So what is a Hudson bomber like?

by R.G. Pelley

When I talk to people about the history of Gander, one main point of interest is that historic flight of 10 November 1940 when the first aircraft – seven Hudson bombers – departed Gander and landed in Ireland 10 hours later.

A question that comes upon occasion is about the specifications of the Hudson. Was it big, small?  How high did it fly?  How cramped would it be to fly ten hours over the Atlantic?

It is hard to visualise it unless you have seen one “up close and personal”, like the one at Gander’s Aviation Museum. So I made a table comparing it to a few well-known airplanes of today, namely a Dash 8 series 100  and a Beech 1900D as might be used on local runs around Newfoundland.

So here’s the story…you call on some chaps, some young, some old, and have them fly an airplane roughly the same size as a Beechcraft 1900D regional feeder, but almost 14 feet shorter and quite a bit slower, across the Atlantic with practically no navigation equipment, un-pressurised and unheated. Then you say to them while you are over there, if you don’t mind, perhaps you could scoot out and drop a few bombs on Germany once in while. Don’t worry about the Messerschmitts – they go so much faster than you, they will probably overshoot anyway.

So, for comparison sake, a Hudson would be roughly like a very cheap version of a Beechcraft 1900D. The biggest difference is that the 1900D has four less machine guns.

Researched and contributed by R G Pelley