The British Bristol company designed type 156 as a twin engined heavy fighter aircraft that later became the Beaufighter. It was based on the Beaufort and first flight was mid 1939. It soon was put into production because of the outbreak of the Second World war. The beaufighter got a two man crew of pilot and observer/navigator, Hercules engines and the "beaufort bomb bay was omitted" and a heavy canon /gun armament installed. It had not a very fast speed at about 515 km.hr and was used in large numbers for night operations. Various versions were developed also for Coastal Command and in all sorts of theatres including the Pacific it was used. After the war many countries used the type.
Beaufighter TF.X
This Beaufighter TF.X is a special torpedo dropping version. This aircraft flew in Portugal and now has a British scheme as "RD253" and it was seen at the RAF Hendon museum in London.
Photographed 2015, by Cees Hendriks (C) Copyright IPMS Nederland
Plastic scale models are in 1/72 from FROG and Airfix in various boxes, copied by many others like Hasegawa from FROG as well as NOVO, UPC, Donetsk. Matchbox/ Revell also had a 1/72 kit.
In 1/48 Accurate Miniatures and later Tamiya issued a kit as well as Revell. In 1/32 scale Revell had an old but good kit.