It was the fastest fighter at low level in the Royal Air Force inventory, faster than the Spitfire below 15,000 feet. It carried four 20mm cannons in its nose — twice the firepower of any other British fighter. It first flew in October 1938 and entered service in mid-1940, just in time for the Battle of Britain.

The Westland Whirlwind should have been a legend. Instead, only 116 were ever built, just two squadrons flew it operationally, and it was withdrawn from service in 1943 — destroyed not by the Luftwaffe but by the engine its own manufacturer abandoned.

Faster Than a Spitfire — Down Low

Petter’s design — Westland’s W.E.W. “Teddy” Petter, the engineer who would later design the Lightning — was extraordinary for 1938. The Whirlwind had a thin laminar-flow wing, all-metal stressed-skin construction, an enclosed cockpit, and four cannons clustered in the nose where they could not be misaligned by wing flexion at high speed. The aircraft hit 360 mph at 15,000 feet on just 1,770 horsepower — a power-to-speed ratio that no Spitfire of its era could match.

It was also pleasant to fly. Whirlwind pilots reported the controls were light, the visibility excellent, and the aircraft surprisingly stable as a gun platform. The cannons hit hard. On 6 August 1941, four Whirlwinds on an anti-shipping strike were intercepted by a large formation of Bf 109s — and claimed three of them destroyed without loss.

The Engine That Killed It

The Whirlwind needed two engines for its layout. Petter chose the Rolls-Royce Peregrine, a development of the older Kestrel engine, because Rolls-Royce promised a steady supply. Then the Battle of Britain happened. Rolls-Royce decided every available engineer should be working on the Merlin — the engine that powered the Spitfire and the Hurricane. The Peregrine programme was orphaned.

By 1942 the Peregrine had stopped production altogether. The 116 Whirlwinds in service had no source of replacement engines. Every time one was lost, the airframe was scrapped because there were no engines to put in another.

Could It Have Been Re-Engined?

Yes. in January 1941 Westland proposed a Merlin-powered Whirlwind — the same airframe with two Merlin XX engines instead of two Peregrines. Westland claimed a top speed of around 410 mph — comfortably faster than the contemporary Spitfire — with twice the firepower and far greater range.

The Air Ministry said no. Production capacity was needed for Spitfires and Hurricanes. Westland’s factory was redirected to license-build Spitfires. The Merlin-powered Whirlwind was never built. By 1943 the surviving Whirlwinds were retired from front-line service.

No Survivors

Not a single complete Whirlwind survives. In Britain, the Whirlwind Fighter Project has been building a full-scale reproduction from original drawings, but no original airframe exists. Most of what exists today is wreckage, fragments, and the design drawings that show, with painful clarity, exactly what the RAF threw away.

It is one of aviation history’s most poignant footnotes — the fastest, hardest-hitting British fighter of 1940, killed not by combat but by the bureaucratic decision to abandon its engine. A reminder that even great aircraft are hostage to their suppliers.

Sources: Imperial War Museum, Westland Aircraft Heritage Museum, RAF Air Historical Branch.