P.Lewis The British Fighter since 1912 (Putnam)

One of Noel Pemberton Billing’s particular concerns was the lack of effective defence against the stealthy, cloud-wrapped menace of the Zeppelins. His logical and inventive mind formulated several requirements as an antidote which were transformed during 1915 into the P.B.29E, a remarkable pusher quadruplane. As an aid to good climb performance, the wings were of particularly high aspect ratio and were expected also to bestow a minimum speed of 35 m.p.h., a feature designed to contribute to endurance while on patrol, to assist materially in operating the machine in the very primitive conditions under which night flying was then taking place, and also to provide a steady gun platform. The gunner, standing in a streamlined enclosure between the two uppermost pairs of wings, had an outstandingly good all-round 360° field of fire. The two-bay wings each bore a pair of ailerons and the two 90 h.p. Austro-Daimler engines, driving four-blade propellers, were mounted on the underside of the lowest-but-one pair of wings which joined the fuselage level with the top longerons. Two pilots were carried in tandem cockpits; to the rear of the aft cockpit the fuselage section became triangular and terminated in a tail assembly with biplane horizontal surfaces and triple fins and rudders. A sense of urgency in the Woolston works drove the P.B.29E through to completion in some seven weeks from the start of the design but the machine’s life was short as, after being flown at Chingford, it was wrecked in a crash at the same place.

F.Mason The British Fighter since 1912 (Putnam)

Pemberton-Billing P.B.29E

   If the problem of acquiring a synchronized front gun for fighting scouts was being surmounted at the turn of 1915, another difficulty was not. German airship raids over southern England had occupied the minds of several aircraft designers for some months, not to mention the acute embarrassment caused to the War Office and Admiralty, for the difficulties posed by locating, attacking and destroying the huge and almost silent intruders at night seemed insuperable. Warning of their approach was seldom forthcoming, so that by the time intercepting aircraft could take-off - always assuming that a pilot, trained or experienced in night flying was available - the airship would most likely have travelled on to another area.
   Pemberton-Billing, always a man to brush aside orthodoxy, conceived the idea of the patrol fighter capable of remaining aloft throughout the hours of darkness. It would, on account of the considerable fuel load necessary, be a relatively large aeroplane. In the late autumn of 1915 he therefore completed the design of a radical aircraft, the P.B.29E, to demonstrate his ideas.
   The large twin-engine quadruplane featured high aspect ratio two-bay wings; the second wing mounted two 90hp Austro-Daimler engines in underslung nacelles driving pusher propellers, this wing being attached to the upper longerons of the fuselage. The fuselage accommodated pilot and observer, as well as the fuel tanks, while the bottom wing was a continuous structure which passed below the fuselage. A third crew member, the gunner, occupied a position in a nacelle in the gap between the two upper wings and was provided with a Lewis gun with all-round field of fire above the aircraft. Outboard of the engines all four wings were swept back about ten degrees.
   Aft of the cockpit the rear fuselage was faired to a triangular cross section and carried a biplane tail unit with twin fins and rudders. The main units of the undercarriage were mounted directly below the engines so as to provide very wide track for ease of landing at night.
   The aircraft, which, as far as is known, was not allocated any serial number, was first flown at Chingford, Essex, on Sunday 16 January 1916, the only apparently surviving evidence of this fact being that Pemberton Billing himself referred to the flight having taken place on that day in a Parliamentary bye-election speech he gave in the Mile End constituency which he was contesting. The P.B.29E, known in the Woolston works as the Night Fighter, had taken only seven weeks to build, but was destroyed in a flying accident several weeks later, not however before it had been flown by several naval pilots. However, Noel Pemberton Billing’s thoughts had already turned irrevocably towards politics and he determined to sell his company, thereby effectively ending his direct participation in the production of aircraft.


   Type: Twin-engine, three-crew anti-airship patrol/interceptor quadruplane.
   Manufacturer: Pemberton-Billing Ltd., Woolston, Southampton.
   Powerplant: Two 90hp Austro-Daimler six-cylinder water-cooled in-line pusher engines driving four-blade propellers.
   Structure: All-wood construction with fabric covering; two-spar, two-bay quadruplane wings and biplane tail with twin fins and rudders.
   Dimensions, weights and performance: Not known (designed for up to 10 hours’ endurance)
   Armament: One 0.303in Lewis gun in free mounting on gunner’s cockpit in nacelle occupying centre section gap between the two upper wings.
   Prototype: One, probably first flown on 16 January 1916 at Chingford, Essex. No production.

W.Green, G.Swanborough The Complete Book of Fighters

PEMBERTON-BILLING P.B.29E UK

   One of the most extraordinary interceptor fighters flown during World War I, the P.B.29E twin-engined quadruplane was conceived as an anti-airship aircraft. Intended to be capable of prolonged cruise at low speeds during the nocturnal hours, the P.B.29E featured high aspect ratio wings with a pair of 90 hp Austro-Daimler six-cylinder water-cooled engines underslung from the second mainplane and driving pusher propellers. The entire wing cellule was braced as a two-bay structure, the fuselage being attached to the second wing and accommodating two crew members, and a gunner with a single 0.303-in (7,7-mm) machine gun occupying a nacelle that filled the gap between the centre sections of the upper mainplanes. The P.B.29E was flown in the winter of 1915-16, and was destroyed comparatively early in its flight test programme, but aroused sufficient interest to warrant development of the P.B.31E of similar concept. No data relating to the P.B.29E are available.

J.Bruce British Aeroplanes 1914-1918 (Putnam)

Pemberton-Billing P.B.29

  PROOF of Noel Pemberton-Billing’s originality of outlook and his versatility as an aircraft designer was eloquently expressed in the P.B.29. He had strong opinions about the use of aircraft in warfare, and these he enunciated dramatically in his book Air War: How to Wage it, which was published in 1916.
  One of the defence problems peculiar to the 1914-18 war was that provided by enemy airships. These aircraft could approach their target in almost total silence and under cover of darkness, and in 1915 there was no organised, effective defence against them.
  In his book Pemberton-Billing defined his conception of an anti-airship aeroplane. The definition was almost completely realised in the later Night Hawk quadruplane, but the first attempt at a slow-flying night patrol aircraft was the Pemberton-Billing P.B.29.
  For his anti-airship machine Pemberton-Billing postulated a minimum flying speed of 35 m.p.h. in order to prolong cruising as much as possible, to increase the accuracy of gunfire, and to minimise the risks inseparable from night-flying at that time. To achieve this aim, the P.B.29 had quadruplane wings of very high aspect-ratio; and its makers claimed, possibly rightly, that it was the first quadruplane to fly successfully.
  The whole wing cellule was braced as a two-bay structure, with the engines mounted in the inner interplane struts and underslung from the second mainplane. The engines were two 90 h.p. Austro-Daimlers which were fitted with silencers; each drove a four-bladed pusher airscrew and had a rectangular frontal radiator. Ailerons were fitted to all four mainplanes. The fuselage was attached to the second wing. It had a short nose and there were two cockpits. The designer specified dual control and two pilots for his anti-airship patrol machine, so it seems reasonable to assume that the P.B.29 had dual control. Abaft the rear cockpit the fuselage was of triangular cross-section. A third crew-position was provided in the centre of the top wing, where a gun-mounting was installed. The gap between the top and third mainplanes was occupied by a streamline fairing to enclose the gunner’s body.
  The undercarriage was of very wide track. Under each engine nacelle there was a pair of wheels mounted on a horizontal skid which carried at its forward end a further pair of smaller wheels. The biplane tail unit incorporated three fins and three rudders.
  The P.B.29 was built with the same speed which had characterised the construction of the P.B.9, for it was completed only seven weeks after the beginning of design work. It was flown at Chingford, and was destroyed in a crash there.


SPECIFICATION
  Manufacturers: Pemberton-Billing, Ltd., Woolston, Southampton.
  Power: Two 90 h.p. Austro-Daimler.
  Armament: One gun, almost certainly a Lewis machine-gun, on movable mounting on cockpit in top wing.
  Service Use: Flown experimentally at the R.N.A.S. Station, Chingford.

H.King Armament of British Aircraft (Putnam)

Pemberton-Billing

   P.B.29. Designed and built in 1915 to 'stand still in the air in a 28mph breeze and lie in wait for Zeppelins' this 'patrol fighter' quadruplane appears to have been intended to carry a Lewis gun in a cockpit structure between the topmost wings.