Replies

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.

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.

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.

That's pretty much an apples-vs.-oranges comparison, and a pretty poor analogy even with reference to U.S. allied aircraft. A better pick would likely be to the much-debated merits of the U.S. P-51 fighter versus those of the chunkier but equally beloved P-47.

I've got stick time in neither the Spit nor the Hurry-box, but have known a couple of Brit airplane drivers, some with a definite preference for one or the other, and a couple who were quite happy with both. The one whose views I most respect was a Hurricane flew both and dismissed the differences as minimal, though the wise pilot took any slight advantage or edge he could get.

But there's no doubt that the number of roughly two Hurricanes for every Spit was a significant factor; on 08 August 1940, the RAF could call on 32 squadrons of Hurricanes and 19 of Spitfires. And the Hurricanes racked up far more enemy kills than the Spitfires accordingly.

Both were lovely and dependable aircraft that clearly reflected both the personalities of their designers and the ever-true industrial designer's creed: form follows function. I'd dearly love an hour or two in either; there's at least one two-seat Spitfire trainer still flying, and a few single-place versions of both.

They sound as pretty as they look as well.

Sorry for the lagging response, but I'm just catching up.

According to Len Deighton's book, "Fighter", the Hurricane did indeed have a tighter turning radius. That's because it had a slightly lower wing loading and a slightly better maximum lift coefficient due to a thicker wing section. Similarly, a P-40 had a tighter turning radius - at its best altitude - than a P-51 at its best altitude.

But that tighter turning radius cost in top speed. Taken to an extreme, this is similar to the fact a Cessna 150 can turn more tightly than an F-16 - because the C-150 is turning at 100mph (generating perhaps 1.5g), and the F-16 needs to be going almost 400 mph for it's best turn rate(at which point it is generating 9gs) or about 300 mph for it's tightest turn radius (less and it loses lift). At those conditions, the C-150 has a turn radius of 445 ft, while the F-16 has a turn radius of 1002 feet.

I guess I'll just point out an issue with the logic of your second statement. You said, "I suspect . . . " and then, "That should tell you which is the superior ship overall." Sorry, but all it does it tell us what you think would be the superior ship overall. I could (logically) say that, "I suspect that if all Britain's fighters had been Hurricanes the Battle of Britan would still have been won, while if they had all been Spitfires the outcome would not have been as certain." What conclusion can be drawn from my statement or from yours? Only that someone has the opinion that one or the other is better.

In point of fact, my own opinion is that either fighter would have been able to stop the Luftwaffe from keeping the Royal Navy out of the Channel to block an invasion, and that's what the Battle of Britain was really about. In the end, this would have been an attrition issue - would the Luftwaffe run out of planes before the Royal Navy (protected by fighters) ran out of ships? I think either the Hurricane or the Spitfire would have been up to this challenge - if Hitler ever tried to invade. In part, this is due to some of the other factors mentioned, notably that the Hurricanes were easier to repair (and to build in the first place) so that they'd have had a better chance at keeping an umbrella over the Royal Navy. And of course, the Royal Navy would have contributed to its own defense (though as was shown off Indonesia, dive bombers and torpedo planes can sink ships which do not have air cover, at least with the anti-aircraft armament contemporary in 1940).

On your last point - did you know that Curtiss did the preliminary design for what became the Mustang? The principal change was to put a laminar flow wing on what is - under the skin - largely a P-40. In fact, the original Mustang (A-36, and P-51A) had the same Allison engine as the contemporary P-40E Warhawk. And at low level, the P-40 is a better fighter. The P-40 (at low altitude) was faster than a Zero, and handled must better than a Mustang - allowing the P-40 pilot to get more performance from his plane without risk of catastrophic loss of control. The Merlin engine, and in particular the supercharger, allowed the Mustang to retain power to an altitude where it could take full advantage of its laminar flow wing for speed, but it always handled poorly (high stick forces and terrible stall characteristics) meaning it was a slasher not a dogfighter. (That's not exclusive, of course, and the P-51 is certainly maneuverable. However, on a relative basis, the sharp, unpredictable stall characteristics of the P-51's first generation laminar flow wing are a serious limit on its maneuverability relative to aircraft with a more tolerant wing section.)

In terms of 'contemporary' elements, the Hurricane and P-40 are essentially contemporaries in timing and performance, but the only real contemporary for the Spitfire in performance, among US planes, was probably the F6F Hellcat. By the time the USAAF had moved beyond the P-40, they were all about speed and range, not tight turning. So the P-47, P-38, and P-51 are all significantly faster than a Spitfire, with significantly longer range (much longer in the case of the Mustang), yet none were as good at close-in dogfighting.

Sources: Len Deighton's book "Fighter" as I mentioned, is my source for much of the information on the Spitfire and Hurricane. There is an article called, "Ending the Argument" in the Experimental Aircraft Association magazine from about 1985 that compared the Corsair, P-51, P-47, and F6F which talked about handling qualities and performance.

(PS. There's no doubt in my mind what aircraft I'd like to have flown. If I had my choice of any 'job' at any time it history, it would have been to fly a Spitfire in the Battle of Britain, even though over 90% of the pilots who flew Spitfires in the summer of 1940 did not survive the war, even if they made it past the 'Battle of Britain' itself.)