Gloster Gladiator

Recordings

Gloster Gladiator Engine Run Down

Close up sound recording of a Gloster Gladiator running down its engine after an energetic display.

Powered by a single Bristol Mercury IX radial engine, 850 hp (630 kW)

Recorded August 2008.

Gloster Gladiator, May 2009

The Shuttleworth Collection's Gloster Gladiator during an air display.

The Gloster Gladiator (or Gloster SS.37) was a British-built biplane fighter, used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Royal Navy (as the Sea Gladiator variant) and was exported to a number of other air forces during the late 1930s. It was the RAF's last biplane fighter aircraft and was rendered obsolete by newer monoplane designs even as it was being introduced. Though often pitted against more formidable foes during the early days of the Second World War, it acquitted itself reasonably well in combat.

It first flew in September 1934. On 3 April 1935, the Royal Air Force commenced operational evaluations. Three months later, a first order was placed for 23 machines, followed by an order of 186 in September. The first version, the Mk I, was delivered from July 1936, becoming operational in January 1937. The Mk II soon followed, with a different engine and a metal propeller with three fixed blades instead of the former two-bladed wooden one.

It was to be the last British biplane fighter and their first fighter with an enclosed cockpit. The Gladiator had a top speed of around 257 mph (414 km/h) yet, even as it was introduced, the design was being eclipsed by new-generation monoplane fighters, such as the RAF's new Hurricane and Spitfire, and the Luftwaffe's Messerschmitt Bf 109.

A total of 747 airframes were built (483 RAF, 98 RN; 216 exported to 13 countries, some of them from the total allotted to the RAF). Gladiators were sold to Belgium, China, Egypt, Finland, Free France, Greece, Iraq, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, South Africa and Sweden.

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