Developed in the late 1920s, the Royal Air Force’s Bristol Bulldog entered service in May 1929. The single engine, single seat biplane fighter was the RAF’s frontline fighter through most of the 1930s. Bulldogs were exported to Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Sweden in Europe and to the Asia/Pacific nations of Australia, Japan, and Siam.
Although the type never drew blood in the air while serving with the RAF, it did, however, see use during the Spanish Civil War as Latvia had sold 11 examples to the Spanish Republican Air Force. The Finnish Air Force flew its Bulldogs against the Soviet Union during the 1939 Winter War, where they achieved two aerial victories over a Polikarpov I-16 fighter and a twin-engine Tupolev SB (ANT-40) bomber.
Today, there are two surviving original Bulldogs: a Mk IVA at the Hallinportti Aviation Museum in Kuorevesi, Jämsä, Finland, and a Mk IIA at the Royal Air Force Museum in London, England. Being so rare, neither will ever leave their museum homes to fly again. The Finnish example is a Mk. IVA, which saw combat against the Soviet Union in the Winter War, while the RAF Museum aircraft was a Bristol company demonstrator (registered G-ABBB) that crashed in 1964 and was restored to static condition in the 1990s.
