The first prototype HD-37a flew for the first time in April 1928. The HD-37 was rejected by the air force but as a transition before the availability of the Polikarpov I-5 the Soviet Union bought some HD-37c as sample and acquired the manufacturing license. The Soviet license version was called Polikarpov I-7. The I-7 was produced in Factory No.1 at Moscow.
Versions: HD-37a: first prototype HD-37c: Version for the Soviet Union with BMW a VIz engine with 537 kW (730 hp) and tail unit surfaces increased; Basis of the license version Polikarpow I-7 Polikarpov I-7 with a M-17F (license version BMW VI engine) with 526 kW (715 hp)
HD-37c Engine: a V-12-Reihenmotor BMW Viz, 537 kW (730 hp) Maximum speed 312 km/h Service ceiling 8,600 m Range 700 km Empty weight 1,267 kg Max. takeoff weight 1,685 kg Span 10.00 m Length 7.00 m Wing area 26.71 sq.m Armament: two machine guns
Heinkel had originally built two HD 24s for the competition ”Seeflugwettbewerb” in 1926. Further aircraft were built for the German Airline Pilot School (DVS). Eight Heinkel HD 24s (HD = Heinkel Doppeldecker), Sk 4 in the Air Force, was ordered in the first half of 1926 by the MFV (the Navy aviation), just before the forming of the Swedish Air Force. The Swedish Sk 4s were ordered from Heinkel’s Swedish subsidiary Svenska Aero AB. The aircraft was designed as a naval aviation trainer, but the floats could be replaced by wheel landing gear or skis. The eight Sk 4s were all based at the naval aviation Wing F 2 at Hägernäs.
The first two Sk 4s were manufactured at Heinkel’s Warnemünde works as pattern aircraft for the rest of the series. The two aircraft were approved by the Air Force in November 1926. Some months later, they were given the Air Force numbers 201 and 202. The six aircraft built in Sweden were approved in July 1927 – November 1928 (Air Force numbers 203-208).
The six first aircraft (201-206) were fitted with Mercedes engines of 180 hp. These engines were unfortunately not very reliable. Therefore, the 207 and 208 got Junkers Jumo L 25 engines. These engines delivered 280 hp (100 hp more than the Mercedes engines). The 207 and 208 got the subdesignation Sk 4A. After some time, also the 203, 204 and 206 got the L 25 engine and got their designation changed to Sk 4A. Aircraft 201, 202 and 205 also got their original Mercedes engines replaced, but this time to the Armstrong Siddeley Puma (240 hp). New designation Sk 4B.
Sk 4 Length: 9,69 m. Span: 14,20 Height: 4,15 m MTOW: 2.150 kg Max. speed: 168 km/h
The HD-19 fighter was developed by Heinkel to an order from the Swedish VVS. The contract provided for the production of six fighters HD-19 (Heinkel Of doppeldecker 19). The first two had to be built at the plant of Heinkel, and remaining four – at Svenska Aero AB in Stockholm. Aircraft was equipped with a Bristol Jupiter VI engine, since this engine was standard for Swedish VVS. The first aircraft was tested at Warnemünde in July 1928, and after several months aircraft began to enter into F 2 squadron service, where obtained Swedish designation J 4. In 1934 three aircraft of those remaining in the operation were transferred into the F 1 squadron.
Engine: 1 x Bristol Jupiter VI, 420 hp Wingspan: 11.00 m Length: 9.26 m Height: 3.91 m Wing area: 31.60 sq.m Empty weight: 1175 kg Normal takeoff weight:1725 kg Maximum speed: 215 km/h Cruising speed: 182 km/h Range: 838 km Maximum rate of climb: 414 m/min Service ceiling: 6400 m Crew: 2 Armament: 3 x 8-mm machine gun
A design by Sir Sydney Camm starting in 1957, the P.1127 incorporated vectored thrust, which enabled one engine to lift and pro¬pel the aircraft by means of rotatable exhaust nozzles. The airframe of the P.1127 was designed round the unique character of its Bristol Pegasus engine, which had four nozz1es (the forward pair exhausting cold air from the engine’s fan stage and the aft pair exhausting hot gases from the engine’s turbine stage) arranged two on each side fore and aft of the centre of gravity.
Hovering trials with the first P.1127 (XP831) began on October 21st, 1960, over a specially prepared hovering platform with the aircraft tethered. Free vertical hovers on the vectored thrust of an 5126kg Pegasus 2 engine were made in November and the first conventional take off was made on March 13th, 1961. For low speed con¬trol, the aircraft has jet reaction nozzles at each wing tip and at the nose and tail.
The second P.1127 (XP836) flew on July 7th, 1961, and continued conventional flight trials while the first reverted to hovering trials in September. This aircraft made the first complete transition from hovering to horizontal flight and back on September 12th, 1961. The third P.1127 (XP972) flew on April 5th, 1962. Such was the promise of the type that a pre-production derivative was built as the Kestrel. The P.1127 was renamed Kestrel after Hawker Siddeley Aviation was created.
Kestrel FGA.Mk.1
Three examples were ordered in 1962 by the U.S. Department of Defense, with the U.S. Army financing 50 per cent of the programme and the USAF and Navy sharing the remainder. Compared with these aircraft and three sub¬sequent prototypes, the three XV 6As have a 9 in longer fuselage, anhedral on the tailplane and more powerful versions of the Bristol Pegasus.
Of the six prototypes built in total, one of which was lost at an air display.
The Kestrel had fully swept wings and a larger tail than the P.1127, and the fuselage was modified to take the larger 15,000 lbf (85 kN) Pegasus 5 engine. The first of these flew on 7 March 1964. Due to interest from the US and Germany the Tri-partite Evaluation Squadron was formed, staffed by military test pilots from Britain, the US and West Germany. A Tripartite Trials Squadron existed from 15 October 1964 until 30 November 1965, after which six of the Kestrels were transferred to the USA where they were designated XV-6As. After testing at RAF West Raynham, the eight surviving Kestrel FGA Mk 1s evaluation aircraft were transferred to the USA for evaluation by the Army, Air Force and Navy (including USMC). After Tri-Service evaluation they were passed to the USAF for further evaluation at Edwards AFB.
The Kestrel featured two wing hardpoints each capable of lifting gun pods or stores of up to 450kg.
The Kestrel FGA Mk 1 ground attack fighter was an operational evaluation derivative of the P.1127 V/STOL. An order for 60 aircraft was received from the RAF in 1966, and the first pre-production Harriers were flying by mid-1967.
Engine: Bristol Siddeley Pegasus, 12,000 lb thrust. Max take-off weight: 5625-7031 kg / 12401 – 15501 lb Empty weight: 4445 kg / 9800 lb Wingspan: 6.96 m / 22 ft 10 in Length: 12.95 m / 42 ft 6 in Height: 3.28 m / 10 ft 9 in Wing area: 17.28 sq.m / 186.00 sq ft Max. speed: 1067 km/h / 663 mph
Hawkers worked on a number of designs for jet fighters after the war and the Hunter would follow on from the Sea Hawk via another design, the P.1052. Basically a swept-wing Sea Hawk, the P.1052 looked promising enough to be considered as a Meteor replacement but other designs looked to be even better. One such was one born from Air Ministry specification F.3/48, the Hawker P.1067. Designed by Sir Sydney Camm, designer of the Hurricane and Sea Hawk, the P.1067 was his attempt to meet the earlier F.43/46 specification, which was then discarded and replaced with F.3/48, which was written to match the P.1067. To be armed with four 30mm cannon and powered by the then-new axial flow turbojet, three prototypes were to be built, two using the Rolls Royce AJ.65 (Avon) and one using the Metrovick F.9 (later known as the Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire), in case the AJ.65 development ran into problems. The cannon were to be in a single unit complete with ammo, enabling quick re-arming by simply winching the pack down and replacing it with another.
Detailed design began in late 1948 but it was not until early 1950 that Hawkers were ready to proceed with constructing a prototype. Receiving an order for 400, split equally between Sapphire and Avon powered aircraft, construction of the prototype began and by early 1951 the aircraft was ready for ground tests. Neville Duke, Hawker’s chief test pilot, began taxiing trials at Boscombe Down and the first flight of the P.1067, serialled WB188, was on the 20th of July, 1951. After a number of flights out of Boscombe, the prototype returned to Hawker’s home airfield at Dunsfold where development flying began in earnest. September saw the aircraft’s appearance at the 1951 Farnborough SBAC show, and in April 1952 Duke took the aircraft through the much publicised ‘sound barrier’ for the first time.
With two more prototypes joining WB188, the project became a ‘super priority’ one with production accordingly accelerated.
The British Government, said Mr. Jefferson, general manager of Hawker Aircraft (Blackpool), Ltd., ordered the Hunter for the R.A.F. “off the board.” The “instruction to proceed” was placed in October 1950 and the contract followed six months later. The first production aeroplane flew in May 1953. Thus, from the date that Hawker Aircraft first knew they were going to receive an order to the time when the first production Hunter was flying, only two years and seven months elapsed.
The Hunter was a new aircraft and the company had to start from zero and build up a completely new production set-up. A serious aspect was the finding of firms to make large jigs and tools in the numbers required. The Hunter required some 3,250 tool designs, and about 40,000 jigs, tools and fixtures had to be provided for. To break the bottleneck the British Government introduced the “super-priority” scheme. This only partially produced the required results, since priority had to be allocated to so many items that suppliers and sub-contractors were often unable to give any measure of preference. In addition, every effort was being made to maintain exports.
Eventually, tool-making difficulties were overcome by a combination of two methods. The first took care of initial detail and sub-assembly work and involved a compromise – the development and use of “rough tools,” prepared not by the virtually unobtainable toolmakers but by skilled fitters. Although capable of manufacturing several hundred parts these tools were intended as a temporary measure. For major assembly jigs, eventually a large number of jigs were obtained from such Italian firms as Macchi, Breda and Fiat.
To facilitate manufacture, the Hunter was broken down into main assembly units, e.g. front fuselage, centre fuselage, rear fuselage, wings. This was common practice, but with the Hunter it was carried a stage farther. Each major component was not only built as a separate structural unit but was complete in itself, containing all ancillary equipment, services, pipes and runs, as in the finished aircraft. Thus for final assembly it was necessary only to connect the structural members and plug the pipes and leads together.
During the early days the resources of the entire Hawker Siddeley Group were pooled for difficult items. Hawker Aircraft itself was far from being housed all under one roof. Production plans, therefore, called for the detail parts and main assemblies to be made in several places, with Kingston-upon-Thames as headquarters. There were two other factories in the South of England and assemblies were fed to the final-assembly plant and airfield about 50 miles from Kingston. Certain specialized components were sent 250 miles from Hawker Aircraft (Blackpool), Ltd.
The first production F.Mk.1 powered by the 3425-kg (7,550-lb) thrust Avon 113 flew on the 16th of May, 1953, but this and a further 22 early production aircraft were used for development purposes. Like Supermarine’s troublesome Swift, problems began to arise. The use of the flaps as airbrakes turned out to cause a severe nose-down pitching at high speeds, and after much work a simple hinged brake was fitted to the fuselage underside. However even this was troublesome and had to be disabled when the landing gear was down. Cannon firing was restricted to low altitudes because exhaust gas from them could cause the engine to flame out. The Sapphire engined variant, the F.2, did not suffer from this.
Another cannon problem was that of spent links being ejected and tumbling along the lower fuselage causing much damage. Bulbous link collectors were fitted from the F.4 onwards, being added to earlier marks too. These were known as Sabrinas after a well-endowed pin-up girl of the time.
The Hunter F.1 entered RAF service with 43 Squadron in July 1954, replacing their Meteor F.8s. The Armstrong¬ Whitworth built Hunter F.Mk 2, with the 3629-kg (8,000-lb) thrust Sapphire 101 engine, followed in November, equipping 257 Squadron. The F.2 arrived at Dunsfold during the middle of November 1952, bearing the RAF roundels, not painted pale green like the F.1 but finished in its aluminium service colour. On November 29th everything was set to take it up for the first time; directors arrived at Dunsfold and a number of people. But the weather clamped down and snow fell. Everybody had to go away disappointed. The Sapphire-engined F.2 order was cut back, despite it not having the flame-out problem. Both variants were also short on fuel, something Hawkers were looking at with some concern.
The early Hunters were basically employed as short-range day interceptors, radius of action limitations being overcome to some degree by the Hunter F.Mk 4 and Hunter F.Mk 5 variants which benefited from in¬creased internal fuel capacity and the ability to carry two 455-litre (100-Imp gal) external drop tanks. These two models both flew for the first time during October 1952 and were quickly introduced to service, the Hunter F. Mk 4 also becoming the first sub-type to secure export orders when the air arms of Belgium and the Netherlands acquired substantial numbers (most of them built under licences) whilst Sweden, Denmark and Peru also received some as the Hunter F.Mk 50, Hunter F.Mk 51 and Hunter F.Mk 52 respectively.
Hunter F.5
Work on the Hunter for the R.A.F. was proceeding at a satisfactory rate when the U.S.A. off-shore procurement order was placed with the British Government early last summer. So far as Hawker Siddeley were concerned, the new contract called for some 450 Hunters to be delivered by June 1956.
The order was being met from the existing organization by continuing production at the peak rate which had been planned to meet as quickly as possible R.A.F. requirements. Thus the offshore order assured a longer run of peak production and promised a level of capacity not otherwise possible. As the aircraft were completed, the M.o.S. and NATO representatives would decide between themselves which would go to the RA.F. and which to other NATO countries.
Off-shore orders were also placed with Holland and Belgium; thus eventually Hunters would also be built by three companies in Holland-Fokker (who are to undertake the majority of manufacture in that country), Aviolanda and de Schelde-and by two in Belgium-S.A.B.C.A. and Avions Fairey. There were the normal array of sub-contractors to each one company. The Netherlands and Belgium would between them manufacture some 100 off-shore Hunters by the summer of 1956, and thereafter would produce further Hunters for their Governments.
Since the war Holland had made Meteors from raw materials; in Belgium, however, the manufacturing side barely existed, except for Avions Fairey. But the country had an industrial tradition and her machine-tool industry was capable of undertaking any work entrusted to it. A large number of jigs and tools had been ordered through Hawker Aircraft in the United Kingdom for both countries, but Belgium had ordered these items in her own territory as well; S.A.B.C.A. had erected a new factory and were in process of receiving special plant from the U.S.A.
Broadly speaking, each of the companies engaged had certain responsibilities, each making various detail parts and subassemblies. Some factories would then incorporate these into main assemblies and finally the main units would be brought together-by S.A.B.C.A. in Belgium and by Fokker in Holland. In Belgium, Avions Fairey would make only detail parts and subassemblies and would be provided with some finished parts, and with main assemblies, by Hawker Aircraft-and, later, by Holland. Thus the pattern previously worked out of necessity in Great Britain would virtually be reproduced on the Continent. And such was the degree of standardization that components made anywhere in the three countries would be interchangeable.
Hawker teams were constantly going to both countries to advise and assist, and technicians and operatives were continually coming to England to be trained.
Much information and material had been supplied, including complete sets of master aircraft drawings and schedules, pre-production manufacturing information, jig and tool drawings, details of manufacturing processes, and master part schedules.
Hawker Aircraft were sending teams to Holland to install the major jigs. To get work started they were supplying 50 initial sets of raw materials and complete sets of master templates, tooling aids and interchangeability media. Holland and Belgium were being provided with sample components-including two complete aircraft, one for each country, and a whole set of specimen detail parts so that engineers would see the standards which they would be required to work. Sets of all pipe runs were being sent, as the forms of such parts were difficult to visualize accurately from drawings. The complete aircraft would help both countries to get accustomed to all that was involved in the construction of a complicated fighter, and to develop the flying, servicing and ground-handling techniques it would necessitate.
In addition, Hawker Aircraft were providing components, skeleton components and sub-assemblies.
Many special machine tools for the Hunter, both on the Continent and in Britain, had been obtained from the U.S.A. Certain machined components for the wing and fuselage attachments were made from forgings of high-tensile steel. In their manufacture a large amount of profile and contour milling was involved and for this work American duplex milling machines and Hydro-Tels had been found invaluable. The company also used Hufford and Sheridan stretch-forming machines, Onsrud spar-millers, Farnham rolls, Verson brake-presses and, for pipe manipulation, Pines benders. The great deal of formed sheet metal work called for at Hawker Aircraft was done on Cecostamps, employing light-alloy dies, which could be altered easily and economically in the event of modifications.
In an emergency, the long lines of production jigs in the Hawker factories could quickly be dispersed to safe areas. All main jigs were erected on rafts made of a structure of rising steel joists, welded together and provided with jacking points for levelling up. This was useful even in peace, for the jigs could be moved to any part of the country where labour was available. The method would also prove invaluable in setting up production on the Continent.
The F.4 entered service with 54 Squadron in March 1955, replacing their F.1s. The F.4 had more fuel and strengthened wings, enabling carriage of various air to ground stores including bombs and rockets. With the increased fuel load, the pilots of 54 Squadron began competing with each other to see how long a Hunter could stay airborne, and the record got to 1 hour and 25 minutes before the CO stopped the competition – that particular pilot having landed with dry fuel tanks. The previous year a pilot had been killed after running out of fuel in an F.1. Despite the poor fuel load of the Hunter, no inflight refuelling capability was ever added. The F.5 also entered service, a month earlier than the F.4, with 263 Squadron. The F.5 was similar to the F.4 but Sapphire-powered and was the first variant to see active service, being deployed against ground targets in Egypt during the Suez campaign. None were lost on missions but two were destroyed on the ground at Cyprus by EOKA terrorists.
The first Swedish Hunter F.4 was flown from Dunsfold to Stockholm with a refuelling stop at Jever, Germany, on 26 August 1955. The Hunters were designatred J 34 in Swedish Service.
Hunter deployment accelerated, with the aircraft replacing the Sabres, Vampires and Venoms of Fighter Command and RAF Germany. No less than 19 squadrons operated the Hunter in 1957, by which time the F.6 was beginning to replace the F.4s and F.5s.
The last single-seat version to attain quantity production was the Hunter F.Mk 6, first flown in prototype form on 22 January 1954 and incorporating the more powerful Avon 203 turbojet engine, rated at 4559-kg (10,050-lb) thrust. The Hunter was stressed to +7 & -3.75g. One of the problems was a pitch-up at high speeds, not unlike the Swift. This was cured by extending the leading edges of the outer portion of the wing, giving the dog-toothed look of later variants. F.6s could also scramble more quickly as they used an AVPIN starter system, enabling quicker engine spool-up than the cartridge-started early variants.
Hunter 6
Manufacture of this variant was undertaken in the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands, and it eventually became the most widely used Hunter of all, providing the basis for aircraft exported to India Hunter F.Mk 56, Switzerland Hunter F.Mk 58 and Iraq Hunter F.Mk 59 amongst many others.
Swiss AF Hunter F.58
In addition, a substantial number of RAF aircraft were later updated to Hunter FGA.Mk 9 and Hunter FR.Mk 10 configuration for ground-attack and reconnaissance tasks respectively. The specially developed ground attack FGA.Mk 9 was fitted with one 10,000 lb thrust Rolls Royce Avon Mk 207 turbojet engine. Supplied to the air forces of Abu Dhabi, Chile, India, Iraq, Kenya, Oman, Qatar, Rhodesia, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, this ground-attack version carries fuel drop tanks, was provided with a tail parachute to simplify operation into small airfields, and with special underwing attachments for bombs and rockets: they also retain the standard armament of four 30 mm cannon in the nose.
Hunter FGA.9
A two-seat trainer variant, designed as a private venture, was based on the F.4 despite the F.6 with its more powerful engine being available. The first T.7 protoype flew on 8 July 1955 and appeared at the 1955 Farnborough show two months later. While generally similar to the single seaters, these aircraft differed from the fighter by having a lengthened nose and ‘side by side’ seating, and the cannon pack was deleted and replaced with a single 30mm cannon fitted to the starboard side. The T.7 had a troubled gestation, with speed being limited to mach 0.88 until the canopy fairing was redesigned. A brake parachute was first fitted to the T.7, in an extended fairing over the top of the jetpipe. From 1957, a total of 45 Hunter T.7s were built at Kingston for the Royal Air Force. In addition, 6 Hunter F.4 airframes were converted to T.7 specification in 1958 and 1959. The first T.7s entered service with 229 OCU in July 1958. Some twin-seat Hunters entered service with the Fleet Air Arm, being fitted with arrestor hooks (for airfield use only) and designated as T.8s. The T.8B and T.8C followed, with improved navigational equipment, guns deleted and Harley lights added in the nosecone.
Hunter T7
Another variant known as the Hunter GA.Mk 11 was delivered to the Fleet Air Arm for training purposes.
A new version of the Hawker Hunter, the T.Mk.8C (XL604), flew for the first time on Septem¬ber 2, 1963, this differing from previous T.Mk.8s in equipment installed. Two ex Belgian Hun¬ter F.Mk.6s were converted as a private venture by Hawker Siddeley to two seat configuration against possible future orders. By 1970 the FGA.9 and FR.10 were leaving service, being replaced by a mixture of Buccaneers, Phantoms and Harriers. In 1979, the T.8M variant arrived. This was a T.8 given a Sea Harrier’s nose and was used to train pilots for the then-new Sea Harrier FRS.1, particularly the use of the Blue Fox radar. A small number of T.8Cs had transferred to RAF service with the loss of the RN’s carrier-borne Buccaneers in 1978, and these continued in use with RAF Buccaneer squadrons until that aircraft’s retirement in 1994. A T.12 variant had been on the cards, to train TSR.2 crews, but with that aircraft’s cancellation the T.12 was dropped, the single example produced being used for a variety of purposes by the RAE, including fly-by-wire developments and aerial surveys.
A number of aerobatic teams operated the Hunter, most famously 111 Squadron’s ‘Black Arrows’ and 92 Squadron’s ‘Blue Diamonds’. In 1958 by The Black Arrows looped 22 Hunters in formation at Farnborough. In July 1959, several T.7s were entered in the Daily Mail London-Paris race, one of them achieving the fastest time. All Buccaneer pilots were trained in the Hunter T.7 or T.8, one set of pilot’s instruments being removed and replaced with Buccaneer instruments.
The Hunter settled in for the next five years as the RAF’s foremost air defence and ground attack aircraft, and Hawker completed their F.3 variant. This was actually the original prototype with a new sharp nose, canopy, Avon RA.7R with reheat and airbrakes either side of the rear fuselage. Painted in a brilliant red colour scheme, Neville Duke then used the aircraft to set a number of records, including the World Absolute Speed Record on 7th September 1953 – achieving a speed of 727.6 mph off the Sussex coast. No further work was carried out on producing a production version of the F.3.
However, by 1963, the fully supersonic missile-armed Lightning was entering service and the Hunter’s RAF day fighter role was at an end. The Blue Diamonds briefly teamed up with the Lightnings of 74 Squadron to put on a performance at the 1961 Farnborough show. From now on the Hunter’s job would primarily be that of ground attack, and the next variant was the FGA.9.
In 1958 the Royal Air Force held a competition to find a suitable type to replace its Middle East-based Venom ground attack fighters. Hawkers won with a proposal for a modified Hunter F6 and an order was placed for the conversion of a number of airframes. The new version was designated FGA9 to show its new role and the first flew in July 1959.
With further strengthened wings, provision for greater external fuel carriage (first tested by Hawkers back on the F.4 but only now accepted by the Air Staff) and increased oxygen supply, the variant also included the T.7’s brake parachute. The FGA.9 entered service with 8 Squadron in January 1960 and soon equipped a number of squadrons. Further action for the Hunter came in attacks against dissident tribes and rebels in Aden, and attacks against Indonesian terrorists in Borneo.
In 1968 it was the RAF’s 50th birthday, yet the top brass did not se fit to mark this with any flypast, choosing instead for mere parades on the ground. Many RAF personnel were less than impressed and one Flt Lt Alan Pollock of 1(F) Squadron decided to mark the occasion in style – first with toilet-roll bombing missions against rival squadrons, and then on April 5th, while suffering from the beginnings of pneumonia, he flew his Hunter over London and at the last second decided to fly under the top span of Tower Bridge. Knowing of the consequences of his unauthorised trip, he proceeded to beat up several airfields and landed to meet his fate. It would be the end of his RAF career (he went on to run a successful exporting company), with political influences making sure he was thrown out of the RAF with no right to appeal, no court martial at which he could present his case, medical evidence ignored, unable to meet with his superiors, etc. It took until 1982 for his case to be fully heard, and only then was he exonerated. Coincidentally, that same year the Hunter he had flown (XF442, which had been sold to the Chilean Air Force) was written off in an accident.
The last operational Hunter FGA9s were flown by No.8 Squadron which disbanded in December 1971 although the type continued to be used in training units for a little longer.
Some F.6 models were also upgraded by Hawker Siddeley to FR.74As, then FR.74Bs models. The last converted aircraft (for Kuwait) was delivered in 1975.
Hawker Hunter FR.74
The FR.10, a reconnaissance version used largely in RAF Germany, replacing the Swift FR.5s. The FR.10 had also been used in the Far East, using cannon only in many attacks. The Fleet Air Arm extended their use of the Hunter to acquiring a number of single seaters, these being the GA.11 (with Harley light in the nose) and PR.11A (with cameras in the nose), though these were mostly operated by the civilian Fleet Requirements and Air Direction Unit (FRADU). The GA.11s were used for mock attacks against RN warships, the light in the nose being used to initially train gunners in how to track high speed aircraft.
The Dutch operated F.4s, F.6s and T.7s, beginning in 1956 and retiring them in 1968. Belgium also operated F.4s and F.6s from 1956 onward, but had no trainers – instead they used Dutch ones in a cooperative effort. Belgium retired the Hunter in 1963, though many were retired in 1957. Replaced by the F-104 in Dutch and Belgian service, as many of the Belgian examples had retired very early, they were in excellent condition and Hawker bought many back to sell once more. Sweden operated the Sidewinder-equipped F.50 (designated the J-34) from 1955 to 1966, replacing it with the SAAB Draken. Denmark operated the F.51 and a small number of T.53s (similar to the T.7 but with F.4-style wings rather than the F.6 ones) from 1955 to 1974. Switzerland operated their F.58s and T.68s from 1958 until 1995. The F.58 was essentially an FGA.9, but with Sidewinders and enlarged Sabrinas holding chaff and flare dispensers. Most famous of the Swiss Hunters were those of the national aerobatic team, the Patrouille de Suisse.
India made extensive use of the Hunter F.56(A) and T.66(D/E) from 1957 to the early 1980s, being the first export customer of the type, and continued to operate a small number for target towing duty until 2000. Participating in the 1965 and 1971 conflicts with Pakistan, the Hunter took a toll of Pakistani armour. However in combat with Pakistani Sabres, 8 were lost in the 1965 war compared to 6 Sabres being shot down by Hunters.
In the 1971 war six Hunters were lost, eight (possibly nine) Sabres were claimed by Indian Hunters (Pakistani sources accepting fewer losses but not by any great margin). A further three Hunters were lost to MiG-19s and four to Mirages. Singapore employed the Hunter from 1970 – FGA.74s, FR.74A/Bs and T.75(A)s, forming the newly independent island’s Air Defence Command. In the Middle East, Hunters were operated by a number of air forces. Abu Dhabi had the FGA.76, FR.76A and T.77 from 1970, being replaced by Mirage 5s. Qatar had the FGA.79 and T.79 from 1969, being replaced by Alpha Jets in the mid 1980s. Saudi Arabia operated a small number of F.6s and T.7s from 1966 to the mid 1970s as conversion trainers for students transitioning from the Jet Provost to the Lightning. Kuwait had the FGA.57 and T.67 from 1965, initially being replaced by the Lightning but soon coming back into use when the Kuwaitis had problems with the Lightning. By 1977 the FGA.57s had been replaced by A-4KU Skyhawks, but the T.67s continued in service for a few years after that point. Lebanon operated the F.6, FGA.70(A) and T.66C for a short time, all ending up being destroyed, mostly by Israeli strikes. Jordan operated F.6s, FGA.9s, FR.73Bs and T.66Bs from 1958 until 1974, and their Hunters were the first Arab aircraft to attack Israeli territory in the Six Day War. They were outclassed by Israeli Mirages in the air and most were destroyed in airstrikes on their bases. The few survivors of Israeli attacks were finally replaced by F-5s. Oman ended up with around 30 Hunters, ex-RAF, ex-Kuwaiti and ex-Omani examples among those operated from 1975 to the mid 1980s, being replaced by Jaguars. Iraq also operated the Hunter, F.6s, FGA.59(A/B)s and T.69s were used from 1958 to the mid to late 1980s, being replaced by Su-7Bs and Su-20s.
Peru operated F.52 and T.62 Hunters from 1956 to 1980 (replaced by Su-22s) and Chile (FGA.71, FR.71A and T.72) from 1966 to 1996. In Africa the Hunter was operated by Kenya (FGA.9 and T.81) from 1974 to 1979 and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe (FGA.9 and T.80) from 1963, being replaced by F-5s in Kenya and partially replaced by Hawks in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe’s Air Force’s remaining Hunters were grounded by lack of spares. The Hunter was operated by the UK’s Defence Research Agency and the Empire Test Pilots School until 1999 and India retired hers in 2000. In 2007, the Hunter came back into UK military use when a pair were returned to the military register for defence simulation and trials work.
A total of 1972 were built including 445 manufactured under licence in Belgium and the Netherlands, until production ceased in 1960.
Principle users; Abu Dhabi Chile Denmark Great Britain India Iraq Jordan Kenya Kuwait Lebanon Oman Peru Qatar Singapore Sweden Switzerland Zimbabwe
F.1 Engine: 3425-kg (7,550-lb) thrust Avon 113 Length: 45 ft. 3 in. Seats: 1 Load factor: +7 / -3.75G
F.2 Engine: 3629-kg (8,000-lb) thrust Sapphire 101 Span 33 ft 8 in Length: 45 ft. 9 in. Seats: 1 Load factor: +7 / -3.75G
F.3
F. 4 Engine: 1 x Rolls-Royce AJ65 Avon RA7 Mk.113 or 114 turbojet, later Avon 115. Span: 33 ft 8 in Length: 45 ft 3 in MTOW: 17,100 lbs. Max speed: 715 mph @ SL / M0.95 @ 36,000ft. Service ceiling: 48,500 ft. Time to 45,000 ft: 9.8 min. External fuel: two 455-litre (100-Imp gal) drop tanks Seats: 1 Load factor: +7 / -3.75G Armament: 4 x 30 mm cannon & 2 x 1000 lb bomb.
F.Mk 5 Engine: 3629-kg (8,000-lb) thrust Sapphire 101 Span 33 ft 8 in Length 45 ft 3 in External fuel: two 455-litre (100-Imp gal) drop tanks Seats: 1 Load factor: +7 / -3.75G
F.6 Engine: 1 x Rolls-Royce Avon 207, 10,145 lb. Wing span: 33 ft 8 in (10.26 m). Length: 45 ft 10.5 in (13.98 m). Height: 13 ft 2 in (4.01 m). Max TO wt: 24,000 lb (10,900 kg). Max level speed: 715 mph. Ceiling: 50,000 ft Range: 1,900 miles (ferry) Seats: 1 Armament: 4 x 30mm Aden cannon
F.6A Engine: 1 x Rolls-Royce Avon 203, 10050 lb. Height: 13 ft 4 in / 4.01 m Length: 45 ft 10.5 in / 13.98 m Wing span: 33 ft 8 in / 10.26 m Wing area: 348.969 sq.ft / 32.42 sq.m MTOW: 24,100 lb. Weight empty: 13891.5 lb / 6300.0 kg Max. weight carried: 9834.3 lb / 4460.0 kg Wing loading: 68.06 lb/sq.ft / 332.0 kg/sq.m Max Ldg wt: 17,000 lb. Initial climb rate: 5905.51 ft/min / 30.0 m/s Service ceiling : 51509 ft / 15700 m Max level speed: 620 kt. Range: 540 nm / 1000 km Endurance: 1 h Armament: 4 x 30 mm Aden cannon plus up to 2000 lb bomb. Crew: 1
T.62
T.66B
T.66C
T.66D
T.66E
T.67
T.68
T.69
T.7 Engine: Rolls-Royce Avon 207 turbojet, 10,145 lbf (45.13 kN) Wingspan: 33 ft 8 in (10.26m) Length: 48 ft 10.5 in Maximum speed: 1,900 mph (1150 kph) Maximum range: 808 miles (3,060 km) with external tanks Service Ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,240 m) Seats: 2 Armament: one 30 mm cannon
T.7B
FGA.70A
FGA.71
FR.71A
FR.73B
T.72
FGA.74
FR.74 Engine: Rolls-Royce Avon 207 turbojet, 10,145 lbf (45.13 kN) Wingspan: 33 ft 8 in (10.26m) Length: 45 ft 11 in (14m) Maximum speed: 1,900 mph (1150 kph) Maximum range: 808 miles (3,060 km) with external tanks Service Ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,240 m)
FR.74A
FR.74B Engine: 1 x RR Avon 207, 10,150 lb thrust. Best climb speed: 430 kts. Seats: 1
T.75A
FGA.76
FR.76A
T.77
FGA.78 Engine: Rolls-Royce Avon 207 turbojet, 10,050 lb thrust. Rate of climb: 17,200 fpm Ceiling: 53,400 ft Maximum speed: 710 mph at sea level. Seats: 1 Armament: four 30mm cannon, plus bombs or rockets
FGA.79
T.79
T.8 Seats: 2
T.8B Seats: 2
T.8C Seats: 2
T.8M Seats: 2
T.80
T.81
FGA.Mk 9 Engine: 10,000 lb / 4559-kg thrust Rolls Royce Avon Mk 207 turbojet Wingspan 10.25 m (33 ft 8 in) Length 13.98 m (45 ft 10½ in) Height 4.02 m (13 ft 2 in) Wing area 32.42 sq.m (349 sq ft). Empty wt: 6532 kg (14,400 lb) Maximum take-off 11159 kg (24,600 lb) Maximum speed: 1144 km/h (710 mph) at sea level Initial climb rate 5245 m (17,200 ft) per minute Service ceiling 16275 m (53,400 ft) Range, clean 787 km (489 miles) Ferry range 2965 km (1,840 miles) Armament: four 30-mm Aden cannon, plus four 227-kg (500-lb) or 454-kg (1,000-lb) bombs, or four 455-litre (100-Imp gal) napalm tanks, or 2476-mm (3-in) rockets, or four 51-mm (2-in) rocket pods.
FR.10
GA.11 Seats: 1
PR.11A Seats: 1
T.12
Engine: 1 x Rolls-Royce “Avon” RA 28, 44.1kN Max take-off weight: 10885 kg / 23997 lb Empty weight: 6020 kg / 13272 lb Wingspan: 10.2 m / 33 ft 6 in Length: 14.9 m / 48 ft 11 in Height: 4.3 m / 14 ft 1 in Wing area: 32.4 sq.m / 348.75 sq ft Max. speed: 1150 km/h / 715 mph Ceiling: 16760 m / 55000 ft Range w/max.fuel: 2900 km / 1802 miles Range w/max.payload: 900 km / 559 miles Armament: 4 x 30mm cannons, ext. stores Crew: 1-2
Hawker produced their first jet fighter, the P1040, to the specifications of the Air Ministry, designed by the team headed by Sir Sydney Camm. In certain respects the P1040 was an unorthodox aircraft. Although fitted with a single Rolls Royce Nene engine with twin intakes at the wing roots, it had a split jet pipe with two exhausts at the wing root trailing edge on either side of the fuselage; it also had straight wings, a straight tail and a normal fin. It was a beautiful aircraft to fly with spring tab ailerons, and it attracted the attention of the Admiralty. The Royal Navy took it over, converted it for deck landings with the addition of a hook, and gave it folding wings and other nautical refinements. This version of the P1040 became known as the N7/46, and was later produced as the Seahawk for the Fleet Air Arm. After the P1040 came the P1052, with a number of important changes in design.
Arising from the P.1040 single-seat land-based interceptor prototype, the Hawker Sea Hawk first flew in prototype form on 2 September 1947. A novel feature was the tail jet pipe which divided and exhausted in the wing roots. This made it exceptionally manoeuvrable and allowed a large internal fuel capacity giving the fighter a relatively long range. In addition to the fuselage mounted guns, bombs and rockets could be carried under the wings.
A tricycle undercarriage had single wheels on each unit. The main wheels retract inward into the fuselage. The nose wheel retracts forward. The wings fold upward and inward.
It was eventually followed by the Rolls-Royce Nene 101-powered Sea Hawk F.I, 35 of which were built for the Royal Navy by Hawker and 60 by Armstrong Whitworth.
This being a pure fighter variant. It was not until 1953 that it began to enter service with the Fleet Air Arm. Used operationally from the carriers Albion, Bulwark and Eagle in 1956, in support of Anglo French landings in Egypt, the type remained in service until 1960.
Sea Hawk production being entrusted to Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft from the Sea Hawk F.Mk 2 version onwards from 1953. The Mk 2 version was similar to the F.I but had powered ailerons. It was first flown in February 1954 and 40 were delivered. Progressive development of the basic design led to the appearance of rather more versatile variants, the first of these being the 116 Armstrong-Whitworth built Sea Hawk FB.Mk 3, which featured a strengthened wing structure, enabling it to carry bombs, rockets or auxiliary fuel tanks, and plain ailerons without tabs.
These were followed by 97 Sea Hawk FGA.Mk 4 with attachments for underwing stores, in addition to four 20mm built-in guns. The FGA.4 has power assisted ailerons.
In 1955 a Sea Hawk was flying at Britteswell equipped with vortex generators on the tailplane to ascertain the longitudinal stability characteristics at high Mach numbers. The research was aimed at increasing the maximum speed from the 630 mph.
Adoption of the more powerful Nene 103 turbojet engine in 1956 led to the Sea Hawk FB.Mk 5 (about 50 converted from Mk 3) and 86 new (plus some converted) Sea Hawk FGA.Mk 6 derivatives, these basically being re-engined Sea Hawk FB.Mk 3s and Sea Hawk FGA.Mk 4s, although some Sea Hawk FGA.Mk Gs were built as such.
In addition to production for the Fleet Air Arm, the Sea Hawk also operated with the naval air arms of India. Two squadrons of F(GA).6 were acquired by the Indian Navy for service on the aircraft carrier Vikrant; this service subsequently also received 22 ex-RN F(GA).4/6 and 28 ex-German aircraft.
22 Sea Hawk Mk 50 for the Royal Netherlands Navy were similar to Mk 6 but with American radio equipment; modified in 1959 to carry Sidewinder missiles.
34 Sea Hawk Mk 100 close-support strike fighters were produced for the Federal German Navy, and 34 Sea Hawk Mk 101 long-range radar reconnaissance fighters for the Federal German Navy.
Sea Hawk F.Mk 1 Engine: 1 x Rolls-Royce Nene 101 tur¬bojet, 2268-kg (5,000-lb) thrust. Wing span: 39 ft 0 in (11.89 m). Length: 39 ft 8 in (12.09m). Height: 8 ft 8 in (2.64 m). Max TO wt: 16,200 lb (7347 kg). Max level speed: 560 mph (901 kph).
Sea Hawk FGA.4 Engine: RR Nene Wingspan: 39 ft Length: 40 ft
Sea Hawk FGA.Mk 6 Engine: one 2359-kg (5,200-lb) thrust Rolls-Royce Nene 103 turbojet. Wingspan: 11.89 m (39 ft 0 in) Length: 12.09 m (39 ft 8 in) Height 2.64 m (8 ft 8 in) Wing area 25.83 sq.m (278 sq ft) Wheel track: 8 ft 6 in Maximum speed 945 km/h (587 mph) at 6095 m (20,000 ft) Service ceiling 13565 m (44,500 ft) ROC: 5700 fpm Range 1287 km (800 miles) with auxiliary fuel. Empty weight: 4672 kg (10,300 lb) Maximum take-off weight: 6895 kg (15,200 lb) Armament: four MK Hispano Mk V 20-mm cannon, plus two 227-kg (500-lb) bombs or 2076-mm (3-in) rockets. Crew: 1
Genesis of the Fury design lay in the Typhoon and its, successor, the Tempest. Early troubles with the Napier Sabre engine and the failure of the Rolls Royce Vulture caused delays in the Typhoon and cancellation of the Tornado programme, and switched the spotlight to the Rolls Royce Griffon and Bristol Centaurus engines. Simultaneously, the Typhoon proved unsuitable as a medium attitude fighter on account of its thick wing, and in 1941, Sydney Camm put forward proposals for the Typhoon II with a thinner, eliptical wing and leading edge radiators. Alternative powerplants included Sabre, Centaurus and Griffon, and in time, with these engines, the fighter appeared as the Tempest I, II and III. The wing radiator scheme was not adopted and the Tempest I was abandoned, while the Sabre ¬powered Mark V was the only version to see combat in World War II. The Griffon Tempest III and IV were also abandoned.
The Centaurus Tempest II was dogged by engine delays but, when it finally arrived, proved the best of the Tempest family. Camm had long advocated use of the Centaurus, having in January 1940 suggested its substitution in the Tornado. Some time after the Vulture Tornado programme had been scrapped, a Centaurus 12 was tested in a Tornado airframe but initially with little success. When, however, a captured Focke¬Wulf Fw 190A was examined late in 1941, numerous alterations to the British radial engine installation were made by Bristol, with considerable benefit to the test bed’s performance.
The Centaurus Tornado continued flying in 1942 and it was the results that led to the Tempest II. A parallel development was the submission of the Hawker Light Fighter design to the Air Ministry in the autumn of 1942, again alternative versions being powered by the Sabre IV, Griffon 61 and Centaurus IV. These were to be much lightened versions of the Tempest and were the original Fury design schemes. Principal difference from the earlier design lay in the abbreviated wing centre section which now resulted in the main wheels, when retracted, almost meeting on the centreline of the aircraft.
Following their submission in 1942, the designs became the subject of Air Ministry and naval fighter specification N.7/43 in 1943. Contracts were issued for a number of prototypes of what was to become the Fury and, long before these were flown, orders for 400 production aircraft were placed to be shared equally by the RAF and the Fleet Air Arm. The entire Sabre production became earmarked for the Typhoon and Tempest (the latter forming Britain’s main fighter defence against the flying bombs), and the Griffon was required for such established aircraft as the Spitfire, Barracuda and Firefly. Only the Centaurus (still suffering from cooling and lubrication difficulties) remained available for the Hawker fighter, and even this was scheduled for the Far East in the Tempest II.
The Fury used the same high-speed aerofoil section which had been specially developed for the Tempest to delay the compressibility effects first encountered with the Tornado and Typhoon. The wing consisted of two Tempest outer sections bolted together on the fuselage centreline, instead of being attached to the sides of the fuselage as on the Tempest. The monocoque fuselage and tail unit were completely new structures.
The first Bristol Centaurus 12-engined prototype flew for the first time on 1 September 1944. It was subsequently re-engined with a Centaurus 15. Although two other Centaurus-engined prototypes were built, the second to fly (on 27 November 1944) was powered by a Rolls-Royce Griffon 85 engine driving two Rotol three-bladed co-axial contra-rotating propellers. One of the Griffon-engined prototypes was subsequently re-engined with a Napier Sabre VII driving a five-bladed propeller, and flown in June 1946. A second Sabre-engined Fury was also flown.
With the end of the War came widespread cancellation of contracts for military aircraft. Only three prototype Furies (two RAF and one naval) had flown and, with the introduction of the Gloster Meteor jet fighter to the RAF an established fact, the Air Ministry lost interest in the Fury project and cancelled its order for 200 fighters. Registered G AKRY, the first F.2143 Fury prototype (originally NX798) was eventually sold to Egypt. The first example to fly was the RAF’s Fury Mk 1 on 1 September 1944, whilst the Hawker Sea Fury prototype took to the air for its maiden flight on 21 February 1945. However, the return of peace led to large-scale defence cutbacks, Hawker’s newest fighter suffering badly with all the RAF examples and half of the Royal Navy aircraft being cancelled, although the manufacturer did ultimately achieve modest export sales of the land-based Fury, customers including Egypt, Iraq and Pakistan.
Pakistan Air Force 1958
The Admiralty, although obliged to forego 100 aircraft, retained its interest in the project and instructed Hawker to continue trials with its prototypes, SR661 and SR666. By the end of 1945 the latter had flown and set a pattern that was to become familiar over the following eighteen years. Production aircraft were derived from the three prototype ‘Hooked’ Furies, with various degrees of navalisation including folding wings and arrester gear. The fully-navalised Sea Fury with arrester hook and folding wings did not fly until October 21, 1945.
By now named the Sea Fury it having been the intention to call RAF aircraft simply Fury, with its thin eliptical wings and finely cowled radial engine behind a large five blade Rotol propeller.
Fifty Sea Fury F.10s were ordered for the Royal Navy, each powered by an 1,841kW Bristol Centaurus 18 eighteen-cylinder two-row radial sleeve-valve air-cooled engine.
Demands were voiced for the Sea Fury to carry bombs, and so, in 1948, appeared the Mark II fighter bomber ¬capable of carrying rockets, drop tanks, mines, napalm or 1,000 pound (454 kg) bombs. With this aircraft the Royal Navy went to war over Korea in 1950.
As soon as deliveries started to the Fleet Air Arm in 1946, other countries looked at the design with views to adopting it for their own forces. First was Holland. The Royal Netherlands Navy had received an ex British aircraft carrier, HMS Venerable, and, under the name Karel Doorman, the new vessel was about to be commissioned. The Dutch Government placed an order for ten Sea Furies and followed these with licence built aircraft in 1948. The Sea Fury FB.51 was similar to the FB.11 but had Dutch language instruments and other minor changes for service with the Royal Netherlands Navy. Deliveries from Hawker were supplemented by production under licence by Fokker in the Netherlands.
The Royal Navy’s aircraft first flew in pro¬duction form as the Sea Fury F.Mk 10 on 7 September 1946, entering service with No. 807 Squadron in July 1947. It brought with it a 450 mph (724 kmh) performance, an 11.5 minute climb to 30,000 feet (9 144 m) and an armament of four 20 mm guns a performance unsurpassed by any shipboard fighter in the World at that time.
Manufacture of the Sea Fury F.10 as a pure fighter was short-lived and only 50 were com¬pleted. Production then switch¬ing to the Sea Fury FB.Mk 11 fighter-¬bomber derivative which could carry up to 907 kg (2,000 lb) of external ord¬nance and which also featured a leng¬thened arrester hook plus provision for rocket-assisted take-off gear. This variant became the definitive Sea Fury, deliveries beginning in May 1948, and by the time the line closed in the early 1950s 515 had been completed, as well as 60 examples of the Sea Fury T.Mk 20 two-seat trainer. By then the Sea Fury had also been engaged in combat in Korea, emerging victorious over the jet-powered MiG¬15 on at least two occasions.
It was as the result of foreign interest in the Sea Fury that the two seat trainer version came into existence. In 1947 Iraq had questioned the possibility of providing a two seat variant on which her pilots could train, prior to graduating to the fighter. So successful did the project appear that the prototype was purchased by the Admiralty, leading to the T. Mark 20. The Sea Fury T.20 was a two-seat trainer version for the Royal Navy, based on the F.10. One 20mm cannon was deleted from each wing to allow for the installation in the wings of equipment displaced from the fuselage by the second cockpit. Bombs and rockets or long-range drop tanks could be carried beneath the wings as on the FB.11 fighter bomber.
Pakistan proved to be the largest customer for Furies, for between 1949 and 1954, ninety three single seaters and five trainers were delivered. The Fury FB.60 and 61 were single-seat and two-seat Furies for Pakistan, the single Trainer having a ‘tunnel’ enclosure over the two cockpits.
Iraq ordered a total of fifty five fighters and fighter bombers and took delivery of five trainers as well between 1950 and 1953, but little is known of their service life until their retirement in the early 1960s. 30 Centaurus-engined Fury Is were ordered for the Iraqi Air Force in 1946. Thereafter two Fury Trainers, each with a second separate cockpit introduced immediately aft of the fighter cockpit (first flown on 15 January 1948), were delivered to Iraq, together with another batch of 25 Fury Is and Trainers. Retaining the wing folding and tail-hook mechanisms of the ship-borne fighters, they lacked the hydraulic operation and became known as Baghdad Furies, similar in all other respects to those serving with the navies (although Iraq did receive in that number some Fleet Air Arm Sea Furies diverted from the assembly line.) Egypt received thirteen single seaters (including one of the original Fury prototypes).
Egypt received 12 Sea Furies.
By 1954 large numbers of war ¬scarred and otherwise dilapidated Sea Fury carcases languished at the naval storage units at Anthorn, Donibristle and Abbots¬inch, until early in 1957 it became known that they were to be offered for disposal. Hawker, whose Blackpool factory was threatened with closure by the ramifications of the 1957 Defence White Paper, determined to make good a number of these old aircraft and set about finding markets overseas. Having repurchased around two hundred of the old fighters and trainers, the company was able to negotiate an order with the Burmese Government and, by widespread cannibalisation, sold eighteen single seaters and three trainers to that country. It was being sold as a counter insurgency (or COIN) aircraft for such duties the Batista Government of Cuba followed Burma in 1958 placed an order for fifteen fighters and two trainers. Despite great secrecy and testing of unmarked aircraft in this country, word leaked out that Britain was trading military aircraft with a politically unsuitable cus¬tomer and a scandal threatened. However, despite Batista’s demise, the contract was honoured and full payment was com¬pleted by the Castro regime before trade sanctions were imposed. Western Germany has been taking delivery of Sea Fury two ¬seaters in small numbers almost every year since 1959 and, to 1963, sixteen have been delivered to the D.L.B. for target towing under civil contract to the Luftwaffe. A single¬ seater had been added to the number. Iraq presented four examples to Morocco.
Australia ordered 101 Sea Fury Mark II in 1948. The first was delivered in May 1949, and the last was delivered in 1953.
By the mid- 1950s the Sea Fury had been supplanted by more modern types with the Fleet Air Arm, but some export Sea Furies continued to fly with the air arms of Burma and Cuba for a few more years.
The Royal Canadian Navy equipped Squadrons VF-870 and VF-871 with the Sea Fury. These Squadrons flew 75 Sea Furies from February, 1948 to April, 1957 operating from HMCS Magnificent. The RCN Sea Fury aircraft were replaced by the RCN’s first jet fighter, the McDonnell F2H3 Banshee in 1957.
A total of 860 Sea Fury airplanes were built, including a number of tandem two seat trainers. This type exists in very small numbers in the United States where modified versions have scored notable wins on the air-racing circuit.
Fury Max speed: 445 mph at 20,000 ft. Cruising speed: 400+ mph at 20,000 ft. Max range with over load tanks: 2,000 miles Armament: four 20 millimetre cannons, rockets or two 1000 lb bombs.
Sea Fury FB.Mk 11 Engine: one 2,480-hp (1849-kW) Bristol Centaurus 18 Wing span: 11.70 m (38 ft 4.75 in) Wing area: 26.0 sq.m (280 sq ft) Length: 10.57 m (34 ft 8 in) Height: 4.84 m (15 ft 10.5 in) Wheel track: 12 ft Empty weight: 4191 kg (9,240 lb) Maximum take-off weight: 5670 kg (12,500 lb) Maximum speed: 740 km/h (460 mph) at 5485 m. (18,000 ft) Fuel capacity: 200 Imp.G External fuel: 2 x 45 or 90 Imp.G Initial Rate Of Climb: 7 minutes to 20000ft Max ROC: 4320 fpm Service ceiling 10910 m (35,800 ft) Range 1127 km (700 miles) on internal fuel Takeoff run: 960 ft Armament: four 20-mm cannon, plus up to 907 kg (2,000 lb) of external ordnance / 8 x 60lb rockets or 2 x 1000lb bombs Crew: 1
Air Ministry Specification F.18/37 was concerned with the design and development of two advanced interceptor fighters with one of two 24-cylinder engines in the 2,000 h.p. class then under development –the Napier Sabre “H” type and the Rolls-Royce Vulture “X” type: one with a Rolls-Royce Vulture engine was identified initially as the R (Rolls-Royce) type fighter; the second, with a Napier Sabre engine, was known as the N (Napier) type. Sydney Camm had commenced investigating the possibilities of just such a fighter in March 1937, and had already roughed out a design built around the Napier Sabre engine and housing twelve 0.303-in. Browning guns with 400 r.p.g. in its 40-foot wings. At the proposal of the Air Ministry, Camm also prepared studies for an alternative version of his fighter powered by the Rolls-Royce Vulture engine, and increased the ammunition capacity of both machines to 500 r.p.g.
Further discussions over military loads and equipment followed, and revised tenders were submitted to the Air Ministry at the beginning of 1938 for both the Type ” N ” and the Type ” R “, as the alternative Sabre and Vulture powered fighters had become known. These tenders were formally accepted on April 22, 1938, and four months later, on August 30, two prototypes of each fighter were ordered. Structurally both types were similar: the wings were all-metal, the front fuselage was of steel tubing, and the aft section consisted of a stressed-skin, flush-riveted monocoque – the first Hawker designs to employ this form of construction. Uniformity between the two fighters was, in fact, achieved to a remarkable degree, but the designs did differ in the Vulture powered fighter made use of a ventral radiator while the Sabre driven machine had one of “chin” type.
Construction of the two fighters proceeded in parallel, and work progressed simultaneously on the preparation of production drawings. As a result of the slightly more advanced development status of the Vulture engine which had been designed along more conventional lines than the Sabre, the Type “R” was the first of the two fighters into the air, flying on 24 February 1940.
The initial flight trials of the prototype were promising, and a production order for 1,000 Tornados was placed at the beginning of November, it being proposed that the new fighter should be built both by Hawker and by A. V. Roe at Woodford. However, the flight test program soon began to run into trouble. Compressibility effects, about which little was known at that time, began to manifest themselves, and it was decided that the ventral radiator bath was unsuitable for the speeds approaching 400 m.p.h. that were being achieved for the first time. The radiator was, therefore, moved forward to the nose, a position already selected for that of the Type “N”, by now dubbed Typhoon; but the first prototype Tornado (P5219) only flew long enough to indicate the beneficial results of the change before it was totally destroyed.
On December 30, 1939, the first Napier Sabre engine had been delivered to Hawker Aircraft, and the first prototype Typhoon (P5212) emerged from the experimental shop to fly on February 24, 1940. It too became the subject of a quantity production order which, it was planned, should become the responsibility of Gloster Aircraft, whose assembly lines were emptying of Gladiator biplanes and whose design office was already immersed in the development of the Gloster Meteor, the first British turbojet-driven aircraft. Although, like those of the Tornado, the first flights of the Typhoon prototype indicated a promising fighter, the machine proving relatively easy to fly at high speeds, its low speed qualities left much to be desired, and it had a marked tendency to swing to starboard during take-off. The “X” form of the Tornado’s Vulture engine had not permitted installation above the front spar as was the Typhoon’s Sabre and, in consequence, the overall length of the former was 32 ft. 6 in. as compared with the 31 ft. 10 in. of the latter. Owing to the size and weight of the Sabre and the need to preserve c.g. balance, the Typhoon’s engine was fitted so close to the leading edge of the wing that severe vibration was experienced as the slipstream buffeted the thick wing roots. On an early test flight the stressed-skin covering began to tear away from its rivets, and the Typhoon’s pilot, Philip G. Lucas, only just succeeded in bringing the prototype in to a landing.
Apart from structural teething troubles, the Sabre engine, although a compact and exquisite power plant, called for a considerable amount of development, and it was perhaps fortunate for the future of the Typhoon that, in May 1940, the war situation led to the cancellation of all priority for Typhoon and Tornado development in order to allow every effort to be put into the production of sorely needed Hurricanes. Design development was allowed to continue, and development on the Typhoon included the design of a modified wing containing two 20-mm. Hispano cannon in place of the six 0.303-in. Brownings, the construction of an experimental set of wings containing a total of six cannon, and the initiation of a design study of a Typhoon variant with thinner wings of reduced area and lower profile drag. This latter study was later to arouse interest at the Air Ministry and eventually result in the Tempest. By October 1940 enthusiasm had been revived and production of the Tornado and Typhoon reinstated, production deliveries of both being scheduled for the following year.
The first production Typhoon IA (R7082) with the 2,200 h.p. Sabre IIA engine was completed by Gloster and flown on May 26, 1941. Production of this version, with its twelve Browning guns, was in limited quantity, and those built were used principally for the development of operational techniques. Typhoon IA production aircraft began to enter RAF service in September 1941, and went into action in the summer of 1942. Initial usage proved a great disappointment, with unsatisfactory high-altitude performance, inferior rate of climb and frequent engine breakdowns. When structural failure of the tail unit caused a number of fatal accidents it was suggested that the Typhoon should be withdrawn from service. Fast action was taken to overcome the shortcomings, and introduction of the Sabre II engine brought improved reliability. Typhoon I A were armed with 12 x 7.7mm Browning machine-guns.
The cannon-armed Typhoon IB was following the Mark IA, and the Air Ministry was pressing for its rapid service introduction to counter the new Focke-Wulf Fw 190. Nos. 56 and 609 Squadrons based at Duxford began to receive their Typhoons in September 1941, before the fighter was fully developed, and these squadrons were forced to take on part of unearthing the new machine’s numerous faults. In the first nine months of its service life far more Typhoons were lost through structural or engine troubles than were lost in combat, and between July and September 1942 it was estimated that at least one Typhoon failed to return from each sortie owing to one or other of its defects. Trouble was experienced in power dives – a structural failure in the tail assembly sometimes resulted in this component parting company with the rest of the airframe. During the Dieppe operations in August 1942, when the first official mention of the Typhoon was made, fighters of this type bounced a formation of Fw 190s south of Le Treport, diving out of the sun and damaging three of the German fighters, but two of the Typhoons did not pull out of their dive owing to structural failures in their tail assemblies.
Despite this start to its service career, operations continued and the accident rate declined as the engine teething troubles were eradicated, although the tail failures took longer to solve, despite immediate strengthening and stiffening as soon as the trouble manifested itself. In November 1942 No. 609 Squadron, led by Wing Commander Roland Beamont, was moved to Manston in an attempt to combat the near-daily tip-and-run raids which were being made by Fw 190s and could rarely be intercepted by Spitfires. The Typhoon enjoyed almost immediate success. The first two Messerschmitt Me 210 fighter bombers to be destroyed over the British Isles fell to the guns of Typhoons, and during the last daylight raid by the Luftwaffe on London, on January 20, 1943, five Fw 190s were destroyed by Typhoons.
On November 17, 1942, Wing-Commander Beaumont had flown a Typhoon on its first night intrusion over Occupied France and, subsequently, the fighter was employed increasingly for offensive duties, strafing enemy airfields, ships and railway transport. The success of the Typhoon in the ground-attack role led to trials with two 250-lb. or two 500-lb. bombs which were carried on underwing racks. This load was later increased to two l,000-lb. bombs, but the Typhoon was not to find its true element until it was adapted to carry airborne rocket projectiles – four under each wing. By D-Day, in June 1944, the R.A.F. had twenty-six operational squadrons of Typhoon IBs. Without its underwing load the Typhoon IB weighed 11,300 Ib.; and with two 500-lb. bombs and the necessary racks, 12,400 lb. Maximum speed was 398 m.p.h. at 8,500 feet and 417 m.p.h. at 20,500 feet, and an altitude of 20,000 feet could be attained in 7.6 minutes. Between the prototype and production stages several design changes had been made. These included the re-design of the fin and rudder, the redisposition of the wheel fairings and the introduction of a clear-view fairing behind the cockpit. On the first few Typhoon IAs the solid rear fairing was retained; later a transparent fairing was fitted, but this was abandoned in favor of the first sliding ” bubble ” hood to be used by an operational fighter.
The Typhoon IB, by now affectionately known as the “Tiffy”, distinguished itself particularly in the Battle of Normandy, where it decimated a large concentration of armor ahead of Avranches, disposing of no fewer than 137 tanks, and opening the way for the liberation of France and Belgium. For use in the tactical reconnaissance role, the Typhoon F.R.IB was developed early in 1945. In this version the two inboard cannon were removed and three F.24 cameras were carried in their place. One Typhoon was also converted as a prototype night fighter, with A.I. equipment, special night-flying cockpit and other modifications. Production of the Typhoon, which was entirely the responsibility of Gloster Aircraft, totaled 3,330 machines.
Hawker Typhoon JP843
Typhoons were operated by 32 RAF squadrons, and used by the RCAF and Free French squadrons within the RAF.
Work had been going on in the Hawker design office since 1940 on the development of a new thin wing section. It had already been established that the N.A.C.A.22-series wing section employed by the Typhoon was entirely satisfactory at speeds in the vicinity of 400 m.p.h. but encountered compressibility effects at higher speeds. In dives approaching 500 m.p.h. a very sudden and sharp increase in drag was experienced, accompanied by a change in the aerodynamic characteristics of the fighter, which affected the pitching moment and rendered the machine nose heavy. No actual design work on the new wing was begun until September 1941, and the wing section eventually adopted for development had its point of maximum thickness at 37.5% of the chord. The thickness/cord ratio was 14.5% at the root and 10% at the tip, giving a wing five inches thinner at the root than that of the Typhoon.
This thin wing could not contain a comparable quantity of fuel to that housed by the Typhoon’s wing, so a large fuselage tank had to be adopted. This necessitated the introduction of an additional fuselage bay, increasing the overall length by twenty-one inches forward of the c.g. This added length found its inevitable compensation after initial prototype trials in a larger fin and tailplane. The wing area was also increased, and an elliptical planform was adopted, presenting a chord sufficient to permit the four 20-mm. Hispano cannon to be almost completely buried in the wing. All these modifications added up to a radically changed Typhoon, but it was as the Typhoon II that two prototypes were ordered in November 1941. However, in the middle of the following year the name Tempest was adopted.
By the end of 1945, none remained in front-line service.
As part of their engine development program, Napier’s designed an annular cowling for the Sabre to replace the familiar chin-type radiator bath. The first such installation was on a Typhoon IB (R8694), but most of the development was undertaken with a Tempest V (NV768) which flew with several different types of annular radiator and hollow spinner.
Typhoon Mk. IB Crew: 1 Engine: 1 x Napier “Sabre IIA”, 1605kW / 2150 hp Max take-off weight: 5170 kg-6,010 kg / 11398 lb-13,250 lb Empty weight: 3992 kg / 8801 lb Wing loading: 40.8 lb/sq.ft / 199.0 kg/sq.m Wingspan: 12. 67 m / 41 ft 8 in Length: 9.74 m / 31 ft 10 in Height: 4. 67 m / 15 ft 5 in Wing area: 25.9 sq.m / 278.79 sq ft Max. speed: 673 km/h / 418 mph Cruise speed: 530 km/h / 329 mph Service ceiling: 10360 m / 34000 ft Initial climb rate: 3,000 ft/min / 914 m/min Range w/max.fuel: 1530 km / 951 miles Range w/max.payload: 980 km / 609 miles Armament: 4 x 20mm cannon, 900kg of weapons / 8x rockets
The family tree of the Hurricane can be traced back to a ‘Fury monoplane’ proposal of 1933, then to be powered by the Rolls-Royce Goshawk evaporative-cooled power plant. Instead it was decided in early 1934 to adapt this design to incorporate the new PV.12 engine which Rolls-Royce had developed – and which was the direct forbear of the famous Merlin. From that time the airframe/engine combination bore so little relation to the Fury that it then became identified as the ‘Interceptor Monoplane’.
In 1933, Hawker‘s chief designer Sir Sidney Camm realised that something even better than the Fury was needed and the Hawker Fury monoplane was the result – a cantilever monoplane with fixed under-carriage and 660 h.p. Rolls Royce Goshawk engine. At this time 4 machine guns were considered adequate; but higher speeds reduced the time an enemy could be held in the pilot‘s gun sights and eventually plans were amended to accommodate 8 machine guns all mounted in the wings. The new Rolls Royce Merlin I was fitted and the aeroplane outstripped the original conception – it was no longer the Fury monoplane – the name Hurricane was chosen.
This finalised design was submitted to the Air Ministry in 1934, and in the following year a prototype was ordered to Specification F.36/34, and the Air Ministry asked for an armament of no less than eight machine-guns.
In 1934, the monoplane layout was still very new for combat aircraft and thick airfoils for monoplanes were much in vogue for structural rea-sons, if nothing else. Hurricane designer Sir Sydney Camm seemed to have had misgivings from the start. “When its design had gone beyond the point of no return,” he once admitted, “I had a sudden foreboding that it would be no good. Strength had to be an important factor in this ship, but I always wished that the wing had been thinner. If we had had more time, the Hurricane would have been the greatest aircraft of all time.” But if Hawker hadn’t frozen the design and gone ahead with mass production when it did, even without an official order. It was Hawker’s gamble in laying down a production line of 1,000 Hurricanes before the Air Ministry ordered such a vast quantity was available the Battle of Britain.
The Hawker engineer Frank Murdoch was responsible for getting the Hurricane into production in sufficient numbers before the outbreak of the war, after an eye-opening visit to the MAN diesel plant in Augsburg in 1936.
The prototype Hurricane K5083 flew on November 6, 1935 at Brooklands, piloted by Hawker’s chief test pilot, Flt.-Lt. “George” Bulman and powered by a 767kW Merlin ‘C’ engine. On landing he reported that it handled perfectly and was free from vices. Even at this date the retractable undercarriage was considered by many an extravagant novelty.
Hurricane prototype K5083 in early 1936
Advanced features such as an enclosed cockpit and retractable undercarriage were combined with traditional methods of construction using a tubular metal structure and fabric covering, meant that the Hurricane could be easily and rapidly produced in existing facilities.
In February 1936, the prototype Hurricane (as yet un-named), powered by an early Merlin C producing 990 hp and driving a Watts fixed-pitch two-bladed wooden propeller, was tested at the Aircraft and Armament Experimental Establishment at Martlesham Heath, giving service pilots their first opportunity to experience the performance.
Convinced that the RAF would buy the new fighter the Hawker company decided, in March 1936, to proceed with the production drawings and to make plans for large scale production. Three months later the Air Ministry confirmed that 600 Hurricanes were to be included in its expansion Plan F (which also provided for 300 Spitfires) to be delivered by March 1939. The target was missed by six months. There had been a succession of relatively minor but time-consuming problems with prototype development, especially related to the Merlin, and the early intention to fit the Merlin F (Mk.1) in the production Hurricane was changed to make use of the improved Merlin G (Mk.II), which required a redesign of the installation and the front fuselage profile before production could begin. The cockpit canopy also produced problems with five failures recorded on the prototype before a satisfactory design was evolved.
Convinced that the RAF would buy the new fighter the Hawker company decided, in March 1936, to proceed with the production drawings and to make plans for large scale production. Three months later the Air Ministry confirmed that 600 Hurricanes were to be included in its expansion Plan F (which also provided for 300 Spitfires) to be delivered by March 1939. The target was missed by six months. There had been a succession of relatively minor but time-consuming problems with prototype development, especially related to the Merlin, and the early intention to fit the Merlin F (Mk.1) in the production Hurricane was changed to make use of the improved Merlin G (Mk.II), which required a redesign of the installation and the front fuselage profile before production could begin. The cockpit canopy also produced problems with five failures recorded on the prototype before a satisfactory design was evolved.
The first production Hurricane I, LIS47, flew at Brooklands on October 12, 1937, fitted with an early example of the Merlin II and at a weight of 5459 lb (2476 kg), a contract for 600 having been placed in June 1936. This was increased to 1000 in November 1938.
The second aircraft was in the air on 18 October, and production deliveries then built up rapidly. Meanwhile, during 1936, the prototype had been fitted with the planned armament of eight Browning machine guns and first firing trials had been made. Design of a metal-covered wings was in hand, but to avoid production delays the Hurricane I retained the fabric-covered wing, in which the guns were grouped in two quartets, positioned to fire just outside the propeller disc and requiring no synchronisation gear. Each gun was provided with 300 rounds, and the two batteries were harmonised to converge at 650 yards (594m), although with experience this distance was to be reduced eventually to 200 yards (183m).
Hawker Hurricane Mk 1
Although of cantilever monoplane configuration, its construction was typical of the Fury from which it stemmed, and even its wings were fabric-covered in early Mk Is, with a metal leading edge and trailing-edge flaps. The tailwheel-type landing gear had hydraulically retractable main units of wide track. Armament of production Mk Is comprised four 7.7mm Browning machine-guns in each wing, making this the RAF’s first eight-gun fighter. Designated the Hurricane I, it was outfitted with a Rolls-Royce Merlin II or III engine, fabric-covered wings, and a wooden prop. It lacked armor and selfsealing fuel tanks.
In Yugoslav, Ikarus and Zmaj shared the order for the production of Hurricane MK1.
A second major version of the Hurricane made its first flight on 11 June 1940 and, as the Hurricane IIA powered by a Merlin XX, would begin to reach the Squadrons on 4 September 1940. Improvements included wing alterations for increased armament, redesigned engine mount, strengthened fuselage, and tanks protected with self-sealing rubber.
The Hurricane I was improved with an armoured bulkhead introduced forward of the cockpit and, when Hawker Aircraft’s second production batch began leaving the assembly line in September 1939, a bullet-proof windscreen had been standardised. This batch also adopted the Merlin III which features a shaft capable of taking either Rotol or de Havilland three-bladed constant speed propeller. While some Hurricanes were produced during 1939 with the DH two-position propeller, a major conversion programme was started on 24 June 1940 to fit the Rotol constant speed unit which allowed the pilot to select optimum power for the various stage of flight. Significantly improving the Hurricane I’s climb performance, Rotol propellers had been fitted to all Hurricanes by mid-August 1940. With the 81th Hurricane of the second batch, the fabric covered wing gave place to an all metal stressed skin wing and, on 2 February 1940 the first Hurricane with rear armour protection for the pilot was flown.
By the end of 1939, the RAF had received more than 600 Hurricane Is and production was at a rate of 100 a month. Gloster began Hurricane production flying its first Hurricane I at Hucclecote on 20 October 1939.
No.111 Sqn RAF August 1938
By December 1937 No. 111 Squadron at Northolt was beginning to re-equip with the type, and were fully equipped by February 1938. Early in the new year made front page news when S/Ldr. J. W. Gillan, Officer Commanding lll Sqn., flew from Edinburgh to Northolt (assisted by a tail wind) at an average speed of 408 m.p.h.
By July 1939, twelve regular squadrons were flying the Hurricane I, to be followed by six Auxiliary Air Force squadrons. By the outbreak of war in 1939, 500 Hurricanes had been delivered and by August 7, 1940, when the Battle or Britain started, there were 32 Hurricane squadrons as against 19 Spitfire squadrons. By that time, the Hurricane had already been in action in France, Norway and Malta. At the outbreak of war in September, 1939, the Royal Air Force returned to France equipped with Hurricanes. Before this, Hurricanes of No. 46 Sqn. took part in the fighting in Norway, brought into action by the aircraft carrier “Glorious”. When the order came to evacuate, the Squadron flew all its Hurricanes on to the “Glorious” without arrestor gear rather than resort to destroying them, but this effort was in vain when the carrier was subsequently sunk. Similarly, Hurricanes flown from H.M.S. Argus reinforced the Gladiators in the Battle of Malta. In the Battle of Britain, the Hurricane bore the brunt of the fighting.
Hurricanes downed more enemy aircraft than did the Spits in the Battle, and the highest-scoring RAF pilot in the Battle, a Polish sergeant named Josef Frantitek (with a score of 17, all in a single month) flew Hurricanes.
One of the significant statistics of the Hurricane’s contribution to this hard-fought battle was the fact that these aircraft destroyed more enemy aircraft than the combined total of all other defence systems, air or ground. Even that factor must be equated with the information that at the beginning of the battle (on 8 August 1940) approximately 65% more Hurricanes than Spitfires (2,309 to 1,400) had been delivered to the RAF’s Fighter Command.
After the Russian invasion of Finland in 1940, slowly reinforcements began to arrive for the Finnish air force. The first to come were 5 Gloster Gladiators, 12 Hurricanes, 17 Lysanders and 24 Blenheims, all from Britain. After that, 76 Morane-Saulnier and Koolhoven F.K. fighters arrived from France. Italy sent 17 Fiat fighters, Sweden 12 Gloster Gladiators, and the USA 44 Brewster Buffalo, of which however only 5 reached Finland in time. Even the Union of South Africa sent 25 Gloster Gladiators. Pilots and ground personnel from a number of countries also volunteered to assist them.
After 1940, Hurricanes served largely in the Middle East and North Africa, with a distinctive sand filter under the nose to protect the Merlin’s innards. They were tried as night fighters over Britain after the Luftwaffe switched to night raids, but the night-fighting Hurricanes had generally poor success.
The aeroplane had now changed slightly from the early production mark, among other modifications, a 3-blade controllable pitch airscrew was fitted. A ventral fin faired the fixed tail wheel to improve handling qualities and metal had replaced fabric covering on the wings. Subsequent Hurricane versions included the Mk IIA with Merlin XX and eight guns; Mk IIB with 12 guns; and Mk IIC with four 20mm cannon. Mk IID with two 40mm Vickers ‘S’ guns and two 7.7mm guns (plus additional armour for low attack) were used extensively in the Western Desert. The final production version was the Mk IV with a wing able to accept armament comprising two Browning machine-guns plus two 40mm guns, or eight rocket projectiles, or two 110kg or 225kg bombs, or long-range fuel tanks. The Hurricane V (only two built) was powered by a Merlin 27 or 32 engine.
The Hurricane Mark II first flew on June 11th, 1940 with Merlin XX two-stage supercharged engine. A special set of mainplanes were made to accommodate the various armament. The Mk. IIA retained the eight Brownings. On the Mk. IIB these were increased to no less than 12 guns. Four 20 mm. Hispano cannons replaced the rifle-calibre guns on the IIC, and on the Mk. IID two 40 mm. Vickers cannon with two Brownings firing tracer ammunition for sighting. To increase the range, 90 gallon drop tanks were suspended below the wings on the IIC and armed with 4×20 mm. cannon the Hurricane a familiar sight with its Vokes sand filter during the North African campaign.
In August 1941 Great Britain decided to lend fighter plane support to Russia. British 151st Wing was set up in Leconfield near York, to train Soviet aircrews in the assembly, maintenance and operation of the fighters. Then Nos 81 and 134 Squadrons, comprising 39 Hurricane Mk.IIB, were shipped to the Soviet Union along with their pilots and ground personnel. The old British aircraft carrier Argus transported 24 of the Hurricanes, and the other 15 were packed and sent along on other vessels as deck cargo. The convey put to sea from Iceland on 21 August 1941 and docked at Murmansk on August 28. Here the 24 Hurricanes took off from Argus and landed at Viange airport about 15 miles away, which served 151st Wing as their main airbase during their stay in the Soviet Union.
On Sunday 3 August 1941, the first aerial victory won by a British Hurricane catapulted from a CAM ship took place when Lt. Robert Everet of 804 Sqn, based on the steamer Maplin, shot down a Focke-Wulf Fw 200C Condor of German 40 Sqn, 1st Bomber Wing in the North Atlantic. Instead of making a sea landing near his mother ship, the pilot decided to fly the 300 miles to Scotland, and landed there at Loch Earn.
CAM freighter carrying a Sea Hurricane
By 1942, most Hurricanes had been switched to ground attack, with a powerful variety of weapons: 12 Brownings; or four 20mm cannon that slowed you down by 30 mph when you fired them; or a pair of Brownings plus two 40mm cannon with just 20 armor-piercing rounds. Another variant was the “Hurribomber”, with racks for two 250-pounders, or even two 500-pounders, sometimes delivered by skip-bombing. Rocket rails were also commonly fitted. In the Far East, Burma and India, the Hurricane remained the principal British fighter opposing the Japanese right up to the war’s end. Some 3,000 Hurricanes (one in five of all built) were given to the Soviet Union, most shipped by convoy around the North Cape to Murmansk.
Hawker Hurricane MkII converted by the Soviets with a back seat and machine gun position.
After early experience of deck landing Hurricanes, an arrestor hook was fitted and in this form was known as the Sea Hurricane Mk. IB. Sea Hurricanes joined the Royal Navy in January 1941 and became the first carrier-based British single-seat monoplane fighter when taken to sea by HMS Furious in July 1941. Under the ‘Catfighter’ scheme, Sea Hurricane IA were equipped for catapult launch from the decks of CAM merchant ships (catapult-equipped merchantmen) to counter the threat posed by Germany’s Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condors, introduced in the spring in 1941. Only the Mk IA was specially built. The approximate figure of 800 Sea Hurricanes which entered service included 50 Mk IA and about 750 conversions of Mk II and Canadian-built aircraft.
These were 35 ordinary merchant ships that had been modified to carry a Hurricane on a rocket launch rig on the bow. These CAM ships, carrying ordinary cargo as well, accompanied the great convoys sailing from Britain to Russia and the Mediterranean, and from Canada to Britain. The Hurricats were assigned to convoy defense against the Luftwaffe’s Focke-Wulf Condor long-range, four-engine reconnaissance bombers, which were not only attacking convoys, but tracking them for U boats and other bomber units. If a Hurricat pilot was lucky, he could make it back to shore after launch and combat if not, he had to ditch (not recommended, since the Hurri-cane invariably turned over and sank) or else bail out over the convoy.
Apart from its role as a purely fighter aeroplane, the Hurricane served as a fighter bomber with two 250 lb. and later two 500 lb bombs below the wings. The aeroplane was also used for night fighting and pioneered the use of rocket projectiles until the advent of the Typhoon. In this guise it was known as the Mk. IV.
Mention must be made of at least one interesting experiment. A supplementary wing of identical shape and area was fitted to a standard Mk. I Hurricane to enable it to take off with a much greater load. This wing was released in flight. A long series of tests were conducted but the project did not proceed beyond the experimental stage. Another version of the Hurricane was equipped with floats.
During the Second World War Gloster built 2,750 Hurricanes and 3,330 Typhoons,
The Hurricane was eventually replaced on Hawker’s production lines by the Typhoon, the Tempest, the Fury and the Sea Fury.
Hurricane evolution effectively stopped at the Mark IV.
In November 1938, the Canadian Car and Foundry Company was awarded a contract to produce Hawker Hurricanes for the RAF at its Fort William plant. The initial order was for forty aircraft (P5170 to P5209) to Mk 1 specification with British made Rolls Royce Merlin III engines and eight .303 Browning machine guns. These models depended almost entirely on British materials such as steel tubing, aluminium sheeting and metal castings which were formed, pressed and machined at Fort William, since the Canadian aircraft industry did not at that time have the capability to produce these items from scratch.
With the outbreak of war, shipping delays and losses created problems with such a system and as late as 1941 shortages of imported British materials reduced production considerably. Mr G C Kemp, a foreman at that time, recollects that at one point a delay in the arrival of Merlin engines was overcome by flying as many as thirty Fairey Battles into Fort William, where the engines were removed and fitted into the Hurricanes. In time, with new Canadian sources of supply and the introduction of the Packard Merlin engine from the US, production rose to reach a peak of 700 aircraft in 1942. In all, between January 1940, when the prototype (P5170) flew, and June 1943, when the last Hurricane left the plant at Fort William, 1,451 aircraft of various marks were built, representing some 10% of all Hurricanes produced and almost half of Can Car’s total production during the war years.
The Hurricane 1 was in many ways a transitional design between the wood, metal and fabric biplanes of the 1920s and 1930s and the metal skinned monoplane fighters of the 1940s. It incorporated a metal frame with a combination of wooden fairing and fabric over the fuselage and fabric covering the wings. All of the CCF built Hurricanes however had aluminium covered wings and indeed, when Mr A D Norton, head of the Tool Design Section at Can Car, visited the Hawker works in England in 1939, he found the development of the metal skinned wings less advanced than at Fort William. Apart from that, the basic structure of the Hurricane changed little in its lifetime. Some were fitted to carry bombs, some had catapult fittings, others had arrester gear, some were tropicalised and at least two were fitted with skis by the RCAF. The normal elements used to differentiate the variants, however, were powerplant and armaments.
The initial order for forty machines was renewed and in total 160 Mk 1 aircraft were built in five different batches. Most of these seem to have been sent directly to Britain, where they were distributed as the need arose rather than being assigned by batch to any one squadron, this being made possible by the inter-changeability of components among British and Canadian-built aircraft. Twenty were delivered before the Battle of Britain and some of these participated in the fierce aerial fighting of August and September 1940.
The majority of the Hurricanes built by CCF at Fort William were Mk X or Mk XII variants, equivalent to the British built 1 and IIB, and amounting to 900 aircraft or 62% of the total. Both were equipped with Packard engines, the Merlin 28 in the case of the Mk X and the Merlin 29 in the Mk XII, while the latter carried twelve Brownings compared to the eight of the Mk X. Most of the Hurricane Xs were initially sent to Britain, but some were later tropicalised and used in India. After many requests, about thirty of these aircraft were also released for use by the RCAF in Canada.
Those sent to Britain seem to have been modified quite regularly as the Hurricane evolved into its intruder and ground attack role. Many with serial numbers between AM270 and AM369, for example, built as Mk Xs were later designated IIB or IIC, presumably because of changes in armaments and the addition of external bomb racks or fuel tanks rather than the wholesale replacement of the Packard Merlin with its Rolls Royce equivalent, although, of course, the latter may have applied in some cases also. With some, multiple conversions took place. Hurricane AM280, for example, started life as a Mk X but appears in late 1941 or early 1942 on the books of 1 Squadron as a Mk X converted to IIB configuration. Later in 1942 and 1943 it is referred to variously as a Mk X/11C with 534 Squadron and a “Mk X, modified with four cannon wings with 3 Squadron.
Unlike the Mk Xs, the Hurricane XII’s (RCAF 5376 to 5775) with their Merlin 29 engines and twelve Browning guns armament remained in Canada with the RCAF, flying defensive patrols along the east and west coasts, but without becoming involved in combat. This applies also to a batch of fifty Hurricane XIIAs, built as Sea Hurricanes for the Fleet Air Arm, but subsequently released for service with the RCAF. These aircraft were similar to the Mk XII in that they had Merlin 29 engines, but were fitted with eight gun Mk 1 or Mk X wings. The situation with the Mk XII variants is complicated by the fact that some of the later aircraft shipped to Britain without engines, instruments or armament were fitted with Merlin XX engines and either twelve Browning or four cannon wings and designated Mk 1IB/XII or IIC/XII although during construction in Canada they were nominally IIB or IIC. This applied to aircraft of the JS219 to JS468 batch which began to appear in Britian in 1942 to be used in intruder activities or as night fighters with the Turbinlite squadrons. Others of this group served with various squadrons in the Middle East and India.
The final four batches of Hurricanes (PJ660 to P.1695, PJ711 to PJ758, PJ779 to PJ813 and PJ842 to PJ872), built to Mk IIC specifications, were also intended for shipping to Britain for the fitting of engines, instruments and armament. Although some doubt has been expressed as to whether or not these were actually constructed, aircraft with serials from the second, third and fourth groups are recorded as serving in India in 1943 and 1944, flying escort to bombing raids or involved in low level fighter bomber activity over Burma.
Hurricane production continued until 1944. In all, Hawker produced 10,030, supplemented by 2750 from Gloster, and 1451 from Canada.
More than 4,000 Hurricanes were supplied to other air forces, including Belgium, Canada, Egypt, Eire, Finland, India, Persia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, South Africa, the Soviet Union, Turkey, and Yugoslavia.
Prototype Engine: 767kW Merlin ‘C’ Weight: 5672 lb / 2572 kg Speed: 315 mph / 506 kph at 16,200 ft / 4957 m with 6 lb/sq.in boost TO run: 800 ft / 245 m T/O speed: 81 mph / 130 kph Time to 15,000 ft / 4570 m: 5.7 min Time to 20,000 ft / 6100 m: 8.4 min Service ceiling: 34,500 ft / 10,515 m Est absolute ceiling: 35,400 ft / 10,800 m
Mk I Engine: Rolls-Royce Merlin II or III, 990-1030 hp Prop: Rotol 3 blade wood Length: 31.4 ft. (9.55 m) Height: 13 ft. 11 in Wing span: 40 ft. (12.2 m) Wing area: 257.5 sq. ft MAUW: 6600 lb Weight empty: 4,670 lb. (2,118 kg) Max speed 325 mph @ 20,000 ft Service ceiling 36000 feet. Initial climb rate 2,950 fpm Range: 460 miles (740 km) Armament: 8 x 7.7mm / 0.303in Browning machine-guns Bomb load: 1,000 lb. (450 kg) Crew: 1
Hurricane I Engine: Rolls-Royce Merlin II, 990hp Prop: 2 blade wood fixed pitch Wing span: 40 ft. (12.2 m) Wing area: 257.5 sq. ft Length: 31.4 ft. (9.55 m) Height: 13 ft. 11 in Weight empty: 4,732 lb. / 2,146 kg Normal loaded weight: 6056 lb / 2747 kg MTOW: 6202 lb / 2813 kg Fuel capacity: 97 ImpGal / 441 lt Range: 680 miles / 1094 km at 275 mph / 442 kph at 15,000 ft / 4575 m Endurance: 4.2 hr at econ cruise Econ cruise: 162 mph / 261 kph Max speed 312 mph / 502 kph @ 20,000 ft Time to 15,000 ft / 4575m: 7 min Service ceiling 33,000 ft / 10,058m TO to 50 ft / 15.2m norm wt: 1800 ft / 549 m TO to 50 ft / 15.2m max wt: 1890 ft / 576 m Armament: 8 x 7.7mm / 0.303in Browning machine-guns Crew: 1
Hurricane II Engine: One Rolls-Royce Merlin XX, 1,030 hp at sea level, 1,460 hp at 6,250ft in M gear and 1,435hp at 11,000ft in S gear. Propeller: Rotol three-bladed constant speed 11 ft 3 in diameter. Span, 12.2 m / 40 ft 0 in Length, 9.8 m / 32 ft 3 in Overall height, tail down, one blade vertical, 13 ft 3 in Wing area, 24.0 sq.m / 258.33 sq ft Weight empty: 4,670 lb. (2,118 kg). Max take-off weight: 3540 kg / 7804 lb Fuel capacity, 69 Imp gal in two wing tanks, 28 Imp gal in res fuselage tank, total 97 Imp gal. Optional fuel: two 45 Imp gal drop or 90 Imp gal fixed ferry tanks under wings. Max speed: 316 mph. (508 kph) Ceiling: 10850 m / 35600 ft Range w/max.fuel: 740 km / 460 miles Undercarriage track, 7 ft 10 in Aspect ratio, 62:1 Dihedral, 35 deg on outer wing panels Crew: 1. Armament: 4 x 20mm cannon. Bomb load: 1,000 lb. (450 kg)
Hurricane IIA Engine: Rolls-Royce Merlin XX, 1260 hp Time to 20,000 ft / 6095 m: 8.2 min Max speed: 342 mph / 550 kph at 22,000 ft / 6705 m Armament: 12 mg or 4 cannon
Mk IIB Engine: RR Merlin 25, 1280 hp. Wing Span: 40 ft Length: 32 ft 3 in Height: 13 ft 1 ft Tare weight, 5,467 lb Empty equipped weight, 6,266 lb Normal loaded weight, full armament and internal fuel, 7,233 lb. Max speed, 328 mph at 18,000 ft clean, 310mph with tropical filter Initial rate of climb, 2,950 ft/min clean, 2,800 ft/min with tropical filter Time to 15.000 ft, 55 min. to 25,000 ft, 95 min Service ceiling, 36,000 ft Range, 465 mls at 177 mph clean, 935 mls with two 45 Imp gal drop tanks, 436 mls clean with tropical filter. Armament: Twelve BSA-built Browning machine guns of 0.303-in calibre with a total of 3,988 rounds in 12 magazines (5,238 rounds in some aircraft). Provision for two 250-lb or 500-lb bombs.
Mk IIC Max speed, 327 mph at 18,000 ft clean, 301 mph with tropical filter Initial rate of climb, 2,750 ft/min clean, 2,400 ft/min with tropical filter Time to 15,000 ft, 6 min, to 25,000 ft, 10 min Service ceiling, 35,600 ft Range, 460 mls at 178mph clean, 920 mls with two 45 Imp gal drop tanks, 426 mls clean with tropical filter. Tare weight, 5,658 lb Empty equipped weight, 6,577 lb Normal loaded weight, full armament and internal fuel, 7,544 lb Max overload weight with drop tanks, 8,044 lb Armament: Four Hispano Mk I or Mk II cannon of 20-mm capacity with 90 rpg. Provision for two 250-lb or 500-lb bombs under wings.
Mk IID Armament: two 40mm Vickers ‘S’ guns and two 7.7mm guns
Mk IV Armament: two Browning machine-guns plus two 40mm guns, or eight rocket projectiles, or two 110kg or 225kg bombs, or long-range fuel tanks.
Hurricane V Engine: Merlin 27 or 32 engine. No built: 2
Sea Hurricane IA
Sea Hurricane Mk II C Engine: Rolls Royce Merlin XX, 1262 hp Length : 32.251 ft / 9.83 m Height: 13.091 ft / 3.99 m Wingspan: 39.993 ft / 12.19 m Wing area: 257.475 sq.ft / 23.92 sq.m Max take off weight: 8101.2 lb / 3674.0 kg Weight empty: 5880.7 lb / 2667.0 kg Max. speed: 297 kt / 550 km/h Cruising speed: 184 kt / 341 km/h Service ceiling: 35597 ft / 10850 m Cruising altitude: 20013 ft / 6100 m Wing load: 31.57 lb/sq.ft / 154.0 kg/sq.m Maximum range: 843 nm / 1561 km Range: 400 nm / 740 km Crew: 1 Armament: 4x 20mm MG
Canadian Car and Foundry Co Hurricane Mk 1 Engine: British made Rolls Royce Merlin III Armament: eight .303 Browning machine guns.
Canadian Car and Foundry Co Hurricane Mk X (British built Mk 1) Packard Merlin 28 Armament: 8 x Brownings
Canadian Car and Foundry Co Hurricane Mk XII ( British built Mk. IIB) Packard Merlin 29 Armament: 12 x Brownings
Canadian Car and Foundry Co Sea Hurricane XIIA Engine: Merlin 29 Armament: eight gun
All Aero 