Hawker Hurricane

Sydney Camm's original plans submitted in response to the Air Ministry's specification were at first rejected (apparently "too orthodox," even for the Air Ministry).

Camm tore up the proposal and set about designing a fighter as a Hawker private venture.

With economy in mind, the Hurricane was designed using as many existing tools and jigs as possible (the aircraft was effectively a monoplane version of the successful Hawker Fury);
and it was these factors that were major contributors to the aircraft's success.

Early design stages of the "Fury Monoplane" incorporated a [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] engine, but this was replaced shortly after by the Merlin, and featured a retractable undercarriage.

The design came to be known as the "Interceptor Monoplane," and by May 1934, the plans had been completed in detail.

To test the new design, a one-tenth scale model was made and sent to the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] at [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

A series of wind tunnel tests confirmed the aerodynamic qualities of the design were in order, and by December
that year, a full size wooden mock-up of the aircraft had been created.

Construction of the first prototype, K5083, began in August 1935 incorporating the PV-12 Merlin engine.

The completed sections of the aircraft were taken to [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], where Hawkers had an assembly shed, and re-assembled on 23 October 1935.

Ground testing and taxi trials took place over the following two weeks, and on 6 November 1935,
the prototype took to the air for the first time,
at the hands of Hawker's chief test pilot, [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] (later [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]) [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

Flight Lieutenant Bulman was assisted by two other pilots in subsequent flight testing;
[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] flew some of the experimental test flights, while [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] conducted the firm's production flight trials.

Though faster and more advanced than the RAF's current front line biplane fighters, the Hurricane's design was already outdated when introduced.

It employed traditional Hawker construction techniques from previous biplane aircraft, with mechanically fastened, rather than welded joints.

It had a [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]-type fuselage of high-tensile steel tubes, over which sat frames and [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] that carried the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] covering.

An advantage conferred by the steel-tube structure was that cannon shells could pass right through the wood and fabric covering without exploding.

Even if one of the steel tubes were damaged the repair work required was relatively simple and could be done by the groundcrew at the airfield.

An all metal structure, as with the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], damaged by an exploding cannon shell required more specialised equipment to repair.

The old-fashioned structure also permitted the assembly of Hurricanes with relatively basic equipment under field conditions.

Crated Hurricanes were assembled in West Africa and flown across the Sahara to the Middle East theatre, and to save space, some Royal Navy aircraft carriers carried their reserve Sea Hurricanes dismantled into their major assemblies, which were slung up on the hangar bulkheads and deckhead for reassembly when needed.

Initially, the wing structure consisted of two steel spars, and was also fabric-covered.

Several fabric-wing Hurricanes were still in service during the Battle of Britain, although a good number had had their wings replaced during servicing or after repair.

Changing the wings only required three hours' work per aircraft.

An all-metal, stressed-skin wing of [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] (a DERD specification similar to AA2024) was introduced in April 1939
and was used for all of the later marks.

...............
" The metal skinned wings allowed a diving speed that was 80 mph [[130 km/h] higher than the fabric-covered ones.

They were very different in construction but were interchangeable with the fabric-covered wings, and one trials Hurricane, L1877, was even flown with a fabric-covered port wing and metal-covered starboard wing.

The great advantage of the metal-covered wings over the fabric ones was that the metal ones could carry far greater stress loads without needing so much structure beneath. "..................

One of Camm's priorities with the new fighter was to provide the pilot with good all round visibility.

To this end the cockpit was mounted reasonably high in the fuselage, creating a distinctive "hump-backed" silhouette.

Pilot access to the cockpit was aided by a retractable "[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]" mounted below the trailing edge of the port wing.

This was linked to a spring-loaded hinged flap which covered a handhold on the fuselage, just behind the cockpit.

When the flap was shut the footstep retracted into the fuselage.

In addition, both wingroots were coated with strips of non-slip material.

In contrast, the contemporary Spitfire used all-metal [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] construction and was thus both lighter and stronger, though less tolerant to bullet damage.

With its ease of maintenance, widely set landing gear and benign flying characteristics, the Hurricane remained in use in
theatres of operations where reliability, easy handling and a stable gun platform were more important than performance, typically in roles like ground attack.

One of the design requirements of the original specification was that the Hurricane, as well as the Spitfire, was also to be used as a night-fighter.

The Hurricane proved to be a relatively simple aircraft to fly at night and was to be instrumental in shooting down several German aircraft during the nocturnal hours.

From early 1941 the Hurricane would also be used as an "intruder" aircraft, patrolling German airfields in France
at night in an attempt to catch night bombers during takeoffs or landings.

Production


The Hurricane was ordered into production in June 1936, mainly due to its relatively simple construction and ease of manufacture.

As war was looking increasingly likely, and time was of the essence in providing the RAF with an effective fighter aircraft, it was unclear if the more advanced Spitfire would be able to enter production smoothly, while the Hurricane used well-understood manufacturing techniques.

This was true for service squadrons as well, who were experienced in working on and repairing aircraft whose construction employed the same principles as the Hurricane, and the simplicity of its design enabled the improvisation of some remarkable repairs in Squadron workshops.

The maiden flight of the first production aircraft, powered by a Merlin II engine, took place on 12 October 1937.

The first four aircraft to enter service with the RAF joined [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] at[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] the following December.

By the outbreak of the Second World War, nearly 500 Hurricanes had been produced, and had equipped 18 squadrons.

During 1940, [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], who was the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], established an organisation in which a number of manufacturers were seconded to repair and overhaul battle damaged Hurricanes.