight. K7558 was later used to perform a series of official handling and performance trials in advance to the wider introduction of the type to operational service. During these trials, it demonstrated the Battle's ability to conduct missions of a 1,000-mile range while under a full bomb load. The first 136 Fairey-built Battles were the first to be powered by the Merlin I engine. By the end of 1937, 85 Battles had been completed and a number of RAF squadrons had been re-equipped with the type, or were otherwise in the process of re-equipping.
  As the RAF embarked on what became a substantial pre-war expansion programme, the Battle was promptly recognised as being a priority production target. At one point a total of 2,419 aircraft were on order for the service. In June 1937, the first aircraft was completed at Hayes, but all subsequent aircraft were manufactured at Fairey's newly completed factory at Heaton Chapel, Stockport. Completed aircraft were promptly dispatched for testing at the company's facility adjacent to RAF Ringway, Manchester. A total of 1,156 aircraft were produced by Fairey.
  Subsequently, as part of government-led wartime production planning, a shadow factory operated by the Austin Motor Company at Cofton Hackett, Longbridge, also produced the type, manufacturing a total of 1,029 aircraft to Specification P.32/36. On 22 July 1938, the first Austin-built Battle, L4935, conducted its maiden flight. At that point, concerns that the aircraft was obsolete had become widespread, but due to the difficulties associated with getting other aircraft types into production, and the labour force having already been established, stop-gap orders were maintained, and production continued at a steady rate through to late 1940.
  A further 16 were built by Fairey for service with the Belgian Air Force (contrary to popular belief, they were not built in Belgium). The Belgian Battles were delivered in early 1938, and were differentiated from British-built examples by having a longer radiator cowling and a smoother camouflage finish. In September 1940, all production activity came to a close and the final assembly lines were shuttered. Overall production of the Battle during its entire manufacturing life was 2,201 machines, including 16 for Belgium.
  A number of Battles which had been originally completed as bombers were later converted to serve in different roles, such as target tugs and trainer aircraft.
caption: Ground crew pushing a Battle
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