The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia
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Lockheed Hudson III
| Crew | 4 or 5 | ||||
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Dimensions |
65’6” by 44’4”
by
11’10” 19.96m by 13.50m by 3.32m |
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Wing area |
551 square feet 51.2 square meters |
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Weight |
13,160-20,000 lbs 5969-9070 kg |
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Maximum speed |
252 mph at 15,000 feet 405 k/h at 4572 meters |
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Cruising speed |
155-196 mph 249-315 km/h |
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| Rate of climb | 20
feet per second 6.1 m/s |
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Ceiling |
25,000 feet | ||||
| 2 1200hp (895 kW) Wright R-1820-G205A radial engines driving three bladed propellers | |||||
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Armament |
up to 7 Browning 0.303 machine guns in nose, dorsal turret, waist, and ventral positions. | ||||
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External Stores |
up to 1600 lbs (730 kg) of bombs | ||||
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Range |
780 miles (1260km) with maximum load 2800 miles (4500 km) maximum |
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Fuel |
644 gallons 1140 liters |
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Production |
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Variants |
There were numerous variants. The Hudson I and II used two
1100hp R-1820-G102A
nine-cylinder radial engines. The IIIA used a more powerful engine and
was designed the A-29. The IV introduced
two 1200hp
Pratt & Whitney R-1830-S3C3-G
14-cylinder two-row radial
engines. Armament varied considerably. Later marks were often armed with ASV radar and rockets. The AT versions were gunnery and navigation trainers. |
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After the Munich crisis of 1938, the British
began looking for combat aircraft in the United
States. Lockheed responded by hastily improvising a bomber
version of its
Lockheed 14 civilian airliner, with a top turret and a bomb bay. The British named this the
Hudson and adopted it as an antisubmarine hunter aircraft to replace its aging fleet of Avro Ansons. The original order of 200 aircraft was by far the largest
Lockheed had ever received, and it transformed the company from a minor
manufacturer into a major player in the aircraft industry. The first
prototype flew on 10 December 1938.
About
80% were delivered to Commonwealth forces, the remainder going to the
U.S.
Army (as the A-28) or the Navy (as the PBO), mostly as patrol
aircraft. About 100 had been delivered to Melbourne
by December 1941 and a total of 247 would eventually be sent to the
island continent. Two squadrons
were present in Malaya when war
broke out, and one of the aircraft was shot down by the Japanese as it snooped the approaching
invasion convoys prior to the Pearl
Harbor attack. The failure of the aircraft to return made little
difference, as the British were already aware that war was imminent.
With its reasonable range, the Hudson was a serviceable patrol and antisubmarine aircraft, but in the desperate early days of the Pacific War it was often used on bombing missions for which it proved ill-suited. Though easy to maintain and fly, it lacked structural strength. Most were eventually converted back to transports.
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References
Bonné (2000; accessed 2013-2-16)
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007, 2009, 2013-2014 by Kent G. Budge. Index
