Posted on 01/26/2005 9:31:54 PM PST by SAMWolf
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are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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Although the relative merits of the two World War II aircraft continue to be debated, the dissimilar stablemates complemented one another in combat and together saved a country. Which is better, the Supermarine Spitfire or the Hawker Hurricane? That question has been asked by pilots, historians and air enthusiasts since 1940. It does not have a definitive answer, however, each aircraft had its strong points and its disadvantages. Although both aircraft played a decisive role in the Battle of Britain they could not have been more different from one another. Each was created under a completely different set of circumstances and came from totally different backgrounds and antecedents. The Spitfire owed its famous graceful lines and speed to its early ancestors, evolving as a fighter from a series of extremely successful racing seaplanes that were designed in the 1920s--and 1930s. All of those racers were built by the firm of Supermarine Ltd. and were designed by one man--Reginald J. Mitchell. The innovative Mitchell has been called one of the most brilliant designers Britain has ever produced. His designs really were ahead of their time. In 1925, when he began building racing airplanes, streamlining was considered more a theoretical exercise than an engineering possibility. But Mitchell made engineering theories more than just possibilities; he turned them into brilliant successes. Reginald J. Mitchell Mitchell's efforts at streamlining produced aircraft that were not only graceful but also among the fastest in the world. In 1927, his S.5 racer won the Schneider Trophy with a speed of 281.65 mph. Four years later, his elegant S.6B captured the Schneider Trophy outright for Britain with a speed of 340.08. Later, on September 29, 1931, his S.6B, fitted with a special "Sprint" engine with its horsepower upgraded to 2,550, pushed the world speed record to 407.5 mph. Supermarine S.5 During that time, Britain's Air Ministry began looking for a replacement for the Royal Air Force's (RAF) standard fighters, the Bristol Bulldog and Gloster Gladiator, both of which were biplanes. Knowing he had the experience and the reputation he acquired by designing his Schneider Trophy winners going for him, Mitchell decided to make a bid for the Air Ministry's contract to design this new fighter. The Supermarine firm had been taken over by the industrial giant Vickers by this time; the new corporation was known as Supermarine Aviation Works (Vickers) Ltd. Supermarine F.7/30 The first prototype of the aircraft that would become known as the Spitfire was an odd-looking affair. Officially designated the F.7/30, it was a gull-winged monoplane with an open cockpit and spatted undercarriage. It looked more like a German Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber than the Battle of Britain fighter. Mitchell was not satisfied with his F.7/30 for a number of reasons. For one thing, it was underpowered--its Rolls-Royce Goshawk II engine gave it a speed of only 238 mph. So he began to experiment. He added a larger engine, enclosed the cockpit, and gave his new fighter a retractable undercarriage with smaller, thinner wings. These thin, elliptically shaped wings would become the fighter's most recognizable feature. Mitchell continued to modify his design in 1933 and 1934. The larger engine he had in mind was supplied by Rolls-Royce--a new, 12-cylinder, liquid-cooled power plant called simply the PV-12. Rolls-Royce would rename this engine the Merlin--a name that would become legend among aircraft power plants. The new fighter, now designated the F.10/35, developed into a low-wing interceptor with retractable undercarriage, flaps, enclosed cockpit, and oxygen for the pilot. The Merlin engine promised to give it all the speed Mitchell wanted and the Air Ministry would require. For armament, he gave his fighter four wing-mounted .303-caliber machine guns. Air Vice Marshal Hugh "Stuffy" Dowding, Air Member for Supply and Research, had been in charge of the RAF's technical development since 1930. He was favorably impressed by Mitchell's F.10/35 except for one item-he wanted eight machine guns. Recent tests had shown that the minimum firepower needed to shoot down an enemy bomber was six or, preferably, eight guns, each capable of firing 1,000 rounds per minute. With that armament, it was estimated that a pilot would need only two seconds to destroy an enemy bomber in the air-the time during which a fighter pilot would be able to keep the enemy in his sights, it was thought. Dowding had the future in mind. He knew that the German Luftwaffe was expanding and that Adolf Hitler's ambition would probably lead to an armed conflict between Britain and Germany. His farsightedness would pay off eight years later, in 1940, when he was chief of RAF Fighter Command. Because of his aircraft's elliptical wings, Mitchell was able to fit four Browning .303 caliber machine guns into each wing without increasing drag or radically altering the design. With that armament, along with the RollsRoyce Merlin engine and the other features he had designed, Mitchell knew that his fighter would be a match for any aircraft the Luftwaffe might produce. Now all he had to do was convince the Air Ministry. Mitchell's fighter first took to the air on March 5, 1936. It had been given a name-the Spitfire-by Vickers and made official by the Air Ministry. (Mitchell himself did not like the name very much; he called it "a bloody silly name.") This Spitfire was flown by J. "Mutt" Summers, chief test pilot for Vickers and Supermarine, out of the Eastleigh airport in Hampshire. It was unarmed and fitted with a fixed-pitch wooden propeller. After landing from his test flight, Summers told his ground crew, "I don't want anything touched." Although some alterations would be made, he realized from just one flight that the Spitfire was an outstanding fighter. Following some persuasive arguments from Air Vice Marshal Dowding, the Air Ministry agreed with Summers' assessment. With a maximum speed of 342 mph, the plane was classed as the fastest military aircraft in the world. Less than three months after Summers' test flight, on June 3, 1936, a contract was placed with Supermarine for 300 Spitfires. Six hundred more were ordered the next year. By the time Britain went to war with Germany on September 3, 1939, the war that Air Vice Marshal Dowding had foreseen, 2,160 Spitfires were on order for the RAF. But R.J. Mitchell never lived to see the success of his creation. In 1937, at the age of 42, he died of cancer. Sir Sidney Camm Although the Spitfire was the product of one man's imagination, the Hawker Hurricane did not owe its origins to any single individual. It was the result of an evolutionary process that began with the fabric-covered biplanes of World War I. Revolutionary for its time-it was the RAF's first monoplane fighter and its first fighter to exceed 300 mph-the Hurricane was still a wood-and-fabric airplane. It was once referred to as "a halfway house between the old biplanes and the new Spitfires." Sidney Camm, Hawker Aircraft's chief designer, was the leading force behind the Hurricane's development. In the early 1930s, when the Air Ministry began looking to replace its biplanes with a more modem fighter, Camm already had a design for what he called his Fury monoplane, a modification of the graceful and highly maneuverable Fury biplane. The Fury was the direct descendant of Sopwith's Pup, Triplane, Camel, Dolphin and Snipe-fighters of World War I. Hawker Aircraft Ltd. had begun its life as Sopwith Ltd. RollsRoyce's PV-12 (Merlin) Apart from the fact that the Hurricane was a monoplane, its major differences from the Fury were its power plant and armament. The Fury was powered by the Rolls-Royce Kestrel, which gave it a maximum speed of 184 mph. But the Kestrel was much too small for the Hurricane. When Camm heard about RollsRoyce's PV-12 engine, the Merlin, he modified his new monoplane to accommodate it.
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The Spitfire's job was to engage the enemy's fighters, to draw the Messerschmitts away from the German bomber formations. Then, when the Bf-109s were out of position, the Hurricanes would attack the bombers. That was the plan, but it didn't always work out that way. Hurricane pilots found themselves fighting Messerschmitts as often as did the Spitfire pilots. German pilots had a great deal more respect for the Spitfire than for the Hurricane. The standard wisecrack among Luftwaffe fighter pilots was that the Hurricane was "a nice little plane to shoot down." But this could be attributed to Spitfire snobbery-no German fighter pilot wanted to admit that he had been badly shot up by a fighter made of fabric and wood. Some Spitfire pilots shared that bias in regard to the Hurricane. A former pilot of No. 65 Squadron admitted that he had become slightly partisan on the relative merits of the Hurricane and the Spitfire, and noted "I would not like to have been a Hurricane pilot in 1940 and greatly respect the courage and achievements of those who were." Among RAF pilots, the Spitfire-vs.-Hurricane controversy went on and on, with no quarter given by either side. And the argument was not always confined to the officers mess. Shortly before the Battle of Britain began, a practice air raid had been arranged between a Spitfire squadron and a Hurricane squadron. The Hurricanes were to make a mock bomb run over the Kenley airfield in Surrey. Number 64 Squadron was to send six Spitfires to intercept the incoming "bombers." It all looked like a nice, easy practice drill on paper, but whoever planned the exercise had not reckoned on the rivalry between Spitfire and Hurricane pilots. Each side thought its own airplane was the best. Now they had their golden opportunity to demonstrate which fighter really was superior, once and for all. The exercise began according to plan-the Spitfires patrolled above their aerodrome, and the Hurricanes showed up flying in bomber formation. But when the Spitfires dove to the attack, the plan quickly fell apart. When the Hurricane pilots saw their adversaries closing from behind, they broke formation and turned to meet their attackers--a highly unbomberlike maneuver! For the next several minutes, the two squadrons chased each other for miles in all directions. The strain of dogfighting quickly wore down the pilots' enthusiasm, and both squadrons landed after several minutes of wild aerobatics. Despite the great effort, however, nothing was accomplished by the little drill. Nobody's skills at breaking up bomber formations had improved, and neither side could brag about a clearcut victory over the other. But at least it had given the pilots something else to argue about. The pilot at the controls of either a Hurricane or Spitfire was not the most comfortable person in the world. Both machines may have had their good points and bad points, but no one ever praised either one for its comfort or luxury. According to Wing Commander Raymond Myles Beacham Duke-Woolley, who flew with the all-American Eagle Squadrons, a fighter pilot was a lonely man. The cockpit was so narrow that his shoulders brushed against the sides whenever he rubbernecked for enemy fighters (which was constantly); his flying helmet, with his radio headset, covered his ears; his nose and mouth were covered by an oxygen mask, which also contained his microphone. He could not hear very well-even the engine roar was muffled; his vision was severely restricted, and his entire body was boxed in by the confines of the cockpit. He was, in short, not only lonely but also extremely uncomfortable. The pilot's disposition was not improved by the fact that he was traveling at speeds in excess of 300 mph, and he felt even more anxious when a pilot in another machine-probably just as uncomfortable-began shooting at him. Die-hard defenders of the Hurricane are quick to comment that the Hawker aircraft is credited with shooting down more enemy aircraft than the Spitfire. The Air Ministry confirmed this with its statement, "The total number of enemy aircraft brought down by single-seater fighters was in the proportion of 3 by Hurricanes to 2 by Spitfires," and also noted, "the average proportion ... of serviceable [aircraft] each morning was approximately 63 percent Hurricanes and 37 percent Spitfires." A cynic might be tempted to say that the Hurricane did most of the work, but the Spitfire got most of the glory. And the cynics would have a point. For in spite of all the facts, it is the myth that is best remembered-the myth of the Spitfire taking on the air fleets of the Luftwaffe single-handedly. In their jubilee edition of The Battle of Britain, Richard Hough and Denis Richards give their own version of the Spitfire myth: "The Battle of Britain, despite Fighter Command's being down to its last few aircraft, was won by unfailingly cheerful young officers flying Spitfires ... and directed by "Stuffy" Dowding ...... The reason for the Hurricane's second-class status was that it was competing not with another fighter, but with a genuine legend. William Green wrote: "The Supermarine Spitfire was much more than just a highly successful fighter. It was the material symbol of final victory to the British people in their darkest hour, and was probably the only fighter of the Second World War to achieve legendary status." The fact that the Hurricane was responsible for more enemy aircraft destroyed is eclipsed by the Spitfire's graceful silhouette and romantic legend. Glamour usually outshines performance, in war as in love. Both aircraft were modified many times as the war progressed; they were given larger engines, more spacious cockpits, and 20mm cannons. Both also saw active service until World War II ended in August 1945. Although they served on other fronts from Malta to Singapore, they reached their pinnacle during the high summer of 1940, when the Spitfire and Hurricane joined forces to thwart the Luftwaffe over the green fields of southern England. In spite of their differences, both in origin and in performance, the two fighters became counterparts. Together, they turned the tide of history's first great air battle. |
Very interesting! Thanks for that...but this is the first time I've read anything that indicated the hurricane had a tighter turning radius than a Spitfire...
I suspect this to be the case: if all Britain's fighters had been Spitfires, the Battle of Britain would still have been one. If they had all been Hurricanes, the outcome would not have been as certain.
That should tell you which was the superior ship overall.
While I am not sure of the exact numbers, I like to think of the Hurricane as our P-40 Warhawk's contemporary (which served admirably in China with the Flying Tigers even though it was no match one-on-one with a Zero) and the Spit as the contemporary of our Mustang.
Sidney Camm, the guy who did the Hurricane, is the guy who did the Harrier. Harrier was his last production machine.
The period we are talking about is mighty important indeed. Hitler and Tojo could have won if England had made peace. And that was a very near thing, a nearer thing than the Battle of Britain.
John Lukacs has written well about the political events that kept England in the war in 1940. The first is "Five Days in London: May 1940":
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300084668/qid=1106818165/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8778441-5595267?v=glance&s=books
and "The Duel", that is, the duel between Hitler and Churchill:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300089163/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/002-8778441-5595267?v=glance&s=books&st=*
Good morning, snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.
It is a Freeper Foxhole Bump
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Read: Luke 9:18-26
If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. Luke 9:23
Bible In One Year: Job 38-42
In his book The Empty Church, historian Thomas C. Reeves says: "Christianity in modern America . . . tends to be easy, upbeat, convenient, and compatible. It does not require self-sacrifice, discipline, humility, an otherworldly outlook, a zeal for souls, a fear as well as love of God. There is little guilt and no punishment, and the payoff in heaven is virtually certain. What we now have might best be labeled 'Consumer Christianity.' The cost is low and customer satisfaction seems guaranteed."
If we were only customers of Almighty God, we could be selective in our faith and reject anything we didn't like. But that's not an idea we get from Jesus. He pointed us to a cross, not to a spiritual check-out counter. He said: "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it" (Luke 9:23-24). Christ died on a cross for our sins, not for our satisfaction. And He calls us to trust in Him, then follow Him with a life of self-denial.
In a world where the customer is always right, it takes radical obedience to God to keep from buying into "Consumer Christianity." David McCasland
1st pic of a Hurricane
and a Spitfire pic
Pics from Glenn Alderton at http://www.warbirdz.net/ stop by and take a look, maybe pick up a print to help 'em out.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Morning Feather. That's two in a row. :-)
Good Morning Snippy.
Morning Old_Mil.
Good comparision between the Brit and American planes.
Interesting that the Mustang only became the top performer it did after they put in the Merlin engine.
Morning DD.
Haven't seen a hydroplane race in years. Thanks for sharing the memories.
Morning Iris7.
The Germans came real close to defeating the RAF during the Battle of Britain. Too many mistakes by the Germans, the main one being, switching to the bombing of London and letting up on the airfields.
Morning Aeronaut.
I prefered the Hurricane, no logic to it, just think it looked better.
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