Hurricane at the IWM, Duxford

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I went to an excellent day long celebration of the Hurricane aeroplane at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford today.

Besides gathering together many of the few remaining airworthy Hurricanes in the country together (including the only Sea Hurricane) for a static display, there was talks on the aeroplane, how it came to be created, how it flew, the pilots who flew it and the theatres of war it was involved in.

Accounting for nearly two-thirds of the ‘kills’ in the Battle of Britain, it was dearly loved by those who flew the plane. The highlight of the day for me though was an excellent talk by a relative of James Nicolson, the only Battle of Britain pilot but, what is more, the only fighter command pilot to win a VC in the whole of WW2, an extraordinary thing given the number of fighter pilots that flew and the heroics many of them displayed. His was an incredible and poignant story, not just about him but the men he served with and his Yorkshire born wife, who he married in 1940 despite her being 14 years his senior, something that was far from usual in those days.

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The forerunners of what was to become the Hurricane:

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Despite the twin wings and tge non-retractable wheels, you can see certain similarities coming through.

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Excuse me Richard but isn’t pic number 6 is a Spit?
If not, it must be a very late version of the Hurricane and clearly influenced by the Spit.
 
It was indeed.

I was doing the uploading via snapshots on Tapatalk on my phone and tapped on the wrong small image.

They had the Spitfire in the same hall, just by way of comparison.
 
The largest number of airworthy Hurricanes together in the same place in the world and including the only two seater.
 
The largest number of airworthy Hurricanes together in the same place in the world and including the only two seater.

Indeed, it was that which prompted me to go and see them.

I asked a question about the twin-seater. This is a ‘modern’ conversation, used to take people up for a ‘Hurricane experience’.

The Hurricane (with a possible exception of one or two in the Iranian Air Force, which nobody is too sure about apparently) was - so they said - never made in a twin-seat configuration. There was no training version, nor one with any kind of navigator / observer.
 
I have always liked the Hurricane, ever since I was a small boy and being told at Farnborough by a Battle of Britain pilot, who worked with my father at Dunlop, that it was the better aeroplane. Less sexy but fast and could take punishment (with the exception of a fuel tank fire) with the tightest turning circle of all the planes in 1940. That it was ‘easy’ to repair was vital, the more ‘The Few’ were stretched.

It became outclassed in Europe but fought on in north Africa, ending up with a bigger engine and tank buster cannons, or in the Far East, with a modest bomb load of two bombs.
 
Is that hangar set aside for displays like this, do you know? It was empty when I visited in May last year.
 
Have to say, a Spitfire over a Hurricane for me every day.

Last time I was up at Duxford I got to sit in the pilot's seat of the Vulcan which was an unexpected thrill.
 
Had a couple of Airfix Hurricanes as a kid. Loved the dogfights in my bedroom :)
 
An old Zimbo mate once told me that Hurricanes were still being used by the Rhodesian Airforce for border patrols until the late 60s and possibly beyond. Probably quite a decent plane for that kind of task.

Not unrelated - I learned recently that Hurricanes and Spitfires had a vulnerability in dogfights because whilst the German fighters could dip their noses and arc forwards into a very steep dive, the British planes could not follow because the negative gravity created by such a manoeuvre starved their engines of fuel, risking stalling. To get around this, they developed the distinctive up-and-over roll as they broke formation, because the roll created the Gs needed for the fuelling to work even whilst the plane was rapidly descending.
 
An old Zimbo mate once told me that Hurricanes were still being used by the Rhodesian Airforce for border patrols until the late 60s and possibly beyond. Probably quite a decent plane for that kind of task.

Not unrelated - I learned recently that Hurricanes and Spitfires had a vulnerability in dogfights because whilst the German fighters could dip their noses and arc forwards into a very steep dive, the British planes could not follow because the negative gravity created by such a manoeuvre starved their engines of fuel, risking stalling. To get around this, they developed the distinctive up-and-over roll as they broke formation, because the roll created the Gs needed for the fuelling to work even whilst the plane was rapidly descending.

Solved by Miss Shilling, a former bike racer! https://www.damninteresting.com/how-miss-shillings-orifice-helped-win-the-war/

Interesting to note that the A&AEE boffins at Martlesham Heath (moved to Boscombe Down in 1939) evaluated both Spitfire and Hurricane before WW2 and recommended that all efforts be focussed on production of the Spitfire. A perfectly logical decision given the Spitfire's superiority on paper and it's handling qualities in the hands and feet of an experienced pilot. However, it would have been a catastrophic decision given that the Hurricane actually shot down more enemy aircraft in 1940, also its ease of maintenance and its very forgiving qualities for less experienced pilots.

Solutions on paper are not always right in practice!
 


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