11 Fatal Flaws That Almost Ended the Hawker Typhoon
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- čas přidán 13. 07. 2024
- It's painful when you finally accept that one of your favourite aircraft should have been stopped in the testing phase. Oh Hawker Typhoon, why were you so bad, and why did the British persist with you?
Here are at least 11 reasons why Hawkers and Sydney Camm should have focused on other projects, such as the Hawker Tempest, much earlier.
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⏱️ Timestamp:
0:00 Was the Typhoon really crap?
1:09 Reason 1
5:12 Reason 2
10:15 Reason 3
12:05 Reason 4
15:30 Reason 5
17:25 Reason 6
20:42 Reason 7
23:21 Reason 8
27:56 Reason 9
31:21 Reason 10
39:07 Reason 11
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#aviationhistory#history
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Your can I think of a miss identification of Aircraft, Always make Me think of WW-1 and with it's introduction The Fokker Eindecker being miss identified as a Morane- Saulnier, Allied pilots turned into a facing attack not knowing they were turning into a fighter that could fire through the propeller arc , with totally disastrous results, And the Fokker scourge was born , great vids by the way will buy you a pint when I get paid 👍
I think the Hawker typhoon was fine for what it was intended for but most of the flaws you mentioned were addressed.
Honestly it shows the arrogance of bureaucrat & those that think they know better then the men in the air.
Be it past or present political, military & design elite always think they now best 9 times out of 10.
I'm an Engineer & most people think I'm odd as I always ask my clients what they desire out of their commission at all stages of the product in question.
The user is most important as any product should be fit for use & all I am their for is to design & facilitate it's method of fabrication to keep down costs.
The amount of people are worked with these days that went several times over budget to only be laid off is astonishing.
I get the issue on occasion when I was working till my failed health that I was below budget so had to find a place to spend funds if only for aesthetics or the slightest performance improvements.
People say I build everything as if came out of bunker or looks like partly scrapable but at least it works & I don't over promise outlandish nonsense figures.
I tend to be slightly conservative in my estimations as I don't like to disappoint people.
People do dislike how like my father I purchase paint based on the value to gallon at the time as I see it as something to prevent rusting rather then appearance.
I still have 20 gallons of florescent paint from my grandfather he picked from the RAF but no one wants a car that glows in the night.
Paints paint in my eyes.
I have a habit of slapping old & new technologies together & most can't comprehend analogue & digital circuits worked into one system but if it keeps cost down then who cares.
i make products for the user & not the fella that technician that should learn the old & the new.
8
Clickbait title talking bollocks
@@pencilpauli9442The title is tad irrelevant to the topic now that you mention it.
Loved the video, loved all the questions it raised and the answers it offered. My English teacher, when I was a boy, was a Typhoon veteran - strict, stern but very caring. who only shared one story with us. A friend of his visited Normandy on holiday post war and was heavily stung for a contribution to the Church Tower Restoration fund in the village they stayed in. "Taffy" held his tongue, not admitting that his rockets knocked it down in the first place (he missed)!
It did skimp on what impact the Typhoon, for all its faults and over-hype, achieved though. From what I have seen and read, the fear of fighter-bomber attack in Normandy limited Axis movements to night-time, arguably a major factor in allowing the Falaise pocket to be closed successfully. That fear also limited the final Ardennes offensive (the Battle of the Bulge), which was triggered by bad weather and ended by good weather allowing fighter-bomber attack again. Psychology rather than destruction?
It's easy to criticise designs from that terrible period - they all had some shortcomings, whoever designed and built them. In a time where military hardware is developed over decades (M1 Abrams tank, Eurofighter Typhoon, F35 (!)) at enormous cost, and sadly with enormous mistakes still (Ajax AFVs), we have to look at the incredible pace of development then - from Hurricane to Typhoon in 6 years, to Tempest in 2 more, to (Sea) Fury in 2 more. If asked to develop fighting machines at that speed now, the blunders would be astronomical compared with then, I fear.
My great uncle, Will Kilpatrick flew these. He was the only RAF pilot to survive a tail off incident in flight! He also survived being shot down during the Falaise gap battle.
I’ve always thought it was interesting that Typhoons (of 174 and 198 Squadrons) were used to escort the Mosquitos in Operation Jericho. Given the fact that it was an operation conducted at very low level, the low altitude performance of the Typhoon may have been a deciding factor but it’s one of the few mentions the aircraft gets in terms of performing in a role roughly aligned with the original concept.
The tail falling off the Typhoon is regularly spoken about but they were pushing everything to the max at the time and didn’t have a true understanding of the issue until after the war.
It was a solid and capable aircraft when used to its strength, unfortunately it was rushed into service. I recall reading about a Tiffie pilot who transferred to a Spit and promptly ripped its wings off whilst doing manoeuvres, the spitfire had its own flaws which took even longer to rectify. 😮
True. I’m no expert but my understanding is that any aircraft can be torn apart if pushed beyond acceptable limits. Obviously there can be design and construction flaws that contribute though.
yet other airplanes flew even faster and their tails weren't falling off.
P-38, P-47, P-51, Mosquito, and more had no trouble keeping their tails.
@@SoloRenegade the issue was nothing to do with speed, it was due to a phenomenon called flutter which caused the aircraft to vibrate itself to pieces. It just happened to occur at higher speeds during dives
@@KrupiIX No it was not, there was resonance in the elevator mass balance mechanism.
@@SoloRenegade Why ignore the Spitfire and Tempest? Both better than those fighters mentioned above, in their roles. The Spitfire XIV more manoeuvrable, faster in speed and climb-rate than the P51.D. And the Tempest superior to them all at low/medium altitudes. The P38 was but an 'also ran' compared with those mentioned above.
The Tempest was what the Typhoon should have been all along.
Why stop there? Why not, "the Sea Fury was what the Tempest should have been all along"?
Tempest should really have been called Typhoon Mk2 but there were so many problems, it needed a huge redesign.
@@davidelliott5843 Tempest is a completely different from-the-ground-up design.
Well, to be more precise - it was the Fury.
@@HeavensGremlin I was talking the Sea Fury, specifically.
so no, I said Sea Fury, and I Meant Sea Fury.
There are many typhoons, many tempests, many Furys, many spitfires, many Wildcats, many Corsairs, many Mustangs, etc.
Yet I chose the Sea Fury for my comparison. you don't get a vote.
Yes, the Typhoon was rushed into service.
As the need was very great indeed, to combat the FW190 on low level tip-and-run raids on coastal towns.
It was also a new airframe mated to a new engine, so the combined teething troubles became very serious problems.
And the thick wing (let along the antiquated heavyweight tubular construction of the cockpit/wing roots/fuselage) seems inexplicable, even with just a plain common-sense approach, let alone aerodynamic studies.
But later in the war, the Sabre engine matured into a fine unit, with a remarkable 3000hp probably being available by the end of 1945, and even more later.
The Typhoon also matured, through the Tempest and then the Sea Fury, to become one of the finest fighters of the wartime period.
Surprised you didn’t mention Wingco Roland Beamont in this, who seems to have had a very big hand in saving the whole project from being scrapped?
I agree the Typhoon did find its niche. I suppose I was focusing on its first year of service most (it fits best with my premise to be honest), so that's why it's Dundas, Broadhurst and Richey heavy.
@@CalibanRising No you was not! You was too busy highlighting faults with the aircraft. You spent all of seconds on its successes. And what's with the slating the 4x20mm HS Cannons? What about its other armament of 8x60pdr rockets or 2,000lbs of bombs?
I may have an unhealthy obsession with that motor. I'm a bit of a petrol-head and the Napier Saber just hypnotizes me with its sheer, balls-out mad-scientist genius/madness.
It’s interesting what you said at the start about the plane having celebrity status. We must’ve grown up in very different worlds because I’ve always had the impression that it’s one of these forgotten about hidden gems. Everything was spitfire this, spitfire that, and occasionally there’d be a brave soul saying hurricanes outnumbered spitfires in the BoB. Only recently have I found out anything about it and most people seem to be trying to say that it wasn’t as bad as people think and shouldn’t descend into obscurity. Often there’s a comment about the car doors on the early versions and the dangers of starting the engine along with a mention of a lack of priority being given to development.
Funny. 🤔
Don’t worry, I’ll watch the rest of the video later once I get time.
Well he specified this was about battle of Normandy and ground attacks - and in that case yes, it's almost always Typhoons that are praised as "tank killers"
@@czwarty7878 despite little evidence to support them as tank killers. Chieftain did a detailed video on this.
@@SoloRenegade He was, in fairness, just as scathing about claims made for Thunderbolts vs tanks. His assessment was hugely convincing, wasn't it?
@@AndrewGivens it was based on data and german tankers accounts.
It’s easy to find fault with the Typhoon in retrospect. However at the time the Spitfire Mk V was being hacked down by FW-190s over the continent and Britain was unable to intercept tip and run raids over Britain.
While it was technically designed as an interceptor to replace the Hurricane, and came up short on high altitude performance by the time it was introduced, what was considered “high altitude” had also changed. People forget the Spitfire MKs I, II, and V were all powered by Merlin engines with single speed single stage superchargers that didn’t give them great performance above 20,000’ either. The two stage two speed supercharger delivering good performance over 20,000’ didn’t appear in a Spitfire until the Mk IX.
More to the point by the time it mattered, Britain was no longer being bombed by day by high altitude bombers but was instead subjected to tip and run raids by fast single engine fighters at low level. Aside from providing some escort for USAF day light bomber and interception of high altitude reconnaissance aircraft the major need wasn’t for high altitude interceptors, yet they get all the glory.
Typhoon was a superb low altitude fighter, the first to equal or surpass the Mustang II / P-51A at low level. It was exactly what the RAF needed as a low to medium altitude fighter.
By early 1944 when the need was attacking low level targets in preparation for D-Day the Typhoon equipped with bombs (Bombphoons) for dive bombing or rockets (Rockphoons) for low angle rocket attacks was both ideal and by that point developed enough to be quite reliable.
The follow on Tempest was itself still primarily a low level fighter with the Spitfire Mk XIV performing the high altitude fighter role.
the only country to develop high altitude long range interceptors in WW2 was the US, with the P-38, P-51, and P-47.
And the Allison Mustangs were superior at ground attack than the Typhoon and very reliable. Allison Mustangs were the fastest single engine fighters in Europe at low altitude, literally nothing could catch them. In the first 18months of service with the RAF performing ground attack missions, only 8 Mustangs were lost to enemy action. A-36 was beloved by its US pilots and served in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Alaska, and the South Pacific.
@@SoloRenegade Long range fighters were only wanted by the Americans so it is no surprise that no other countries made them. The discredited U.S. bomber mafia eventually came up with a fighter so overloaded and dangerously out of trim that it needed a safe environment until it burned off the weight of the destabilising fuel excess. The long range _modified_ P-51(B onwards) relied on costly air superiority provided by the crews of ordinary normal fighters during its mission’s outward leg.
Spitfires got extra internal wing and rear fuselage fuel tanks fitted during manufacture when the need arose so in a way it mirrored the P-51 development for a different reason, they needed extra fuel for the extra power lost driving the demanding second speed of the higher output two stage supercharger at very high altitude, for the vastly increased cruise consumption switching from a 27 to a 37 litre engine and from the need to consistently operate over the enemy’s territory ultimately leading to the multi fuel tanked wing of the photo reconnaissance planes that had the highest range of all the allied fighters. Spitfires also had the option of teardrop external drop tanks or conformal slipper tanks similar to what can be fitted to F-16s _but_ which could be jettisoned in flight.
@@SoloRenegade Beaufighter..... Clue is in the name.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 yet people claim the British wanted a high altitude interceptor, yet never built one, even when the US converted two spitfires in Ohio to long range high altitude escorts (1600mi range) and flew them to England. RAF didn't even care nor want them.
The P-51B was fine and had time to burn off fuel climbing over England and flying across the channel. If it wasn't working, they would have done something different.
Allison P-51s were doing recon over Berlin for the RAF in 1942. They didn't have fuselage tanks and such. The Allison engine was lighter, more powerful, more fuel efficient, and lower drag than the Merlin though.
@@tompiper9276 Beaufighter has nothing to do with anything I said.
It was not single engine. It was neither fast enough nor maneuverable enough to be an escort fighter, and it was not a high altitude long range escort plane, and nobody used it as such.
Those Tip & Run costal attackers (mainly Fw190's) got a nasty surprise when Typhoon squadrons moved down to the South Coast (RAF Westhampnet etc). Only a Tiffy could scramble, intercept and engage190's over the channel on their return leg home. I also read years ago that ground crews in an effort to get longevity out of the Sabre would wrap blankets around the engine cowling on returning air worthy Tiffy's in order to get a few more flying hours from them. 20 hours was considered a typical service life for the Sabre early on.
One funny thing I read regarding the Typhon deployment's to Westhampnet in the days leading up to and directly after D Day was that the locals would phone up to complain to the Station Commander about the noise the Typhons would make taking off....
Yup! They switched to night raids where the Mosquito night-fighters took care of them.
Typhoon had its issues, no doubt, but I still reckon that the Desperate Dan looks are brilliant. Looks the part from any angle, a proper bruiser😅
I think it's the second most gorgeous aircraft of WWII.
Out of 3,300 Typhoons built there were 25 tail failures, one or two of which landed safely. Operating at low level made it dangerous work as you couldn't get out. The aircraft itself was very effective. Armour was hard to hit, but supply trains a bit easier. Either way, it helped keep the Panzers heads down for sure, and that counted believe me.
what!😮I Must say! great video, and you have done certainly more research than I would ever achieve to do, great vid Caliban!
All this can be attributed to the madness of war, where everything had to be rushed through without proper testing. If we had not been at war the Typhoon would have had the gremlins ironed out over a period of years, which probably would have resulted in the Typhoon being developed into the Tempest before it went into service. There are similarities here with the Martin-Baker MB5, which also had multiple faults which took years to iron out. As for Sydney Camm, he was known for his acerbic wit.
"My bloody aeroplane is so fast you don't need to see behind you!" Sydney Camm. 😂
Don't forget that Fly For Your Life was written by Larry Forrester, not Stanford Tuck - so there's maybe a reason for the story about Deck being incorrect, the writer possibly either adding a bit of drama or not getting the details right.
The Napier Sabre lost a lot of it's problems with the movement of the production of the cylinder sleeves to the Bristol company ( who in turn had them made by English Electric of Lightning fame ) - Napier just couldn't mass produce them to the right tolerances, it needed a tricky centrifugal casting process. I'm not sure the Sabre as a concept was wise really, but it's difficult to explain to anyone who is familiar with modern engines what hassles valve gear longevity presented in high performance engines of the 30's and 40's - it must have been very tempting to employ a different design, like sleeve valves. In the end, the poppet valve, it's springs and the camshaft is still here but the sleeve valve was last used in the 50's ( in a Leyland bus or lorry engine I think ? )
Absolutely cracking video anyway.
The volumetric efficiency of the sleeve valve engine was far superior to poppet valve engines, so the ability to produce huge power was made a lot easier.
In "The Secret Horsepower Race" by Callum Douglas, he describes the development of the Sabre. Even though there was a war on Rolls Royce with their superchargers, and Bristol with there sleeve valve metallurgy were fiercely protective of the intellectual property, and would not share information with rival companies.
Bristol had spent the equivalent of hundreds of millions of pounds in modern terms on sleeve valve metallurgy, and wouldn't share this knowledge with Napier. The same with Rolls Royce and supercharging.
Even so, the Sabre got to over 3000bhp in production, with a poor supercharger, and no methanol or water injection. In late development, with methanol and water injection, it made over 5000bhp.
Like the Tiffy, it was rushed into service too soon, and got a bad reputation as a result.
But if the jet engine hadn't come along when it did, sleeve valve engines would have been the way forward.
I think you make a good point about Fly for your life. When I first read that line in my research I thought it was a mistake. After looking at the book again Forrester may have changed the name on purpose to protect Deck's identity.
By wars end the Napier Sabre was getting 4000hp Plus on the bench tests
@@somebloke13 Secret Horsepower Race is a brilliant book, my girlfriend bought me that for Xmas a year ago. Have you read the Rolls Royce Heritage book on the Crecy ? that's another excellent one.
If I am not mistaken the Bristol Beaufighter also had sleeve valve engine? And it did better then most people thought. I've read a lot of good things about the Beaurighter.
It was still a crude pre-war Bristol Blenheim bomber derived fat wing, miles behind the Mosquito. It was like a DH Hornet type derivation of the Bristol Beaufort bomber.
So did the Typhoon/Tempest descendent the Hawker Sea Fury. Its Bristol Centaur engine was the highest evolution of the sleeve-valve radial in the final evolution of the Tempest
The Beaufighter did indeed use Bristol Hercules engines which were sleeve valved, although when that engine was in short supply some were built with Merlin engines instead. The Hercules engine worked much better than the Merlin on both the Beaufighter and the Halifax.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 the beaufighter it was a decent nightfighter and anti ship aircraft before the mosquito was around(book nightfighter c.f rawsley)
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 Beautfighter is in the same league as an A-20 Havoc. Nothing special or noteworthy in flight performance, but with a large amount of firepower and air-to-surface capability, with easy in-flight handling. Not having many vices is as important as having many positive quirks.
After reading books by Roland Beamont, James Kyle, Norman Franks, David Ince and Desmond Scott I came to the conclusion that the plane was a bit of a pig. I especially remember how difficult they were to crash land and how initially the tail section had a nasty habit of falling off. No wonder Spitfire pilots didn't want to fly them.
I won't slang the plane off too much though out of respect for what the pilots achieved in these buckets, but given a choice between the P-47 and the Typhoon I would choose the P-47 every time.
The pilots were brave men and had huge ball in those days. God bless them.
Firing a salvo of eight 25 lb rockets from a Typhoon was sometimes compared to a broadside from a Royal Navy light cruiser. Sadly without any kind of accuracy, less range and also the chance of a wing or two to disappear. This aircraft looked like a big tough item but not a viable proposition.
What would have happened if all the time, money and lost pilots had been spent on more Spitfires and Mosquitos?
Incorrect : at Sea level it beat the Spitfire by 40 mph and funny that Beemont stayed with Hawker all the way through the war. And could have gone to a Spitfire Sqn.
@@philhawley1219 Go on here and see just how accurate the Typhoon was with rockets [It is hitting a train whilst it was going around a curve] And this was the plane that destroyed an Army Group at the Falaise gap It beat the P47 in the G/A role It could do 374mph at sea level faster than the P47, P51 and Spitfire. Hard to eat a plane that had 4 x cannon 8x rockets or 2000 lb bomb load
@@jacktattis although I admire your obvious admiration for the Typhoon, I can't agree with your arguments. Granted, the plane could do serious damage to the enemy, but unfortunately, it could also kill it's pilots. Just read the biographies. Speed isn't that important in ground attack, hence the A-10, but being rugged is. The P-47 was incredibly robust and with an air cooled engine could take serious abuse. I'm not saying the plane didn't do a great job, but that it took an unnecessary toll of its pilots.
@@jamesjefferies3762 aHMMM Some say 380 some say 1200 typhoons were lost from May 42 to May 45 .
Eric Brown Testing for Combat has 3200 P47 lost, 800 in the air and 2400 to other causes from April 43 to May 45. I do not fathom your maths
So for the Typhoon 3 years 1200 lost is 400 a year and then the P47 3 years for 3200 is 1066/ year No contest Typhoon wins by a fair margin.
I think you should have another look at just how good the Typhoon was in the G/A role
Imagine being a German army tank driver in Normandy. The fuel trucks and ammo trucks and trucks carrying your maintenance men were being destroyed by Typhoons and Thunderbolts. The Allies finally broke out of the beachhead after almost 3 months. These 2 aircraft helped win the war!
My late Father in Law was an Aircraftman during WWII, mostly working on Merlin engine, his opinion of what he called the Napier Sabre engine was low indeed, he talked about specialist's nicknamed by the "erks" Sabre Charlies, as I said he was less than impressed with the engine or the aircraft.. Really enjoying the content Cal 👍🇬🇧
Thanks David!
War is a horrible pile of ****, and bad mistakes are made all the time during any war. The pressures on those participating are huge. I wonder if all those people who use "hindsight" would have done if they were actually there at the time? The bravery of those who gave their lives is in a way soiled by this sort of speculation done from the comfort the very peace they gave their lives for.
My late father in law flew Typhoons with 11 Group and 2 TAF.
An entry in his log book mentions returning from a fighter sweep at 200 ft across the Channel with the engine coughing and spluttering all the way.
They were such brave men. 200 ft doesn't give you much time to react.
Great video, and kudos to you for your hard work and not just parroting old stuff.
I've read somewhere that 35-45% of all losses to all major WW2 combat planes were to non-combat causes. For the Soviets it was even worse, up to 60%! 15,000 young US pilots/aircrew were lost to accidents in mainland USA alone, even before they came anywhere near any combat zone! maybe an idea for an upcoming video?
My Great-grandfather flew from 1940- 1958 before becoming a commercial pilot, I remember him saying that in the Tempest he could never be certain of the gauges due to constant vibration, he had flown Hurricane then MK5 Spitfire, before a short period with Typhoons, then back to MK9 Spitfire before going on to Griffin Spits, his favourite plane was however the early Vampire Jets
interesting! Thank you. My father was on the drawing board at de Havillands from the war till 1957.
@@stevenr2463oh cool mine was an apprentice at de Havillands during the 50s at Hatfield, he mamaged to get a few flights in vampire
What a great video, so much info. I never knew what the actual issues were. thank you.
Being around the development of this plane for IL-2 Sturmovik, it's great to see the in-game footages of it you're using! Cheers!
You guys did a better job than Hawker. Try as I might, I could not snap the tail off for this video. Cheers!
Oh gawd! At 41:40 or so the commentary says the "bravery of the pilots can never be understated", you meant OVERstated. Bloody hell.
This is one of my pet peeves, it drives me mad when they do it on the news!
Ah, thanks for the correction. You know what I mean. Brave lads to a man
Thanks for putting this video together, really interesting detail having expanded on the major faults of the Typhoon and some others.
I've been following the you tube channel "Hawker Typhoon - Typhoon Legacy Co. Ltd." from Canada where they are pretty much building one from scratch.
It goes into great detail about the Typhoon's construction and how incredibly complex it is.
Typhoon was celebrated for finding new life after failure as a fighter. I’ve always bought into this ugly duckling story.
This new perspective changes everything for me.
Thank you.
Details never heard of. Interesting. Thank you.
Napier were investigated by the Security Services after RAF inspections post numerous Sabre failure discovered machining debris, piece of rag etc in various critical parts of the Sabres. They suspected that it was deliberate sabotage initially, but eventually put it down to lax working practices at the factory.
When Napier were having problems with the Sabre R/R suggested that it be scrapped and all the work turned over for Merlins. Lord Beaverbrook told R/R to shut up
From having the old Profile book on the aircraft I knew about all of its' issues, except for the exploding cannon.
The kindest thing that could be said was: "There's a war on..."...
Exploding Cannon this was NOT a new Cannon why would it explode.?
My late uncle Peter was a Typhoon pilot and flew combat missions for two squadrons of 2nd Tactical Air Force. He was shot down three times, once spending 56 days in occupied Holland in the care of the Dutch Resistance, who dressed him as an Irish priest to allow him to be moved about in daylight. According to the folks in Canada restoring Typhoon JP843 to airworthiness, the problem with the tail failures was solved by modifying the elevator mass balance system so that dangerous vibration levels (flutter) were avoided. I don't know how they intend to get around the problem of CO fumes in the cockpit. My uncle Peter's aircraft was damaged by flak in the summer of '44. He got back to his airfield in England but he couldn't get the landing gear down. He could have bailed out but he elected to try for a belly landing - a dangerous choice as the radiator/oil cooler tended to dig into the ground and flip the plane on its back. If that happened the pilot was trapped in the cockpit. What usually happened next was the Napier Sabre engine caught fire and a good few brave young men died in this way. The technique was to come in as hot as you dared, whack the nose down and break off the radiator/oil cooler. If it broke away then the plane would slide to a stop on its belly. Peter tried this but the radiator didn't break off and his plane flipped over. Then he got lucky - the engine didn't catch fire, and after a couple of minutes the crash team arrived, lifted up the tail and he fell out of the cockpit. Must have been longest two minutes of his life - trapped upside-down in his cockpit, smelling the petrol, hearing the 'ting, ting, ting' of a very hot engine... Later they found he had compression fractures of the vertebrae of his spine from his impact with the ground and he spent several weeks encased in plaster from shoulders to the waist. He started out in the Volunteer Reserve, left the RAF as Squadron Leader P J Spellman DFC. Shortly before he died in 2000 he visited the RAF Museum in Hendon where the only more or less complete Typhoon currently existing is on display.
What a very brave your Uncle was. Thank you for sharing part of his story.
Excellent presentation!
Glad you liked it!
My Uncle's brother was shot down in his Typhoon over France in '44. I'd always assumed it was the Wehrmacht's deadly AA that killed him, but after watching this video I'm not sure. Thanks?
👌😎👍Very cool and very nicely well executed and informatively explained and provided on everything about the Hawker Typhoon a job very greatly well done indeed Sir!.
Thanks for watching Steve, I appreciate it.
Glad you liked it!
Many years ago I had the honour of a long chat with an aged RAF ground crewman. He had a lot if experience on the Tiffy, engine fires, the cold-start issues, fire and such. He reconned quite a few pilots were terrified of the thing.
I enjoyed this breakdown that covered some less well-known problems in the early development of the Typhoon. Regarding doctrine and learning from history, after WW2, we (US) scrapped thousands of Hellcats and Thunderbolts, and sent the water-cooled Mustang to Korea in the ground attack role. Bad idea. Many pilots paid for this indiscretion. The radial planes were bigger, faster at low level, able to take much more damage from AAA, and carried a vastly greater war load than the P-51. I learned quite a bit about the Tornado, Tiffy and Tempest from William Green's book, 'Famous Fighters of WW2. Superb writer......I've had that book for nearly 40 years.
Camm had 2 regrets he mentioned and both were about using thick wings on the Hurricane and Typhoon. The thin elliptical wing on the Tempest (along with a strengthened fuselage) made all the difference. The CO problem was never really solved on the Tiffie or the Tempest. The Tiffie will always be remembered for the Falaise gap rout but the reality is that overclaiming (common in wartime) was hard at work there. Very few Panzers were killed by the RPs in that battle. Still, the ever-present Allied fighter bombers (Jabos) were repeatedly mentioned by German generals as a major reason for their untenable position and ultimate retreat to Germany after D-Day.
You did an excellent job ! 👍
Yes, all new airplanes have some teething problems to be fixed... but the Typhoon had too many very serious issues !
And in time of war, improvements have to come swiftly ! So I agree the project should have been put on the back burner while effort should have been put on other warbirds
From one Typhoon film maker to another you have done a superb job here 11/10 👍
Thank you very much!
🙂 A well deserved pint Sir, great work , excellent research through history into that tricky brutal machine the Typhoon , Gaz.
Thank you Gaz, I appreciate it mate!
@@CalibanRising You're welcome and do get in touch if you want to use my aviation animations within your content Phil ,it may help you out a bit too and also it could be some good exposure for my small channel. So perhaps we might all win :)
Cheers . This has cleared up a few questions I’d accumulated about the Tiffy.
Indeed - the tempest/fury sorted the bugs out, it was flawed - it still looks cool, but agree with your summary - I'll still build my 1/24 airfix kit though!!!
My brother is British and lives in America, he knew a lot of American veterans from WW2. He was always stopped and thanked when the veterans heard his accent as this aeroplane saved a lots of American lives in the "Mud Holes of Bastogne". My brother works in medicine but it always humbled him.
My Buddy's Uncle was a typhoon pilot and I asked if he was scared and he was a very hard man, and he said one had shell shock while taking off... Uncle was a thick (not fat) man I am surprised he fit in cockpit.
Uncle's Brother worked in an engine foundry and could stack engine blocks on shelves over his head ... When I say hard men, I mean it.
I have always considered the Hawker Typhoon as a prototype leading to the development of the Hawker Tempest. Personally, the Typhoon, was Britain’s hero against the V1 rockets. Its sturdy wing was use in tipping V1 rockets away from civilian targets.
Bravo on this presentation! Certainly, one of your best!! Thank you!! Tally - Ho!! 👍
Cheers CT!
Hawker Sea Fury too.
Good video really interesting,
Excellent, excellent video, really enjoyed it
My maths teacher in 80's Alan Smyth was an RAAF typhoon pilot in britain ww2. He stated hed seen more freinds die on the runway starting up than in combat.
I read that at least one Typhoon was lost per mission to non-combat related issues. Which tells you a lot.
@@CalibanRising yep iwasjust a 16 hear old kid when he talked about it. Ive never forgoten he retired in 1984 and i made him a revel 1:35 scale model. Researched his squadren codes but he flewlater modle tear drop canopy and only kits at the time were car door. The man cried as i gave it to him and the stories flowed. That war was a nightmare for these guys.
All these years later this man still influences me. One hell of a teacher and a man to aspire to be like. I wish i knew what happened to him but i never knew.
Brilliant video. Id love another comparing this to the chronology of the tempest. They look so similar but seem so different. Another person has said below, completely different design from the ground up, caught my interest!
Thanks for watching and great suggestion. I'll put it on my list!
Great vid, it never ceases to amaze how certain WW2 planes or tanks get put on a pedestal based on some action or actions they carried out. People gloss over the failings/issues in favour of a great story
I recommend the book The Day of the Typhoon. Written by someone who was there in Normandy in a Typhoon and flew over 70 missions at a critical time of WWII. It covers all the faults and fixes and what a 7 plus ton fighter bomber could do with cannons bombs and Rockets. You can then make your own conclusions. Enjoy.
@@anthonywilson4873 I'll look it up. Thanks!
Well written. Really enjoyed it.
An uncle of mine was on detachment to Hawker Langley from Boscombe Down as a Typhoon test pilot, he suffered oil pressure problems which resulted in a serious crash injuring his back, this more or less finished his active flying career
Brilliant video!!!
Yet some questions remain.
1.) if FW190 bomb-carrying intruders were rarely shot down by Typhoons, , why is it then that the Luftwaffe stopped doing so?
2.) the thick wing should have been high-lift, so why was Typhoon climb performance so mediocre?
3.) the thick wing of the typhoon leading to compressibility is quite logical, but according to Greg's airplanes the Typhoon had quite a high max. Mach number in a dive
Thanks for watching.
Those are really interesting questions. For #2 and #3, I'd defer to the experts on that. All I might say is Greg's data may be from later Typhoons when some of the earlier issues were remedied.
I've not really thought about your first question before. looking at Dr Alfred Price' data book, those fighter-bomber units were always a smaller proportion of the overall fighter force. My gut feeling is that by '43/'44 these aircraft were needed on other fronts. I'll certainly research it more, thanks.
Roland Beaumont was very important in both the Typhoon and Tempest use and development . They persisted with the Typhoon because it was the only fast low level fighter available . The Mk Xii Spitfire was specially designed for the role even that had handling issues not least torque and the Griffon rotating in the opposite direction . I guess they needed the Spitfire airframes for other roles ; could not really do ground attack so well .
They persisted with the high altitude only (single stage very high geared single speed supercharger) Spitfire MkV for far too long.
it was a limited edition ( 100) vbased on MK v and viii airframes and like any major change of engine there was handling differences ; apparently used mainly by 2 sqds . to fight off FW 190 raiders . with some success . The mk vii using 2 stage merlins was the complete opposite altitude . just shows the versatlity of the Spitfire and why it dominated fighter production . @@paulhicks6667
For me - having the Whirlwind re-engined would have made more sense than flogging this horse. A twin engined ground attack aircraft would surely have been a belter. But I appreciate I am utterly ignoring resource management and using huge bundles of hindsight - just have a big soft spot for the poor whirlwind! I always think of it as a bit Richard lll - reliable horse power, my kingdom
For reliable horse power!
As a kid of the 1950s I well remember the airfix typhoon not the nice big 1/24 scale thing in the photo but the two Bob (10p) poly bag kit. We were also regaled with stories by our EX RAF Typhoon pilot Chemistry teacher who taught us a real respect and fear of Carbon Monoxide, he even told us the "gallows humour" song of about scraping up the remains of Typhoon pilots off the concrete runway with blood the constituency of Strawberry Jam, evidently prolonged exposure to CO causes a colour and texture change in the blood to the that of the favourite English compote.
As to needing to white paint spinner, nose markings and underwing stripes to Typhoon, to avoid being mistaken for FW 190. Other WW2 aircraft also had problems with mistaken ID P-51 had bright marking checker tails, Red tails, Tuskegee aircraft, Red spinners Yellow tails Checkers all to avoid been mistaken for BF 109. Same with P-47 with similar bright marking again most probably to avoid mistaking for Fw190 (although that doesn't say much for visual acuity). In fact both these types has meant an aftermarket decal production which has markedly uneffected by decline of plastic kit building in recent years. As to the Axis Both BF 109 and FW 190 also used distinctive colours Yellow and White rudders red and white fuselage bands, and complete yellow noses in Bf 109s. Of course the ultimate IFF markings are those on Swiss Bf 109s
A fascinating deep dive into the troubled development of both the typhoon and the tempest ,thanks for posting 😊
Pierre Closterman’s book pointed out that there was massive swing on take off. German flack did not promise a long life as a ground attacker.
Read the book Most Secret War by RV Jones. Just prior to D Day French resistance reported first had witness to at least two possibly three Typhons attacking a German radar station, that unbeknown to the RAF had been upgraded with a pair of 20cm flak positions. Both Typhoons got hit by flack during there initial attack, and loop back round and were then witnessed to deliberately crash into the radar installation.
Well done. Liked and shared.
Thanks for watching
An utterly fascinating video, total absorption.
Thanks for watching!
One of our neighbours was a Grenadier Guards NCO who lost an arm in 1944 at a rocket firing Typhoon demonstration which overshot into a crowd of watching soldiers.
They persisted because there was a need for the plane. The issue with the sleeve valves had little to do with design and a lot to do with manufacturing tolerance. When Bristol made the sleeves the problem ceased. Remember that Bristol's best WWII engines the Hercules and Centaurus were sleeve valve. Further, the Typhoon could well have been Griffon engined, but that was denied permission. One of my friend's father was an RAAF test pilot. He said the Tempest was so powerful it threatened to actually turn the plane around the prop if you hit the throttle too hard. Typhoon likewise. I don't think we can blame Camm for the faulty wing data. The Tempest certainly did fill the role.
the Typhoon was still a development aircraft that was pushed into service as a requirement of the war.
All of the development issues did get solved or mitigated, the typhoon was cancelled due to the "Jet Age"
On the subject of the poor rear view making it "crap" : Spitfire only got bubble canopy in 1945 but was always a good fighter, ME109 never got one and pretty good, neither did any of the well liked Italian fighters. Bubble canopy was certainly a great thing but not the deal breaker.
Hawker faced a challenge of a new engine and seeking performance way beyond that of its previous generations.
I think while all the critique here is right - it should be offset when really considering what happens when trying to take aircraft to new levels in the envelope.
I'd in put here, that for all the faults, the plane was key to the family line of what became - arguably - the finest piston engined planes (Fighters). That can't be done without the evolution/steps.
And those planes faced an almost equally rapid end as once again, aviation rapidly moved on.
It is worth noting - that when pushing the envelope - the Typhoon isn't alone in being dangerous. I may be off here, but if I remember correctly, the numbers of planes and pilots lost when flying the meteor were really quite staggering - and this too was done within the bounds of pushing the flying envelope.
Your case is strong and well-evidenced.
P-38s had a lot of problems as well. But many of their pilots loved them more than any other fighter, because of what they did well. I suspect its the same for the Typhoon. If nothing else, its a really beautiful aircraft.
I guess there's is no accounting for people's taste. I think the Typhoon is hideous, with that massive oil cooler cowl, and thick inelegant wing.
I've only ever flown combat aeroplanes in p.c games and it's true that aircraft recognition is very difficult at high speeds. By the time you figure out whether an aircraft is friend or foe they can be close enough to blow you out of the sky. The instinct is to fire first and ask questions later. There must have been many more 'friendly fire' incidents than realised or reported. I even read somewhere that Douglas Bader didn't collide with a Luftwaffe BF109 as stated, but was actually shot down in mistake by one of his own Spitfires, but they covered it up to save embarrassment all round.
The Typhoon had a very difficult genesis in wartime with a rush job to get a lot of individual engineering concepts 'off the ground & running', a key problem was the wing which used an aerofoil based upon older theories current before laminar flow was fully understood, the immensely powerful Napier Sabre was initially beset with teething problems & lacked adequate two stage supercharging for low & high altitude, the rear fuselage had an unanticipated weak point & finally exhaust gases leaked into the cockpit, these faults were ironed out over time so the the mark 5 with it's new wing was christened 'Tempest' to give the design a second chance.
I don't think the engine was air cooled (39 minutes in).
Pierre Klosterman wrote in "The Big Show" that Typhoon pilot's lungs suffered by constant oxygen use.
Their bravery...can never b OVERSTATED.....
Yep, that's what I'm saying. Just having a little fun with the passive voice in the syntax of sentence!
Agreed, it wasn't until the Tempest that a lot of its short comings were addressed.
iMy father, who was a WW2 officer in the US Navy, said that he was taught: "Single Radial Engine with Square wing tips is friendly, Single Radial Engine with Round wing tips was Japanese."
So, remembering that basically all British Anti-Aircraft gunners had gotten the idea that "Elliptical Wing tips is friendly, any other single engine fighter is Nazi!" You can understand why the Typhoon started to have those underwing strips!!!
Another splendid material, I must admit I never knew Typhoon was that flawed.
So very ,very interesting to me as l have a great interest in the Typhoon and Tempest, the men who flew them,legends every one . Still hope to see a Sabre engine flying, sound is awsome
Great content.
Gawd, that was exhausting! The Tiffy was a real killer. It sounds like pilots were sentenced to typhoon squadrons.
Another furphy flung about. It was no more dangerous than other G/A planes
@@jacktattis You mean aside from its tendency to lose its own tail, poison its own pilot and ground loop?
@@ThePhoenix198 That was fixed what was not fixed was the lousy turns of the P47 below 8000 ft
And the Typhoon never lost 2400 to accidents and other things and was in action 12 months before the P47
Pierre Clostermann loved flying his Typhoon and chaired an in service debate as to which was better, the Typhoon or the Spitfire.
Clostermann only flew the Typhoon in order to convert from the Spitfire to the Tempest. Re-reading his description seems to confirm that the aircraft was hard to handle in certain configurations. He did however seem to like the speed advantage over the Spit.
@CalibanRising Well done for going back to the source. I suppose the balancing arguments for the Typhoon were the rush to development, the arms race of speed in the sky and that death was an ever present threat, not just in battle, but in training and deployment. So much British hardware was beta tested in the field because of the necessities of war. It was the seedbed of the mighty Tempest as you rightly point out.
@@Gorbyrev And the debate you mentioned was between pilots as to which of the Spitfire XIV and Tempest was best.
@jameshenderson4876 If so I stand corrected. It is a long time since I read "The Big Show".
My late father; who was ex RAF (bomber command, flight engineer) always said that the mood amongst the conscripts (he was a volunteer) was that the Typhoon was a failure, yet the Tempest was the exact opposite; a BIG success. However he was not talking about the ground attack role of the Typhoon, where it appears now to be remembered with fondness. He appeared to be talking of the general services opinion of it's fighter capabilities?
The Typhoon is a classic cautionary tale of the problems of trying to rush a new design AND new technology with a steep learning curve into squadron service during a war. Having operational squadrons sort out the problems almost guarantees disaster. The development of the Napier Sabre PLUS sleeve valves was, in retrospect, a bridge too far, and the Bristol Centaurus was not much better, in trying to wring massive power with super critical precision technology required for sleeve valves. To say this production in the 40's under war time conditions was cutting edge is an understatement; it was on the ragged edge of feasible. One of the reasons Typhoons were withdrawn immediately at end of hostilities was the completely unacceptable reliability of those early marks of the Sabre engine. Although the wing thickness hindered maximum speed potential, that's not what limited climb/altitude performance. THAT was due to another compromise of having to expend all the design effort getting the sleeve valve H-engine design to work; insufficient design effort was detailed to adequate (2-stage) supercharging for that beast of an engine.
With hindsight, everyone would have been better off had they used a more traditional type of design, and a radial.
Others were not immune to make these kinds of poor wartime choices. We wonder at the foolish decisions made with the Me-210 and He-177, and, yet, here we are, having to admit the same results of too many Typhoons falling out of the skies, and too few enemy losses to justify this.
One VERY positive Typhoon upside: all this Typhoon developmental malaise was completely lost on the Germans in Normandy, who viewed them as a monumental scourge.
Harry Ricardo is considered the top engine designer and developer of his time. However he was incredibly keen on sleeve valves. These never worked well and added enormous complexity to already complex machines.
mustangs were mistaken for Me109s and P47s for Fw190s so it was always a problem for high speed combat . still you have mentioned most of the issues .
A few years ago I chatted to a ground crewman. He worked on Typhoons and talked about the many issues. Difficulties on starting and fires being one which terrified pilots.
Remember the oxygen enrichment in the cockpit from the pilot breathing out almost pure oxygen. Any spread of flame into the cockpit would be far more dangerous, remember Chuck Yeager almost burned to death by his rocket F-104 ejection with his oxygen feeding helmet catching fire! (He had a bad separation from his seat). Oxygen tent hospital patients sneaking a cigarette only ever did it once🔥
Great work. Many thanks for the video.
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Interesting thought crossed my mind, thinking about that awesome four-cannon armament and what the Tiffy ended up doing (ground attack):
It only had the cannon for guns.
I don't think that only created issues with the ammunition load-out being so limited per gun, but I suspect it might have created issues for the pilots of squadrons which trained in and flew with rockets for the ground-attack mission. Why do I say this?
Recently looking into the missions flown by combined forces of Coastal Command Beauforts and Beaufighters (later on mixed forces of 'Torbeaus' and 'Rockbeaus'), it seems the Beaufighter was well-suited to carrying and using rockets - because it had a mixed gun armament.
The .303 machine-guns turned out to be quite well harmonised with the rocket projectiles, when used in the standard shallow diving attack profile against a target. So, Beaufighter pilots could get a good range to the target with the battery of MGs, loosing their rockets as soon as the tracer converged on the target. Their cannon, which were *also* always fired during the attack (for suppression of the target), did not function as ranging weapons, since they had different ballistic characteristics.
This was something which Coastal Command had worked out very thoroughly by 1944 - in fact, Bomber Command had been utilising ranging machine-guns in the wings of Blenheims and Beauforts since the start of the war for the expected low-level *bombing* attacks the types were supposed to carry out, so the use of ranging MGs was not new and had wider applications than just RPs.
But had *Fighter Command* been privy to this knowledge regarding RPs? And had they somehow figured out how to range in with RPs using Hispano cannon instead?
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It strikes me that the Typhoon pilot would have been at a huge disadvantage engaging ground targets with rockets (which seem, latterly, to be considered another of those overrated weapons of the post D-Day campaigns by many in the know).
I suspect the Tiffy was good fighter-bomber, when hauling and then dropping a pair of 1,000lb bombs, but was the rocket variant hampered by its gun fit? Would the rocket-firing Typhoon have been deadlier than modern research suggests it was, if it had been fitted with two cannon and two or four machine-guns for ranging?
All I can say for certain is this:
Whatever the truth of the RP-firing Tiffies over Normandy vs the mythical Tigers (and other, actual German AFVs it may have tried to attack), it was certainly a highly effective and deadly *anti-shipping* platform using RPs, as the destruction of three not insubstantial Halcyon-class minesweeping sloops in a single tragic attack proves:
Of four Halcyons (each 245ft long and over 800 tons of naval-standard build) in the force sweeping a minefield off Cap d'Antifer, accompanied by two trawlers, 'Britomart' & 'Hussar' were sunk outright and 'Salamander' so badly damaged she was written off. 'Jason' survived by establishing radio contact with command and having the friendly attack called off; too late for 86 sailors.
Just 16 Typhoons did this - the effect of a salvo of rockets was stated in the report to have been utterly & immediately devastating - far deadlier in this role surely than trying to nail individual small tanks with rockets over Falaise, on a per sortie basis.
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A rather controversial aeroplane on so many levels, then.
Not sure we can blame the aircraft for the 'blue on blue'.
@@ThePhoenix198 That's very true. But stuff still sticks, doesn't it?
Fact remains, rockets were great against big predictable targets like steamers and trains, but against point targets they were of little practical worth.
The Typhoon's aura of greatness is largely based on its use of RPs, so is very likely misplaced from the off.
Thanks for taking the time to read & reply, btw.
For the Typhoons problems , I would have it Every time as a Heavy Ground Attack Fighter , but the Car door was totally Daft.
Spot on. In normal circumstances the Typhoon would have been rejected out of hand. But Britain was not in "normal circumstances" so they had to do what they could with a rather dodgy design. In the end it found a useful niche - but at a cost.
When have there ever been 'normal circumstances'?
Maybe normal should have been replaced with ideal. I could go with 'peacetime' but history has shown that with no combat experiance some really dodgy designs were built. The main problems are time, money, leadership and politics. @@jimdavis8391
@@jimdavis8391 Well, I think a world war would constitute circumstances that were a bit out of the ordinary.
What cost ?go to the Typhoon page 670 Typhoons were lost to all reasons 2400 P47 were lost G/A and accidents only .
Good comment - this goes to what I've stated in online discussions several times; that the UK was forced to use a very complex supply of mismatched and multitudinous types of weaponry in the early to mid war period, with some types being utterly rubbish, some 'good enough' (often barely) and some outright winners. But, unlike the USA's fortunate industrial and strategic situation, the UK never had enough of the really good stuff to be able to just standardise on those.
The Typhoon would seem to be far from unique in this regard, therefore.
All the faults you mention where known and even so the plane was used. It was dam fast I suggest you read the day of the Typhoon it covers all of this. The tails section falling off on early marks was critical obviously, this was reinforced, wearing oxygen masks all the time sorted carbon monoxide poisoning. The Napier Sabre was sorted with help from Bristol and got reliable, build quality was also sorted as it went along. In cold weather the ground crew started it regularly and covered the engine with blankets. A lot of problems in France was due to no air filters and taking off from dust airfields. An Aircraft is only as good as it’s weapons. 4 x 20 mm cannons and 8 60Lb Rockets meant a huge punch. Read the book. It was the only aircraft at one point that could catch the FW 190. The cockpit was modified quickly and bubble canopy still used today developed. In short it was rushed in, it got sorted and was needed otherwise it would have been scrapped read the book. All the faults where worked out or overcome. Read Day of the Typhoon, written by a Pilot who was there. Cannons Bombs Rockets smashed places to pieces. At one point an over 400 strong German Armoured Column was taken out by Typhoons. It’s in the book well witnessed. The Tempest was what was eventually developed. The engine was hugely powerful and was only supplanted by Jets. They had one in a test cell at nearly 5000hp
Danke!
Thanks very much, I appreciate it!
When issues cropped up on early P-38s, I believe it was "Hap" Arnold that said, "I'd rather have a plane that goes like hell and has a few things wrong than a plane that won't go like hell and has a few things wrong with it."
My father's friend was a Flight Lieutenant with 197 squadron when part of 2nd TAF. He had plenty of praise for the Typhoon as they pursued the Germans across Europe. He got a DFC for his troubles. So yes, you are being a tad harsh.
I think this says a lot about how brave your friend's father was. Don't get me wrong, the Typhoon is a childhood favourtie of mine, but it took a lot of fixing in the field, something that other contemporary aircraft didn't have to undergo. The more I read about it, the more respect I have for people like your mate's dad.
Not having any experience or knowledge of the Typhoon I can only conclude that you are 100% correct in your research and evaluation of this aircraft, but, and there is always a but, in my personal opinion once the Typhoon got the “blown” or “bubble canopy” (however it is properly called) it looked like the beast it was supposed to be, it is in my top ten of WWII aircraft for its aesthetics, and it was included in my top ten for firepower, but for that to have stayed there she would have had to stop trying to kill pilots by blowing a wing off, and additionally would have needed to have a far better ammunition load.
I can understand the expediency of getting the Typhoon into service earlier to counter the FW-190 “nuisance” raids, I’m just not sure that the Air Ministry actually needed to bring them into service the amount of damage and casualties that the FW-190 in the fighter bomber role was surely not sufficient to take such a drastic measure as to bring into service an aircraft that was potentially lethal to our own pilots. I would have thought that deploying additional triple AAA units to the coastal areas most likely to be attacked would have been enough to deter the low flying FW’s, but as I don’t know anything about triple AAA and how effective it would have been I will defer to anyone who can clarify this point for me, thanks.
I was involved (many years ago now) with vibration analysis during my military service and, unfortunately, I was able to see the damage to structural components through vibration that was not a pretty sight, I can’t imagine how the engineers during WWII would have gone about isolating the source and rectifying vibration issues, I had some pretty good bits of kit that we plugged into our systems and then we flew a TestFlight to gather the vibration frequency, which system or structural components were causing it and which ones were affected by the vibrations, and in some cases the kit could tell us what to adjust to either eliminate or bring the vibration down to an acceptable level in an effort to make the aircraft fly more efficiently and not to jiggle the crews eyeballs 👁️ out of their sockets, however sometimes it was the way the aircraft was being flown that caused the issues, pilots thinking that flight parameters were for inexperienced pilots and not the old lags, but the old saying of “there are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots” fitted the situation very aptly.
Thanks for revealing to us the true “nature of the beast” and its very interesting and chequered history, I certainly learned a huge amount from this episode. Thanks again 😀👍🇬🇧🏴🇨🇦🇺🇦🇮🇱
This wonderful aircraft would be very useful, flying missions over the channel these days,rockets and all.
29:50 Fantastic graphics. They get better and better. Even the firing order of the engine cylinders is thrown in there.
Thanks the boys behind IL2 Great Battles!
I suspect that the elegance and brilliance to make a sleeve valve engine led to arrogance of a large number of people who had nothing to do with its invention. It is magical thinking that the coolness of it will cause an enemy to fall over backwards in its presence
Most revealing 👏👍👌
My father supervised the assembly of the first 80 production typhoons. Hawkers aerodrome had been bombed. So the air ministry got the job. There were fractures around the longerons around the tail, he resolved this initaly with a solid thick aluminium band around the rear fuselage about where the paint band was; later fish plates were placed around the longerons, just like theFw 190....then internal mass balances. One or two other things he told me; he loved Hawker fighters they were robust. OK, to sit back now, but there was then a war on, so they all had to work with what they had. Easy for some pundit who was probably not even a twinkle in his grandads eye to sit back today and throw expletives at our best efforts 82 years ago. They all knew [ pilots and engineers] that it was not perfect, but they had to find the faults and fix them even when they were fighting.
Well said!
Engine will pack up & kill me, fumes will kill me, tail breaking off will kill me. One stray bullet in rad will probably kill me. Bloody thing should have been called the hawker Australia