page_title: Boulton Paul Defiant
section_title: Surviving aircraft
hierarchical_section_title: Boulton Paul Defiant / Surviving aircraft
caption_attribution_description: This is the sole surviving complete Defiant . It was saved by the AHB (Air Historical Branch) in 1944 and stored until 1958 went it began making static appearances. Repainted in to a night-fighter scheme in 1967. Went on display at Hendon when the museum opened in 1972 and moved to the Battle of Britain Hall in 1978 and was there until removed for restoration in 2009. The restoration was carried out to an extremely high standard by MAPS (Medway Aircraft Preservation Society) and the aircraft returned to Hendon in early 2013, now in an accurate and genuine 307 (Polish)sqn colour scheme. This aircraft served with 307sqn as both a day fighter and a night fighter and remains on display in the Battle of Britain Hall. RAF Museum, Hendon, London, UK. 22-3-2015
context_page_description: The Boulton Paul Defiant is a British interceptor aircraft that served with the Royal Air Force during World War II. The Defiant was designed and built by Boulton Paul Aircraft as a "turret fighter", without any forward-firing guns, also found in the Blackburn Roc of the Royal Navy.
  In combat, the Defiant was found to be reasonably effective at destroying bombers but was vulnerable to the Luftwaffe's more manoeuvrable, single-seat Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters. The lack of forward-firing armament proved to be a great weakness in daylight combat and its potential was realised only when it was converted to night fighting. It was supplanted as a night fighter by the Bristol Beaufighter and de Havilland Mosquito. The Defiant found use in gunnery training, target towing, electronic countermeasures and air-sea rescue. Among RAF pilots it had the nickname "Daffy".
context_section_description: The surviving complete example of the type is a Defiant I, N1671, on display as a night fighter at the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon, London. It was one of four Defiants delivered to No. 307 Polish Night Fighter Squadron at RAF Kirton in Lindsey, Lincolnshire on 17 September 1940. It was passed to No. 153 Squadron at the end of October 1941 and 285 Sqn in 1942. In 1954, it was identified for storage as a historical aircraft and passed to the RAF Museum in 1971.
  The aircraft was moved on 20 May 2009 to Rochester Airport, where it was restored by the Medway Aircraft Preservation Society (MAPS). It was returned to Hendon on 6 December 2012. It was moved from Hendon to Royal Air Force Museum Cosford in November 2016 for display in War in the Air hangar.
  Major parts of at least two other Defiants survive; N1766 and N3378, both Mk Is. A full-scale model Defiant has been made in the UK and is on display in a Battle of Britain day fighter scheme.
caption: Defiant N1671, RAF Museum, 2015
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "6016", "Image ImageLength": "4000", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D3200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "8846667/10000", "Image YResolution": "8846667/10000", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 11.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2015:04:10 21:39:55", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "316", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "1024", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1138", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10117", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/8", "EXIF FNumber": "19/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:03:22 10:05:47", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:03:22 10:05:47", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "3", "EXIF ApertureValue": "3851999/1000000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "39/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "22", "EXIF SubSecTime": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5308", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3539", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "992", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "33", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}