- Yes
- No
- Benelux
- France
- UK
- Other / Don’t know
- I said no
The story of the Renard R.38 begins, as with the R.37, in 1936 when Alfred Renard decided to design a fighter aircraft for the Belgian Air Force, which was in dire need of modern planes.
Renard came up with the R.36 (in reference to his 36th project and not actually the lucky year match) which first flew on November 5th 1937, equipped with a 910 hp Hispano-Suiza 12Y-21, and already outperformed many of the best fighters of its time.
Test flights went on the following year and, by mid-1938, the prototype had sparked a good deal of interest around it, namely from France, China, and Belgium itself. To satisfy the export market, a few variants were drawn up with a few changes to the wings, the engine or the cockpit layout; among others, the R.36-B would be a two-seater variant, the R.36-E would be a training version with a weaker engine, the R.36-14N would be equipped with a Gnome-Rhône 14N engine, and the R.36-M would be equipped with a Rolls-Royce Merlin II engine!
This last variant is what we’re looking at today, initially designated R.36-M (M for Merlin), this R.36 variant would later become the R.38. Some plans were drawn up in mid-1938, and Renard scouted Rolls-Royce for the possibility of acquiring a Merlin II engine. But for now, the priority was testing the Renard R.36 and preparing a possible order by the Air Force, and in late 1938, as an order for 40 R.36s began to take shape, Renard announced the construction of 6 more airframes, possibly as pre-series prototypes…
However, everything changed on January 17, 1939, when the R.36 prototype crashed during an exercise, and the government decided to cancel the order, and to purchase Hawker Hurricanes instead.
As catastrophic as this decision was, as the Hurricane was worse, more expensive and slower to be delivered compared to the R.36, it at least freed up Renard to begin work on the R.38.
The Renard R.38 received the civil registration OO-ATK June 22, 1939, and first flew on August 4 in the hands of SABCA test pilot Paul Burniat, who later said that the R.38’s flight performance placed it “between the famous Hurricane and the wonderful Spitfire”.
Before the German invasion came, testing the R.38 would prove to be quite a chaotic undertaking due to strange and complicated bureaucracy, and the first 10 hours of flight would only be completed by October 24, and Technical Services passed the R.38s landing trials on November 22nd.
Only by November 25th could the request for an official military test pilot and program be made, and the Air Force demanded on top of that that the test program include specific tests in order to better understand the R.36 crash. However, since those included maneuvers deemed unsafe, it was requested that the current test pilot do some preliminary trials before the designated military pilot could fly the R.38.
That took some more time, and only by February 1940 could more advanced flight tests begin. By the time of the invasion in May 1940, some 20 hours of test flights were done by Paul Burniat.
The official pilot, Warrant Officer Verlinden, didn’t actually fly the R.38 until May 10, 1940, when trials were abruptly, and rather impolitely, stopped by Germany and the war. At that time, Verlinden received orders to evacuate the R.38 to Zwevezele, then to Bordeaux.
The Renard R.38 was then stored in a hangar at Bordeaux-Mérignac, where the Belgian Technical Services had evacuated, but upon the French armistice, the Belgians were denied entry to the hangar, and the aircraft was later handed over to the Germans by the French authorities.
The R.38 was fundamentally the same aircraft as the R.36, and externally was extremely similar, but there are a few notable differences.
The design is overall a lot cleaner and more refined, especially the nose and wing root sections, perhaps in a similar way as a production R.36 would have been. The wing root fairings are smoother, the radiator is nicely compact, and the rudder took its final shape after having been through some changes in the R.36.
There is obviously the engine change. While Renard drew up plans for a Merlin II in 1938, he would actually receive a Merlin III powering a Hamilton Standard Constant Speed propeller. Renard planned the usage of 100 octane fuel, which would allow an increase of manifold pressure from 6 to 9 psi (the 12 psi emergency boost doesn’t seem to have been taken into account at that time), and thus an increase of power from 1030 to 1150 hp.
As a result, top speed was estimated to improve from 550 km/h at 6000 m to 556 km/h at 5000 m. This is not a big improvement; the R.38 was mostly limited by drag. However, this didn’t affect climb speed, which jumped from 17.8 to 20.5 m/s, for an exceptional time to 5000 m of 4’18".
However, the increase in power came at a cost, because unlike the Hispano-Suiza engine, the Merlin could not fit a cannon between the cylinders. Only the four wing-mounted machine guns remained, but by 1939, these could be replaced by the powerful 13.2 mm FN-Browning heavy machine guns, albeit with a lower ammunition count.
The wings, of NACA 23012 airfoil, were thick enough to provide ample room for guns, ammunition, landing gear as well as three robust wing spars. The wings also provided good handling at low speeds, and were strong enough to withstand airspeeds in excess of 800 km/h, as well as a maximum G load of 13.5 Gs.
Their large size, although not ideal for drag and limiting the top speed compared to the cleaner Spitfire or smaller Bf 109, did offer excellent maneuverability; with a wing loading of 130 kg/m² as well as a stall speed around 125 km/h, the R.38 very nearly matched the early Spitfires’ turning radius.
The construction itself, while rather inexpensive, was nothing revolutionary. Like the Hawker Hurricane, the aft fuselage was covered in fabric and not metal. The fuel tanks, with a capacity of 440 liters, were not self-sealing, and there was no protection for the pilot. All of this did save weight, but it did not make survivability a strong point of the R.38.
It must be noted however that pilot armor and self-sealing tanks were the exception and not the rule in 1939.
The undercarriage had a wide track, making take-off and landing easier. Testing of the R.36 also revealed that braking too hard on landing did not cause the plane to nose over. The canopy offered excellent visibility in all directions, including towards the back.
Engine: Rolls-Royce Merlin III (1150 hp)
Wingspan: 11.64 m
Length: 8.8 m
Height: 2.9 m
Wing area: 20 m²
Empty weight: 1950 kg
Loaded weight: 2600 kg
Wing loading: 130 kg/m² - Est. Turn time: 16 s
Max speed: 556 km/h at 5000 m, 450 km/h at sea level
Never exceed speed: >800 km/h
Armament: 4 × 13.2 mm FN-Browning machine guns* (250 rounds per gun)
Payload: 8 × 10 kg bombs + 1 or 2 grenade launchers with 30 grenades each
Climb rate: 20.5 m/s at 4000 m
Service ceiling: ~12000 m**
Range: 1000 km
*Normally it is armed with 13.2 mm FN-Browning machine guns, but they can be replaced by two Hispano 20 or 23 mm (Madsen?) cannons. This modification was not carried out before the German invasion. Technical documentation from the Ateliers Renard also mentions the possibility of fitting four 20 mm cannons to the R.38, but this is, in my opinion, less likely to have been carried out due to possible weight constraints.
**Seems unusually high, but no source gives a ceiling below 12000 m, so I can’t state anything less than that. Other sources from Renard go as high as 13350 m.
Armament details
Source: Flight magazine, August 3 1939.
“Renard R-36/37/38 & 40”, Nicolas Godfurnon
Documents and photographs from Fonds National Alfred Renard.