Это видео недоступно.
Сожалеем об этом.
The Best WW2 Fighter That Never Saw Combat: de Havilland Hornet
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 16 авг 2024
- In this video, we talk about the de Havilland Hornet, a late-World War 2 twin-engine fighter from Great Britain that very well may have been the best fighter constructed during the war. We first go on a brief detour to Britain's battles in the Pacific War and talk about the Burma Campaign. We then go back to the Hornet and its predecessor, the de Havilland Mosquito. We compare and contrast the two designs - their performances, designs, construction processes, etc. - before looking at what the Hornet would be used for in Britain's battles against Imperial Japan.
We then talk about how its use in the war never came to fruition and what the plane ended up doing in the decade after the war, largely seeing use in training, air races, and record attempts. We also look at a carrier-based variant known as the Sea Hornet. We compare the Hornet to other famous and well-known fighters from the era, like the P-51D Mustang, P-80 Shooting Star, Me 262, and Do 335, and how I believe the Hornet stacks up. We end with the testimony of pilot Eric Brown and his feelings on the design.
I emailed the folks restoring that Hornet a few months ago and was told that there are a couple of P-40s ahead of it in the restoration queue, but it's still in the queue!
All the moulds exist for it. The Mosquito museum has them so no need for the extremely costly creation of new ones like for the Mosquito. I believe they are concrete production moulds not the wood ones used for the Mosquito rebuilds.
@@womble321
I saw them. They don't look in very good condition, but, obviously, I hope I'm wrong.
Great news!!
@@oxcart4172I've been told they are fit for use I gather the wood moulds don't survive unscathed either and need repair when used. But obviously I may be wrong. Let's hope
@@womble321
It would be great if I'm wrong! I can't wait to see that beauty in the air!
I lived a mile or so from a place called Salisbury Hall where the Mosquito - and probably the Hornet, were designed, about 5 miles or so from the De Havilland works in Hatfield, a wonderful elderly gentleman lived next door to me, he originally hailed from High Wycombe which was the centre of the furniture industry in the UK - he was drafted in to work on the Mosquito because of his word working-skills and had a fund of fascinating stories from the 1940's - primed with a beer in the pub over the road he could keep me entertained, and fascinated for hours.
If Eric Brown says it’s good, that’s good enough for me!!
Amen & Cheers! 🍻 ^v^
Such is the legend of Eric "Winkle" Brown !
By Jove, yes. At WORST an aircraft he liked could be a bit tricky for new pilots, and this one didn't sound like that!
@@AnimeSunglasses like landing a jet on carrier?
I was privileged to take John an ex test pilot for De Havilland for a drink in my local. He flew the Hornet, Mossies and the Vampire. A bloke with a huge personality endless charisma and a bloody good bloke. Sadly passing away a few years ago I still miss him.
Love the de Havilland designs. My grandfather worked on the mosquito. Helped design the gigs it was made in. Brilliant design Bureau and manufacturer. World beating stuff. ! 👊💛👍
The `Mossie` is MY favourite WWII Aircraft, and during a Career as a Courier Driver I was able to have a sneak peek in the Mosquito Museum (just outside N London, UK) along with my Mate Kevin `Chicken Legs` - must go back and have a Better look! Hopefully the NZ Restoration will allow us to enjoy the `Child of Mossie`.
@@moosifer3321 Hey Mossie, I am an American aviation lover, but I got to tell you I love the Mossie and now the Hornet, although the cockpit design of the Mossie is a bit better to look at. And I owned some years ago 3 Viscounts, as I remarked above, a fantastic airplane in so many ways.
A `Cousin` with Taste! Nothing came Close to the`Wooden Wonder`, pity it`s `Little Sister` never got the chance to Shine. Your own P48 was good, but even your own Pilots loved our Flying Marvel.@@larryweitzman5163
Although not a war bird, the DeHavilland Dragon Rapide is beautiful.
@@DonFahquidmi Interesting choice, but perhaps the most beautiful de Havilland was the DH.91 Albatross, it was fast and held several speed records, with inverted Gypsy V12 air cooled engines. It was of balsa plywood construction similar to the "Mossie." Only 7 built and they were all gone six years later by about 9/1943.
The Hornet did see limited ground attack combat during the Malayan Emergency, but just as with the Mosquito, humidity affected the glue joints and it had to be withdrawn.
The heat of the Pacific was a factor in the P-38 Lightnings. They cooked in those bubbles that couldn't be opened in flight. I would suspect that would be an issue with the P-51s as well as these well as the Mosquito and Hornet.
Very disappointing that the video didn't mention this.
These wooden aircraft had two layers of 1/16 inch spruce plywood sandwiching a 1/4 inch balsa wood core. All bonded with a resin glue. The only thing missing was a rubber vacuum bag to clamp everything while the glue cured. Nobody thought of that idea.
The performance is great enough on its own, but the *design and logistics* of the Mosquito are even more impressive.
Yes, his statement at 8:50 that the skin was mostly Balsa gives an incorrect image. I thought that they used some sort of urea formaldehyde glue similar to resorcinol and cured it in molds under pressure in an autoclave. That's mostly guesswork as a result of sailing some truly beautiful wooden monocoque racing dinghies, such as 14's and Firefly's made in Britain post war. I was told that they were formed and cured in an autoclave. I've always assumed they were surplus from Mosquito production.
I think this plane would have been a blast to fly as the dinghies were to race.
I worked in the De Havilland drawing office in 1954 and one of my instructors had worked on the Hornet. He said that the Aerodynamic Dept designed the engine cowlings without allowing for the engine mounting frame. when the drawing office wanted to increase its size for the mountings they were told that doing so would reduce the top speed and the aircraft would not meet specification. In the end they managed to devise a frame that fitted in, but made engine maintenance VERY difficult. Compare Hornet and Mosquito engine cowling shapes.
That’s interesting, I wish a Hornet survived to be included in the DeHavilland museum.
The Hornet was described as"Overpowered Perfection"by the legendary test pilot and WWII fighter pilot who still holds the record for the most carrier landings including the first landing of a twin engine aircraft, first landing of a turbo-prop aircraft and first landing of a jet aircraft on carriers and the likely never to be matched number of aircraft types flown at 487(with all marks of each type not counted so all the Spitfire types flown counting as one aircraft type)Eric Brown
Hornets were used in the Malaya campaign in the Ground attack role against Communist insurgents until replaced by Vampires - that were promptly replaced by DH 101 Venoms.
Vampires also had wood fuselages. Eventually they switched to metal due to not dealing well with the humidity and having ejector seats installed I think.
@@womble321 I thought DH 100 used the same composite aluminium /wood construction as the Hornet. but like the DH 101 (and probably the Hornet) they were too lightly built to take the 4 x 20mm 404 cannon as firing all four at once could bend the frame.
@@SCjunk A tall story. Do you have a source for this?
@@Slaktrax Yeah I do, a maternal in law was an RAF armourer at KL in the 1950s servicing DH 101 Venoms so hands on beats anything you have from Wokepedia. Just as I can tell you things about L7A1 (MAG 58) that don't appear in the written media -for example their propensity to have receiver rivet stretch and failure, but I'm sure you'll regard that as a TALL story too.
@@Slaktrax I read basically the same thing in a magazine when I was a kid. The Hornet was the subject of an article that mentioned its sole combat role being ground attack against insurgents in Malaysia.
It is also one of the best looking fighters ever.
No, mine is the Whirlwind
Hard to disagree with either of you, but I'd say the Whirlwind is more quirky looking.
GERMAN APPROACH: The Dornier Pfiel, a fighter with a flawed push/pull concept, tricky to fly when there's insufficient fuel to train pilots, can only use concrete runways after they've all been cratered, will take years to develop although it's needed next week, shares scarcely any components with other aircraft.
BRITISH APPROACH: Fit a single-seat cockpit to a Mosquito plus a thousand detail improvements. Proven concept. Easy for Mosquito pilots to transfer. Can be built by semiskilled workers on the existing Mosquito production line.
Yet there are numpties who claim German design was better than that of the western allies.
You may not know but last year I was told the Mosquito Museum has every mould for the Hornet and that they are available if anyone wants to build a flying example. He said at the time they were talking with people who may wish to do just that.
British Squadrons are just, 64 sqn or six one seven sqn "th" is not used. Lastly No1 is just No1.
Let's pray this time, they use gorilla glue!
One of the best tricks pilots did was to dive down to low level on one engine and then loop back to the same level then cut both engines and do it again, truly the best piston engine fighter ever.Great Britain for such a small country has been the leader in so many fields,its a tradgedy that our governments in recent years have failed us so badly.
Sadly we can really point the finger at Wilson and Healy and the USA for the full demise of the British air industry (TSR2). Britain was so far ahead with aircraft design. It never really recovered (military designs) after that. For a small nation and in such poor financial position (how they got it canned, IMF loan) We designed planes way better than the USA were doing. Reading and knowing now (kept secret for 30+ yrs) The fact the Vulcans scared the US govt so badly with the two skyshield exercises the RAF took part in. I personally wonder if they targetted TSR2 because if they couldn't stop the Vulcan's how would the get close to something that fast and that manoeuvrable carrying small tactical nukes?
@@19Graywulf Did the US threaten to declare war on Great Britain if the Brits continued developing military aircraft? Or, did the US threaten to assassinate British politicians? Just how did the Americans shutdown the British military aircraft industry?
Probably the bulk of the Sea Hornet's weight increase was strengthening it t absorb the shock of the tail hook pulling the plane to a stop AND something you didn't mention, although you had a photo showing it.... The wing folding mechanism! (and bracing the wing to greater strength since you no longer had a one piece spar!!)
The De Havilland DH88 Comet racer is an important plane in the lineage - built for the MacRobertson Air Race in 1934 from UK to Australia. A DH88 ‘Grosvenor House’ won the race.
I remember reading about the Hornet in an early copy of Flypast magazine. I used to live near to the Mosquito Museum in Hatfield; they have a few bits of a hornet there. I think they also have a concrete plug mould used to build the fuselage.
I watched an interview with "Winkle",talking about the Hornet and you could see the enthusiasm in his whole demeanour. An aircraft which was sold a bit short ,i think.Surely it could have found a niche somewhere.
Indeed, the uncharacteristically enthusiastic appraisal of the Hornet by Brown says it all. Brown was probably the most renowned test pilot of the era.
You forgot to mention that the port and starboard engines (and props) rotated in opposite directions, therefore eliminating torque reaction, which further enhanced its flying characteristics.
The Hornet was used for close air support during the Firedog campaign in Malaya.
Australia was no longer a British colony , and was self governed from Canberra . PNG was a territory of Australia . No British troops were stationed in Australia or fought in PNG .
The Mosquito Museum in Hertfordshire uk was planning to build one, remember seeing a part of the wing they had recovered, don’t know about any progress since as my visit was a decade ago. They do however have a slimline Merlin engine that was designed for the Hornet on display and the prototype Mossie has undergone a lot of maintenance since I was there and is back on display well worth a visit for anyone who hasn’t been there. It was also the design office for Neville Shute during the Airspeed days.
Great video, as always!
On the note of insects: In our garden, the hornets keep the wasps in check, we really like them. (Once I even watched a hornet take down a wasp mid-air!)
Superb video, thank you!!! It is most unusual when I learn this much about an airplane at one time. I would to have loved to have flown a Hornet, considering I have time in P-51 and T-28B two of the best handling aircraft. In GA aircraft and I flown most of them, the V35B Bonanza is the best or maybe the T-34 and/or 55 Baron. My transport category time is limited to the Vickers Viscount, Convair 440 and DC-7, all big, lumbering birds. The Brits built some great aircraft, including the three Viscounts I owned some years back. 100% dispatch reliability.
Had a great uncle. Front line RAF the whole of world war 2. A lot of time on mosquitoes. Top man.
Last I saw the NZ Sea Hornet project was still gathering parts. They still intend to go ahead I believe, but its going to take a long time. Will be worth the wait though!
Very informative & well delivered, thanks! Good to know more about how the Wooden Wonders were made. Mosquitos were also made in Australia by the CAC I think, parts of the fuselage were made in [a] piano factorie[s]. Canada would seem to have been the ideal country to build both, given their vast softwood resources , well-developed timber processing and aircraft industries, and closeness to Packard's Merlin manufacturing facility? I am sure I will be told that they did.
Wasps are actually members of the ant family. The Hornet was pretty cool, sad trade off later for the bizarre-looking Vampire.
It's more that ants are effectively wingless wasps, I thought.
I kept waiting, but you never covered the issue the Mosquito had and I would presume Hornet would have hand in the Pacific area. The British had issues with Glue joints, and fabric breaking down from the heat and humidity. Such that it was a serious issue for certain British aircraft to remain air worthy.
Fantastic plane ,a true classic de havilland ,
When I was a kid, we used to fly from Gatwick to Gibraltar for our holidays.
I believe this was back when Spain was being childish about airspace so the landings got quite hairy, but when you're 7 it's all very exciting.
Even now it's still a _very_ short runway with a very big rock in the way.
Monkeys are cool though.
And there's tunnels.
Secret Ones.
First time I ever heard of the plane but now I'm going to build a model of it. Absolutely lovely Aircraft
The Mosquito carried a B17 bomb load also.
I'm surprised that you omitted the one instance of combat that the Hornet did see--against Communist insurgents in Malaya in 1951 during the "Malayan Emergency".
485mph? Wow. I'd heard of this plane but did not know it was that fast.
From my Fathers reminiscings as an Inspector for DH at Hatfield during the War. The Hornet could have become operational earlier? However priority was still given to the Mosquito and people forget that basic various Moth aircraft still had to be produced for training and other purposes. As well as prioritising the development of Britains second operational jet, the DH100 Vampire. Although most of the Vampires production I believe was caried out at the Preston factory and not Hatfied?
If you want proof of the agility of this aircraft - check the pilots notes of the Sea Hornet F.20. A vertical roll is possible at a minimum entry speed of 350kts, which is actually the same as what is listed in the single engine Sea Fury manual. For a twin, that’s impressive.
Failing to compare the Hornet with the contemporary US Grumman Tigercat is a pointed deficiency of this video, as is the absence of both the Bristol Beaufighter and Brigand. Plus Hornets did see combat, ground attacking in Malaya.
Well! Why don't you put up the performance data for both Tigercat and Hornet? I think you will find that the Hornet was much the better performance.
Quickly becoming a fav channel, glad I subbed. Great presentation. Respect.
My apologies charles. Your narration is so consistent I thought it might computer generated. Your presentations are excellent.
Yellowjackets are another wasp that should help to alleviate your fears. They basically have the temperament and diet of flies. You'd have to be pretty mean to one to get it to sting you.
They know you're a big beast so if you slap them for getting in your face, they just feck off.
Alternately if you're very calm around them you can feed them and even pet them. (don't ask me why, I get bored sometimes)
Excellent video, just a shame the Hornet wasn't available earlier.
My friend's father was scheduled to fly Hornets in the Pacific 11:14 and he never got the chance he had finished with the racf in Europe and the war was over
Great fighter ..., as long as you could put up with the operational/maintenance fails associated with its construction ...
As usual, Rex's Hanger gives just enough technical detail and background to be of interest to a casual but interested viewer. Well done from a Canuck!
This isn’t Rex’s hangar…
👍Just to say thanks for the video. I think your voice and narration is perfectly fine.
It's A.I.
I love this plane. Imagine if things had gone on longer in Europe and these were battling against Dornier Do335s.
great content, narration, and info first time watching new sub
I don't remember you comparing the Hornet to the Beaufighter. That would seem like a natural comparison, to me. However, I am far from expert on the subject. I just liked the Beaufighter and I know it was loved and respected by many who flew it!
Other then that this is a good look at a rarely talked about airplane. Thank you for bringing it to the light of day for us all.
Peebles is a town around 15 miles north-west of my home, its the next town once you leave our "city limits" we're in Selkirk which is definately not a city, small town, the Oldest Royal Burgh in the Scottish Borders. The locals used to go on raiding parties too the next towns lol.
Have long been a fan of WW2 piston engined aircraft yet knew nothing of this model.
This article was both informative and interesting.
Well done and thanks for posting.
I just recently got so see my second flying mosquito down here in NZ, would be amazing to see a Hornet too.
My grandfather served in New Caledonia. He contracted malaria twice. The only combat he ever saw was flashes from over the horizon. So even though he contracted malaria twice, he had it pretty easy.
I wonder how the Hornet would have fared against the Mitsubishi Ki83, another potentially outstanding twin engine fighter.
I like the Grumman F7F Tigercat, but I rather would fly this as a fighterpilot on a mission.
What a masterpiece of British Aeronautical engineering brilliance. Beautiful to look at too.
One little problem, for me, it's Captain Eric Brown, not Mister. Although he spent most of his flying career as a Test Pilot, at Farnborough (pronounced Farnbra by the way), he started as a fighter pilot with the Fleet Air Arm, part of the Royal Navy, where he rose to the rank of Captain.
Also one of the most beautiful fighters, too, imho
Great vid - thanks. Never heard of the Hornet, only the Mosquito so this was interesting 👏
Is it just my imagination, that this aircraft was conceived early in the war [confirmed: autumn, 1941] but the Air Ministry did everything they possibly could to ensure it was stillborn? Bureaucracies kill, that is pretty much the best out-take from WW2. It would have been maintenance-heavy in the tropics.
Capt Eric Brown, noted test pilot and holder of most types flown in his logbook, considered the Hornet the best aircraft he had ever flown. Incidentally, the engines were counter-rotating; both engines turning the same direction, but one with a reversing gear in the reduction drive. Also, there is a UK group seeking to build a replica and are busily collecting parts and other data.
"...avoid it like the plague..."
Yeah, I think we're going to have to retire that euphemism, because it turns out people do **NOT**, in point of fact, avoid plagues.
The F7F Tigercat is on the phone, Sir.
but the phone is all the contact it can make due to being so much slower and heavier than the Hornet
That put a smile on my face. But after looking up the specs it still does not match the Hornet.
@@stevendonovan9762not on paper. But it was meant to be a "multirole" fighterbomber/reconplane with carrier landing capabilities. And a lot of combatrange to boot, consider it a naval latemodel P-47 with centerline weaponary
@@jesperviktorsson8027 Well put.
@@jesperviktorsson8027The Hornet was also designed to do these exact things
Beautiful...
Great video. Thanks
The other thing he wrote a book called The Boys of spring I have a signed copy of that book it's very great honor
It's likely to be at a company called Av Specs. They have built all the reproduction Mosquitos. A friend of mine did the first one, he did all the mechanical work on it and I was there are the first official flight
No it’s at Pioneer.
Very impressive! Cheers!
Pioneer Aero NZ is in the appropriation phase of accumulating parts of a Sea Hornet TT193 for restoration to flight
Can't verify for sure, but I've heard Temora in NSW is also in the early stages of recreating an F3 (land-based fighter version, not Sea Hornet).
@@hellas_crater yes I've heard this also
But NZ was mentioned on the doco
And Pioneer has parts for one
Thanks for the video. Was curious that you didn't iclude the Meteor in that comparison table. Was wondering how the two could've-been- legends the Hornet & Tigercat would compare. It's a shame these didn't get to join the Mosquito & P-38 (& maybe the Ju-88) in the war as I always appreciated the twin engine fighters.
Wasps in general and hornets in particular are not completely useless since they feed their larvae with protein in the form of other insects like flies, etc., thereby controlling their population. Hornets actually bite off everything of the insect's body with the exception of the middle segment where the protein-rich wing muscles are attached. To be fair it has to be said that Hornets also catch a number of bees.
I actually don't know how you could be stung by a hornet twice in such a short period of time. Our hornets in Germany are extremely chilled unless you perform breakdance in close proximity to their hive, and hornet stings are very rare. I once had a hornet's nest close to my bedroom window and when hornets accidentally came into the room in the morning you could hear their frightening buzz for a while and then it stopped because the hornets tended to walk out whereas wasps try to get out in flying mode, usually to no avail.
All in all it has to be said that ants, bees and wasps are probably the most successful group of land animals, especially ants. Yet even more fascinating is that termites, more primitive insects in no way closely related to ants (rather with cockroaches), also build up states in a form of evolutionary convergence with ants.
And, by the way, termites don't sting. Some ants do and it can be extremely painful.
Ants bite, they do not have stingers. Ants, termites and roaches are hardy, too hardy by half, but true 'bees' are not. Honey bees are very delicate and need caring due to their MAJOR contribution to pollination and food production. Most all insecticides, even those of natural origin, can devastate a hive, so I have to watch out if people are spraying in flowering crops. Solitary Bees and Bumble Bees are also gentle but a little less sensitive. Again TRUE Bees are never aggressive unless provoked, any stings are with a Repellent Venom whereas ALL Hornets and Wasps, the true predators, have a Paralytic Venom and why people can be allergic.
Hmmm good video. It would have benefited from a little more attention to the Sea Hornet Mk.21 as this was radically different to the other models, being a two seater radar equipped all weather fighter.
In reality Hornets are rather reluctant to sting. Their low-frequency humming sound usually is warning enough.
Whenever I see similar threads regarding the F7F Tigercat, the Hornet seems to go missing for some reason...
As I understand it, the Hornet was successfully used operationally during the Malayian Emergency, by the RAF.
Referred to as an 'Emergency', this was for political expediency, partly due to the UK being war-weary, and also because being an Emergency allowed the British Government much more latitude in terms of political scrutiny in Westminster, especially given the issues in African countries as they transitioned to Independence and/or self-rule!
I am fairly sure Eric 'Winkle' Brown references this in his excellent autobiography.
You missed a quite important detail in this video - While the Hornet never saw service in it's primary intended role - as a long range escort fighter, it DID see combat as a ground attack aircraft. Hornets of 33 and 45 Squadrons undertook strike operations against communist guerrillas in the Malayan Emergency. Hornets flew over 5,000 sorties during Operation Firedog and despite weapon and airframe serviceability issues caused by the tropical conditions, something that was not unique to the Hornet, it performed very well as a 'mud-mover'.
Talking of strange names, Eric Brown was know by his friends and others as Winkle Brown!
The fastest Mosquito was a specific TYPE of Reconnaissance aircraft. It was a Photo Reconnaissance (PR) aircraft, and they NEEDED to be FAST. Reason why is those things would blast over to where they were to take the photo's, then make multiple straight runs at low altitude to gather the photo data they were there to get. You do NOT send a slow aircraft to do that....
As a result PR aircraft were stripped as clean as possible, all weapons were removed to both save weight and increase range (room being used for extra fuel tanks), and they had the best available engines. They also had access to the best high octane fuel available.
For that reason PR Spitfires for example were considerably faster than fighter variants, the same was true of the PR Mosquitos. These were aircraft that had to make multiple fairly low level passes over their target in straight lines, in range of even light and medium AA guns. Being as fast as they could possibly be made was their only real chance of surviving their missions.....
They also needed height. the altitudes attained by the late-war PR Spitfire could be as high as 49,000ft
It may surprise some viewers to learn that the Mosquito could carry a greater bomb load than a B-17 (depending on the version of aircraft).
on the way to work I was stung by an executioner wasp on my left eyebrow back in 2020 in mid Carmel valley I finished my job but barely made it home +- 25 miles on my Kawasaki 1000 Concours, just as a reminder, DO NOT complete your shift after being stung with that much venom in your bloodstream!
Great cover of a lovely aircraft.
Grumman Bearcat another great plane just a little late. I don't remember the name but the British had a similar plane at the beginning of the war a twin engine fighter with a lot of potential but they felt building to spitfires was better than building one better twin engine plane
Westland Whirlwind?
@@huwzebediahthomas9193 that might be it saw it on a similar documentary like a week ago
She´s a really beauty. Please make a vid about the Westland Whirlwind.
Think a far more significant difference in the Sea Hornet than those mentioned was the folding wings. A lot of engineering there.
The large open space in the Pacific made the twin engines design preferable .
You also had a carrier named after your nemesis. I would have given the hornet a heavy armament of either 2 x 37mm cannon or a single 37mm canon and 2x 20mm. Had it appeared earlier, with rockets too it could have been a good tank destroyer.
I think that Hornets are Wasps but of the larger persuasion.The 🐝 Bees are actually a remote member of the Wasp family.
Bees and wasps(hornets) included aren't related, wasps are more closely related to ants!
Has all the right specifications for a fighter plane except actual service record.Sadly we will never know
I once was stung by Bees head to toe, EVEN IN MY MOUTH, when i was a toddler, or so, and I'm deathly allergic on top of it, so i avoid stinging insects with all my power and will as well.
19:57 "Oh Dear..."
The plane you forgot to mention was the Gloster Meteor?
Looks so beautiful, so sleek. I wonder why Australia didn't get any, would have been a great long range rec plane.
The same reason the mosquito didn't last in RAAF service in the Pacific- the humidity compromised the glue used in construction
@@exF3-86 OH! did it, serious problem.
@@RemusKingOfRomeIm pretty sure this is why the RAAF stuck with Beaufort's and was upgraded it instead.
@@exF3-86 I should reassess that if I were you...
I like ur logo; it's cool.
The Hornet was only operational in 1946, it wasn’t a WW2 fighter. By which time the piston engine was obsolete. It was a fabulous swan song though, and Eric Brown’s favourite aircraft 👍🏻
Great subject, well told, but the orator's voice going up and down in pitch is incredibly distracting. It would be good if he would do a fresh voiceover edition where he keeps his voice either high or low, but does not go up and down like a jack-in-the-box.
The same could be said for Grumman's F7F Tigercat.
And F8F Bearcat
Well! Why don't you put up the performance data for both Tigercat and Hornet?
If you're going to compare Apples to Apples, the de Havilland Hornet would have to be compared to the P-51D Escort Fighter, but instead, compared against the postwar P-82 Twin Mustang long range escort fighter. And compared against the Merlin engine prototypes, as when the war ended, the British decided to charge a 2 Grand per engine license fee which explains why you don't see any postwar US Merlin engine aircraft made.
As around half the Hornets produced were actually Sea Hornets it could also be compared to the Grumman Tigercat, being a similarly high performance post war Naval fighter.
@@richardmorris3830 Yes! But the Hornet was the better performer. The Tigercat failed as a carrier-based fighter, the Hornet didn't.
One of the things that baffle me is that they never made handed engines for the Mosquito.
Why was the Alclad skin used on the bottom of the Hornet’s wing instead of the plywood skins used everywhere else?
Alclad provided additional strength to the wings allowing the aircraft to pull more g for its intended fighter role.
Alclad is a sandwich of duralumin over an inner core of aluminium. This gave additional strength and corrosion resistance whilst still being as light as possible.
@@chrisknight6884 is the bottom skin in tension during manoeuvres? So the duralumin can handle higher tension loads than plywood. Is this the theory?
4 X 20 millimetres Cannon's is BIG KICK!