The idea sounds neat though, the defiant flying infront and below the bomber with gunner shooting into exposed cockpit and engines at angles where these weren't usually armored.

It's part of why I find the early war period so interesting: a lot of concepts that had been established before the war were put to test, with often disastrous results (I realize the poor guys suffering from those concepts didn't find that nearly as interesting back then...). That includes the Defiant as well as the German Zerstörer concept, or the idea that B-17 formations would be able to defend themselves without escorts. Some of those planes could be adapted successfully to other roles; as for the Defiant, I think using it as a nightfighter was only slightly more efficient than scrapping them.

Still love crap planes though, and agree it would be nice to fly it one day, no matter how unlikely that is.

Defiant was a very succesful night fighter AFAIK. Flying alongside the enemy bomber undetected and opening fire only when in enemy's blind spot.

As far as AI is concerned, I found it more promising than disappointing. AI doesn't react means you can in circumstances bounce them without being noticed (which is impossible in current IL-2).

One big advantage the Defiant had was eyes looking forward as well as behind, a true Janus! LOL! Very hard to jump a defiant unlike spit or hurri.

He111.

One of the aspects I really look forward to is to try out if some of the pre-war ideas would actually work. The Daffy was intended to destroy un-escorted bomber formations. It was in a sense an answer to the "the bomber will always get through" doctrine. During 1940, the Daffy was thrown against fighters with disasterous results, the original concept was never tried out. Now, with FMB and/or some mates over for a LAN party, we can put the original idea to the test: Daffy against Schnellbombers (Do 17 would do nicely)!

Hi FF, i was just wondering what the 'Daffy' is?

It's the Defiant's nickname amongst it's aircrew.

I'd love the Defiant to be made flyable too. I think I've got enough good data for both the pilot and gunner positions. Once CoD has been released, I'll approach Oleg and co and see if they're willing to make it flyable.

Yes, that would be good to test. Also good to setup, if possible, the defensive circle, Sqn leader Hunter devised (264 Sqn) when faced with 109s. Actually I think line-astern, descending, would also have been hard to attack.

He111.

Sounds a bit like the defensive circles sometimes flown by BF-110s when they were attacked during the Battle of Britain.

I think Oleg might be too busy with updates/bugs and the next releases of the game etc.

We could really do with some sort of outlet for supplying various third party companies and amateur modellers with this type of information. The Anson could easily be made flyable too.

I certainly don't mind helping commercial companies if it means we get more aircraft to fly.