Even the planes that succeeded had a ton of issues. The bf109 and most soviet fighters had tons of endemic issues with their engines. Theoretically the Bf109 g6 was way better than the air cobra but the air cobra was often at an advantage at low altitudes because the bf109 couldn't leverage the supercharger and the American plane had an engine that was built in far less dire circumstances.
@@xevious4142 The B-29 was another plane that was a 'success' but was plagued with engine problems. More B-29s were lost to engine fires than to enemy fire, which is still an abnormally high amount even when accounting for how meager Japanese anti-bomber defenses were. The main culprit was the magnesium used in the crankcases which was used to save weight, which was extremely flammable and often caught fire during takeoff rolls, and they often burned so hot that they would burn through the plane's wings in mere seconds. People like to pick on the He-177 for being a flying flammable coffin but the B-29 was just as bad at times, and both planes suffered horrible attrition rates. Both planes had excellent airframes that were just paired with engines that could not do what they were asked to do
@@xevious4142 The Mk I Mustang with the better Allison was a superb low altitude support fighter and could outrun most of the Luftwaffe's planes below 6000'. I dare say faster than the Airacobra.The Soviets did quite well with the Airacobra.
It’s rare that I find a video about a fighter plane from the Second World War I’ve never heard of and don’t recall seeing in my books. Hats off to you, sir.
The notion that Spitfires fought the 109 while the Hurricane took on the bombers is a myth. The Hurricane pilots would not ignore the 109 just to take on the bombers. In fact more than half of the German aircraft shot down went to the guns of the Hurricane. And while not as fast as the 109 it could out turn it. So in a dogfight the Hurricane had the edge over the 109. Actually it was the Royal Air Force which put the Merlin into the Mustang in a development project known as the Rolls-Royce Mustang X. The Rolls-Royce Merlin 65 engine dramatically improved the aircraft's performance at altitudes above 15,000 ft without effecting its range. It was after receiving these results and after further flights by a number of USAAF pilots that North American began work on converting several aircraft developing into the P-51B/C models. North American Aviation had originally built the Mustang for the Royal Air Force so without the British there would have been no Mustang.
BTW, the names "Tornado", "Typhoon" and "Tempest" have a more modern day relationship. The Panavia Tornado, was a joint project between the UK, Germany, and Italy in the 1970s. It was a fighter bomber aircraft with a production run of around 1,000 aircraft. Germany still has a few flying in active service today. The follow on to the Tornado was the Eurofighter project that became the modern Typhoon. This is a joint project of the UK, Germany, Italy, and Spain. It is still being produced today.(It is rumored that Germany has officially continued with the name Eurofighter, refusing the name "Typhoon" because of the legacy Hawker Typhoon actions against the German armed forces during WW2.) The follow on to the Eurofighter Typhoon for the UK, and Italy is the FCAS called Project Tempest. It is supposed to be the 6th Gen fighter, and includes Japan as a full partner. If it does end up flying, the aircraft will be called the Tempest. And so it goes... I don't think the names "Hurricane" and "Spitfire" will ever be reused by the armed forces of the UK.
Btw the Germans call them Eurofighter as they are a joint European project. They refuse to name them typhoon due to the fact that it would give Britain bragging rights for a project Britain contributed very very little towards. But even if they refused to to the typhoons actions in ww2 that would be understandable as the Typhoon was solely used to kill women and children
@@BenJamInn-q3o That is an *interesting* claim there, do you have any sources for that? Because everything I've read so far (books, online articles) agree that it was mostly used as tactical support, i.e. soldiers and materiel on or near the front line. Such as en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Typhoon#Low-level_interceptor I'd more understand if you were talking about strategic night bombers. I mean, you'd be still wrong, but not completely.
The Vulture wasn't really a bad engine, it was simply pushed into service too soon. It flew its first missions on the slightly overweight AVRO Manchester in Feb 1941. About 6 months latter the Sabre entered service on the Hawker Typhoon and proved a disaster, having to be withdrawn. It wasn't till October 1942 that the Sabre problems were mostly resolved. During the Battle of Britain development of the Vulture stopped so that work could concentrate on the Merlin. This meant the Vulture was underdeveloped. Finally the Vulture could be fixed it was decided to concentrate on the Merlin and Griffon because they could fit into the Spitfire.
The channel "Let's Go Aviate" just 2 days ago did an in depth look at 2 X-configuration engines "Were the Rolls-Royce Vulture & Packard X-2775 Horrible Failures?". It's nice and short-ish (20 minutes) and gave me a more nuanced view on X-config engines and the Vulture in particular than I've had from reading about the failures of the Vulture. I'll now go enjoy your video, but I thought this info would be a bit more useful than the usual "first comment!" crap you get here on YT.
The main issue with the Vulture was that 4 conrods shared the one crankshaft journal which led to oil starvation to the the conrod bearings and subsequent failure. It was an issue Rolls Royce were unable to solve
@@EVISEH Thank you for that detail. ❤ The channel I mentioned thinks that RR would have been able to solve those problems with time, but (and I paraphrase badly here) that time was smack in the middle of the Battle of Britain with it's desperate need for Merlin's. After the BoB the Merlin started to reach Vulture-levels of performance and more promising new (Griffon, Sabre, Centaurus) designs started to get ready. So further bug-fixing and development on the Vulture was shelved. That was the impression I now have, did I understand that correctly and would you agree with that?
WW2 was before my time, but as a teenager/early 20s, I was working alongside people who had been directly involved, some of them as RAF ground crew. The Hurricane was generally regarded as a much easier aircraft to maintain than the Spitfire, largely due to its open frame structure, which is touched on in this extremely interesting video. Returning from battle, holes in Hurricanes could be often quickly patched by just slapping doped linen over them. Provided there was no serious damage to the underlying structure - which was mostly empty space - that would have battle damage repaired in minutes! On the other hand, the Spitfire was not only a stressed skin structure, but the panels were fitted with flush screws and rivets. Holes in the panels seriously weakened the structure, which was more difficult to repair, meaning it took longer to get a damaged Spitfire back in the air again. Also, the Spitfire had a very narrow track undercarriage, which made ground-handling difficult. The Hurricane had a much more robust and wider track undercarriage, which made it easier to take-off and land. The Spitfire had the performance edge, but even its most experienced pilots were heard to observe that it was "A lady in the air, but a b***h on the ground!"
The Napier engine originally suffered from a lot of engine fires, at start up. Notably from inadequate procedures used by the pilots. They were known to burst into flame, due to over pressure on the fuelling. Once a well established startup routine was taught, this issue disappeared.(largely, when adhered to)
A lot of the serious problems turned out to be bad quality control. But it was a very new engine and a very complicated one. Still, it worked, which is more than be said for Axis 'next generation' engines.
@@keithstudly6071 Compared to, say, the allowable 33 US Quart/hr (over 8 US Gal/hr) - at max cont power for a P-47 R-2800. Only 21 US Quart/hr at max cruise though.
The British referred to the Allison-powered Mustangs as Apaches. As for the Griffon-powered Spitfires, the modifications were so extensive that Supermarine officials very much wanted to change the name, but the Spitfire was by that time almost mythological. It might have damaged public morale if people thought it was being replaced. So yes, changing the engine often meant changing the name. Great video.
That picture of the Spitfire that may have broken the sound barrier (or gone transonic) in the dive. Never saw the picture. And it landed sand prop and with wing damage. WOW!
I actually think the reason the Spitfire is so famous is because they kept the name even when there were very few similarities. Had the Typhoon been the Hurricane Mk III and the Tempest the Hurricane Mk IV, Hawker would get the recognition they deserve.
According to British archives and memoirs the Tornado was so badly rushed into production it nearly killed all its pilots from carbon monoxide poisoning from the poorly designed exhaust. At war's end the RAF immediately destroyed every example in retaliation. It took many decades for a determined historian to gather enough bits of the aircraft type to assemble one static airframe.
The P51 with the Allison engine originally wasn't called the mustang. Originally it was called the A36 apache. So swapping the engine used in that plane did result in a name change
As I understand, the Americans initially called it the Apache, while the British called it the Mustang, even with the Allison engine. The Americans later conceded at called it the Mustang as well.
The A-36 came after the P-51; the name change was because it was a new type with specific changes made to turn it into a dive bomber, it had nothing to do with the engine (the Mustang I in RAF service and P-51A Mustang in USAAF service had the Allison too). The Mustang had already entered service with the British by the time the Apache was rolling off the assembly line. And while it could have been listed as a P-51 Mustang variant instead of a whole new aircraft, it was named A-36 Apache in light of its primary role being ground attack, but also for accounting purposes. The budgets for pursuit planes and attackers was not the same pot of money; for budgetary reasons the USAAF actually got the planes ordered and out the door faster by changing the name to A-36 Apache since the pursuit plane budget in early 1942 was all used up.
IIRC the USAAF designated the Mustang as the A-36 Apache because in the bomber oriented AF they’d spent the new fighter plane budget. A budgetary sleight of hand.
And the late model Spitfires did change their name with the Griffin Engined laminar flow wing (and inward retractable gear) Mk14 Spitfire becoming the Mk14 Spiteful (and Seafang) before it served as the basis for the Supermarine Attacker.
I like your content! Nice, clear, and I appreciate the fact that you're reading it slowly to make it easier to understand for non-native viewers, but it's too slow for me, and I end up watching your videos at 1.25x speed!! XD Great stuff regardless!
The Hurricane had a three metal bladed propeller by the time of the Battle of Britain that made it faster and not the two bladed wooden propeller as sown which the Hurricane was first fitted with at the beginning.
Those improved propellers were not common until after the Battle of France. Combat there showed how necessary constant speed propellers were. And the British recovered both hydraulic and electric German constant speed propellers vs. British variable pitch (pilot adjusted).
The two bladed wooden propellers were still installed, on some Hurricanes, in service both in France & Britain during 1940. This was due to a shortage of DeHaviland 5-20 "two" speed adjustable propellers, though these were frequently field modified (bodged) to give more than the OEM two pitch settings. However, this propeller is notorious for not having a free spinning ability, during dives and would force the engine to redline as the dive speed increased. During the run up to the Battle of Britain, following the Dunkirk evacuation, the RAF took measures to convert as many Spitfires & Hurricanes as possible, from DeHaviland 5-20 "two" speed propellers to Rotol variable pitch propellers.
The British learned the hard way about the disadvantages of two bladed fixed pitch propellers, on their Hurricanes, while fighting in France. Their propellers were optimised for performance above 200mph and consequently produced more drag than power during take-off and climbing. As many of the French airfields the squadrons were based at were just grass fields, quite often in wet conditions the Hurricanes could not lift off. A problem that resulted in hedges and telegraph poles being cut down to enable the planes to take off from nearby roads. The Germans quickly learned how vulnerable the Hurricane was when taking off and climbing and exploited this weakness. Only about 66 Hurricanes returned to England out of the 800 sent to France.
@@CZ350tunerI've never seen any pictures of british hurricanes still mounting two bladed wooden props dating to 1940. Belgian hurricanes yes.... but not brish.... As far as i know by 1940 all british hurricanes were retrofited with three bladed, two stage, variable pitch propellers. These had problems with overeving and converting the enginepower into thrust in general.... Only turing the battle of britain constant speed propellers became more widely available. But that is exactly the same story as with early spitfires, which started out with two blade wooden propellers, switching to 3 bladed veriable pitch in 1939 and to constant speed propellers in 1940.....
@@tobiasfreitag2182The three bladed propellers were the same - variable speed governors were retrofitted to all the RAF aircraft just before the Battle of Britain (along with “Miss Shillings Orifice” flow restrictor to prevent the Merlin flooding in inverted flight).
Pusher prop installations tend to be more efficient than tractors prop engines. Cooling is however a fairly consistent problem because the radiators or piston cooling fins are out of the propeller slipstream…
Until you factor in the losses of the propeller working in turbulent air. That is one of the major reasons why tractor designs are predominant. (Much like canards)
@ Even with the “turbulence” pusher designs are more efficient than tractors. They are just harder to build and with “conventional” gear had much poorer ground clearance. Tractor engines increase the total airframe drag significantly because of the higher air stream velocity behind the propeller. This same effect enhances cooling - and fans often get fitted to help with pusher engine cooling (but then some tractor engines need them too (like the FW190’s installation). Win some, lose some.
@allangibson8494 why do you put turbulence in quotes? You don't believe in vortices behind an airfoil or dirty airstream behind the fuselage? The losses and other disadvantages (apart from cooling) by far outweigh any potential gains. That's why the vast majority of propeller aircraft are tractor designs. Else the designers would be stupid or lazy. 😉 Cooling was not the sole consideration when the VK-30 was abandoned and instead the design was switched over to the SR20.
@ Compared to the dirty air generated by a propeller, the slipstream off a well designed fuselage and wing is clean. Ultralights are a completely different question…
Honestly when I think 'British WW2 planes' the ones that come to mind are: Spitfire Hurricane Mosquito Lancaster Typhoon Definitely showing my own bias there.
I am learning that aviation is all about engines not so much airframes. On the topic of names locally small Tornados are called Cockeyed Bob's, Hawker missed out on that one too 😂
Thank you for another very informative video. I agree with you 100% about the naming of this aircraft. But that it is not how history was written back in the day.
Do not forget that the Mustang was a built-for-Britain escort fighter built to a british specification. And adopted by the USAAF as the P.51 later. It's counterpart the Spitfire was the interceptor.
In 1937, the Air Ministry selected the 20mm cannon, although at that point in time, it was not a reliable weapon. Hence, the decisi9n to stick with the 0,303 Browning machine guns at the time when F.18/37 was issued
Good vid. The Tornado was made at Yeadon I think, or at least tested there, which had a huge Lancaster shadow factory. I think 'Tornado' was a brand of contraceptive at the time, so there may have been than reason too the RAF weren't too keen on it, (though as you say, they could've skipped it entirely...). Griffon engine Spitfires nearly were re-named, but thankfully not. There was a partial mock up of a 'Twin Spit', but it was destroyed in a German bombing raid.
The P-51B was originally going to be designated P-78. When the Spitfire 20-series variant was being developed, a name change to "Victor" was considered. It differed from earlier Spitfires in having a new, stronger wing.
Once the issues were sorted, it typically had between 2200 and 2400 hp while the 3500 hp version never reached production standard. The Sabre was a very capable engine and decisively helped the RAF in keeping ahead of the Germans with their BMW 801 radial engine (also a very powerful engine design, used in FW 190A)
Thankyou. Good coverage of the subject. But omits the important high level decision to prevent development in 1942-2 of the Centaurus Tempest due to prejudice against the Radial engine. By that time the Centaurus Tornado iteration had exceeded 400 mph comfortably. The development of a following variant of a Centaurus powered Typhoon 11 (renamed Tempest by then) was ordered grounded although proving itself fastest of the lot. Then along came a lost Luftwaffe pilot conveniently mistakenly inadvertently gifting his FW 190 Radial powered aircraft which was proving such a headache for the RAF in particular the mkv spit. So much for Radials not being good enough . Sadly Not enough time then to halt the production of the Tempest v which left no scope ( or facility) for the MK11 (we now have flying version of the Mk 2 Tempest; pr533 , which developed further into the Fury post war . So much design genius and effort wasted under the pressure of war and expedients adopted to work within the constraints of production limitation. The Merlin 61 developed in response to the FW just to get on terms with it ended up with the mk9 spit’. Ron Harker and RR were developing the Merlin 61 Mustang concurrently so evolved the 2 stage supercharger which enabled the fabulous P51D to come into service just in time. But even the most slow thinkers were then realising the piston engine was soon to be obsolete, the Germans were ahead on that too by 1944.
As an Australian we don't do thanks giving so I had no idea what it was all about. But thanks for the explanation so now I know. Oh yes and thanks for the video too most enjoyable.
Google Vid, mate. It's always nice to see one of our American Cousins taking an interest in our WW2 aircraft. Happy Thanksgiving, and you are probably better off avoiding political conversation at the moment. All the best from Glasgow Scotland.
Great video as usual, with a lot of nerdy stuff to whet the appetite of the aviation geek. There was a good deal of skullduggery happening within the various departments that determined funding and procurement for the British aircraft industry. Rolls-Royce either 1) Produced a bad engine for it's intended plane, 2) Deliberately interfered with other manufacturers' engine programs causing delays in funding and watered-down official interest. 3) Helped bring about the failure of several promising aircraft by eleventh-hour cancellations of the intended RR engine for that plane. This last one carried on well into the Cold War era, with TSR-2, Arrow, and a few others.
What a lot of horseshit!!! Go read some decent books about aircraft instead of books written by the aviation correspondent of the Daily Express!!! (i.e. Project Cancelled!!!).
Very good documentary. I would point out that neither Sabre or Vulture are inline engines, each having 4 banks of 6 cylinders. Also many aircraft, I would hazard a guess actually most, had fabric covered control surfaces in WW2. This was to reduced the size of counterbalances and was progressively phased out to be replaced by sold skinning due to compressibility problems at high speed. It is ironic that Typhoons and tornados had thicker, metal, rear fuselages where the hurricane depended on wood - the tails of the hurricane appears to have been robust where the tails of Typhoons had structural issues and some failures which resulted in external strapping being applied as an in field modification. To change the subject why did so many manufacturers consider pusher designs which would have been very effective at mincing a pilot in a bale out situation?
Pushers have inherent aerodynamic advantages, with slower and more stable air moving over the engine nacelles creating less drag. Late war propeller planes took advantage of this for range, such as the B36. There are other reasons exiting a plane can be difficult, most solve by orienting the plane correctly for the bailout, such as inverted for twin pusher props. IIRC, some single pushers had a jettisonable propellor, for this reason.
Aero enginess were critical limited assets followed by aluminium and restricted the build of alternative fighters and materials used, then followed by production line availability
Hurricane was partially more prominent in the Battle of Britain because it used structural technology similar to its Fury predecessor. Later Hawker designs went with more modern structure. The Tornado had potential *if* the Vulture had received the same level of development effort the Merlin and Griffon did. For that matter, that same effort could have also improved the Peregrine engines into in Whirlwind fighters.
One highly significant aspect, covered in the name designations, was a serious problem of the tail section falling off mid-flight with the earlier version. The name change was due to a desire to reflect the improvement in type, which presented a separate designation for phycological purposes. Where previously the pilots feared buckling up on startup, fearing an engine fire, with fuel spilling onto the cabin's floor. Whoops.
You darn right, the Griffon Spitfire wasn't called the Huakmagma. *shudder*. But the last versions of the Spitfire were called the Spiteful. Alternately when the Dornier Do 335 was called the Pfiel, the one with Jumo 222 engine would have been called the Uberpfiel and would have been fearsome.
At 24:00 minute mark when describing the Tempest, one very important point missed, is the new wing design. The wing was thinner, elliptical wing & and stated to be of “laminar”design with flush rivets. The so called “laminar” wing, a la P51, implied it contributes to laminar air flow over the wing surface. In reality this does not happen in reality. But the laminar wing means the deepest part of the wing is further back about 50% from the leading edge from more conventional wing designs used early in the war. Maximum depth at 50% aft reduced drag, but had other adverse side effects. This contributed significantly in achieving the speed performance gains that had been sought for so long.
9:20 I assumed that placing the props in the pusher configuration would allow for a more aft CG, as well as the ability to better armour the engines against frontal attacks. With that, the effect of propeller slipstream would be lost, perhaps reducing drag for higher top speed at the cost of less lift at lower speeds.
The Tornado ended up being an excellent test platform for the Bristol Centaurus radial engine, one that saw service in a variety of post World War II aircraft.
The prototype Spitfire was actually slower than the Hurricane to begin with. Barely reaching 300mph in level flight. During its first week of testing a more powerful engine was fitted and several propellers tested to try and improve the performance of the plane. Eventually the problem was identified as one caused by induced drag due to the method used to construct the wing. Sorting out this out took nearly 18 months thanks to the wing requiring a significant internal re-design then new drawings and re-tooling.
Indeed....this was the era of many new design and construction concepts and the move from fabric coverings to all metal, stressed skin designs. There was a great deal of issue getting the Mustangs wings made to the proper spec and in use/battle damage issues could severely alter the individual aircraft speed and handling characteristics as field repairs to these new kinds of design and manufacturing materials and concepts took some time to develop. One of the little known reasons that some of the USA aircraft were so fast was that they employed manufacturing techniques....welded, seamless, panels in particular...that required very specific maintenance and even forbid someone walking on the wings as that could cause significant damage and reduction in performance.
The Mk 9 Spitfire and the P51 Mustang both used the same Rolls Royce RM 66 engine. The P51 was 50mph faster due to the reason you mention of minimal gaps, panel joins and other interruptions to the air flow both across the wings and along the fuselage.
Hurricane was to meet air ministry 1930s specification for a high speed monoplane fighter. It was not a stop gap and was a significant design development. Proved its worth throughout the war. Especially later in the taxi rank approach as ground attack
Here's a future episode suggestion for you: how wing mounted MGs and cannons were sighted in during WWII. Did mechanics sit on the wings and keep twisting adjusting bolts or what, I don't know and that's why a well researched video would be interesting. Thanks.
The Spitfire only achieved near Mach 1 and Mach 1 speeds just before the crash indicator went off. The crash indicator on most aircraft is when the dirt is coming through the windscreen. The plane was completely uncontrollable at transonic and supersonic speeds 690 mph is well into transonic speeds and is over supersonic if it's at any appreciable altitude
In terms of aircraft designation names, it was British convention to give names to aircraft, where the USAAF used number designators. Hence, Mustang vs P-51, latter shifting to the 'F'; prefix in US parlance.
American fighters were designated by a letter by the US Army Air Force, the letter designating the aircrafts role. Hence the P Stood for Pursuit. The P designation was changed to F for Fighter after World War Two on the formation of the US Air Force as a separate independent service.
If the engine had been competitive the Tornado would have been hindered by a fundamental design flaw of too thick a wing. Hawker went down this road because they used research from the new wind tunnel at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough that had been built in the early 30s. This research showed that there was relatively little drag penalty for a thick wing section over a thin and so Hawkers exploited this produce a wing that offered plenty of space for guns whilst being stronger for a given weight over a thinner wing. Supermarine and De Havilland did not use this research taking instead inspiration from their pre war racing aircraft which pointed to the advantage of thinner wing sections. It was however realised with the poor performance of aircraft like the Tornado and Typhoon (along with the Hurricane not yielding any material speed gains with increased engine power unlike the Spitfire) that the research was flawed and it was discovered that the wind tunnel at Farnborough had a turbulent airflow that concealed the advantages of thinner wing sections. The result was the Tempest, essentially a Typhoon with a thinner wing, which enjoyed a considerable speed advantage over the Typhoon with only a modest increase in power.
The Tempest started out as the _Typhoon II_ with a new wing for improved higher altitude performance. More changes over time prompted the revised name.
Do you mean the Typhoon and Tornado or do you mean the Tornado and Tempest. if the latter, then it would be very easy to tell the two aircraft apart. the Tempest has a different shaped tail
The Hurricane was used to attack bombers while the Spitfire dealt with the fighters. The Hurricane could be built much quicker and more cheaply that the Spit, and Hurricane much easier to repair. The Hurricane did shoot down more aircraft in WW2 than the Spit, but they complimented each other rather than being rivals. Many Hurricanes were shipped to Russia in 1941 but don't know if Russia received any Spits. The original name for the Spitfire was the 'Supermarine Shrew'....
Yes, the Russians did receive worn out Spitfires, with the hi-tech gunsight removed. Because of this they had a very low opinion of the Spit as a fighter.
The Hawker was more akin in comparison with the American equivalent of the Wildcat. Good solid design. But near the end of their development when they were called to action. Fortunately, the Brits already had a replacement, the Spitfire. The Americans had to develop the Hellcat and Mustang. But if I would have been given the choice of any WW2 fighter. I'd choose the Spit just about every time.
Don’t forget the Mitsubishi Zero! Very silly to give speeds of aircraft in a Dive! Just saying! I still love the Hurricane! The Hurricane could have better fire power with some having 4 20mm cannons. The Spits wing was too slim! The Tornado looks like a beast….the Typhoon had some serious flaws……Engines exploding, Tails breaking off etc etc…….Thats why we got the Tempest…..in my mind the British Empires best Piston Fighter of WW2. The P-51 D with its Rolls Royce Merlin (Packard) engine was a beautiful aircraft…. Anyway I love this old British Empire Stuff coming from New Zeaaland!
I think you forgot the Tempest, which was actually the Typhoon 2, both never achieved their fighter prowess as intended, but Germans on the ground and in bombers hated them as they used unguided rockets, bombs and their guns to wreak havoc across France and Germany.
So the Tornado developed the installation of the Bristol engine for Hawker but got no credit for the best naval fighter of the war (missed on by a few months) the Hawker Sea Fury? The Tempest was discarded as soon as combat was over mostly because of it's difficult to maintain Napier Saber engine, while the Spitfire went on for years. I think that last part is all that needs to be said about the Tempest. The Sea Fury was a truly excellent aircraft that did see combat in Korea before the jets could be adapted to carriers.
The Fury and Sea Fury were refinements of the Tempest design. The prototype Fury was originally named as a Tempest but because of the many changes made to the original Tempest design was renamed Fury.
Type designations is a whole can of worms. There were concurrent developments like Tornado and Typhoon, and later the Tempest had a completely different wing and slightly different tail. The Tempest also had concurrent developments - marks I to V, of which V was first, II second, and the rest didn't leave prototype stage. Similarly, Messerschmitt Me 410 was just a 210 with a redesigned wing and nothing else. Efforts to distance from an unsuccessful design (remember, Typhoon was meant to be an interceptor). Compare that to a successful design: Bf 109 had not one, but two radical redesigns and three major engine changes even if I only count major variants: From the early B and C variants with the Jumo 210 and chin scoop, through the E variant with DB 601 and underwing air scoops, F variant with the same engine, but radical wing redesign and fuselage streamlining, to the G and K variants with DB 605 engine. You could name four distinct planes in this.
Neithe the Vulture nor the Sabre are, "... 24 cylinder in-line engines ..." 00:40 . The Vulture was 'X-24' configuration, whilst the Sabre was a 'H-24' engine. Can you imagine how long a 24 cylinder in-line engine would be?
I remember reading Ernest Hemingway's first impressions of the Typhoon. Big, ugly, and so fast he couldn't talk about it in print. They were being used to chase down V-1 Buzz bombs. Not sure if they were using .303 machine guns or 20mm cannons.
The Spitfire is a just drop dead gorgeous supermodel.
The Hurricane is a faithful and honest wife.
Not a bad analogy.
The Spitfire was a gymnast to the hurricane's female rugby player.
The same for the RMS Queen Mary vs the Normandie.
MD ............one more ...........Diana and Camilla ...........for the U.K. crew .
@@augustosolari7721Leave boats out of this 😂
like 90% of the cool planes that failed in ww1 and 2 seem to end with "but the engine wouldnt not suck"
You mean 90% of cool aircraft, period.
Even the planes that succeeded had a ton of issues. The bf109 and most soviet fighters had tons of endemic issues with their engines. Theoretically the Bf109 g6 was way better than the air cobra but the air cobra was often at an advantage at low altitudes because the bf109 couldn't leverage the supercharger and the American plane had an engine that was built in far less dire circumstances.
@@xevious4142 The B-29 was another plane that was a 'success' but was plagued with engine problems. More B-29s were lost to engine fires than to enemy fire, which is still an abnormally high amount even when accounting for how meager Japanese anti-bomber defenses were. The main culprit was the magnesium used in the crankcases which was used to save weight, which was extremely flammable and often caught fire during takeoff rolls, and they often burned so hot that they would burn through the plane's wings in mere seconds.
People like to pick on the He-177 for being a flying flammable coffin but the B-29 was just as bad at times, and both planes suffered horrible attrition rates. Both planes had excellent airframes that were just paired with engines that could not do what they were asked to do
@@xevious4142 The Mk I Mustang with the better Allison was a superb low altitude support fighter and could outrun most of the Luftwaffe's planes below 6000'. I dare say faster than the Airacobra.The Soviets did quite well with the Airacobra.
@@tauncfester3022the better Allison engine? Better than what? A previous Allison iteration or the ever evolving Merlin/Griffon?
It’s rare that I find a video about a fighter plane from the Second World War I’ve never heard of and don’t recall seeing in my books. Hats off to you, sir.
Wait until you see the Hawker Breeze…
It's well known through Mr. Greene's books.
The notion that Spitfires fought the 109 while the Hurricane took on the bombers is a myth. The Hurricane pilots would not ignore the 109 just to take on the bombers. In fact more than half of the German aircraft shot down went to the guns of the Hurricane. And while not as fast as the 109 it could out turn it. So in a dogfight the Hurricane had the edge over the 109.
Actually it was the Royal Air Force which put the Merlin into the Mustang in a development project known as the Rolls-Royce Mustang X. The Rolls-Royce Merlin 65 engine dramatically improved the aircraft's performance at altitudes above 15,000 ft without effecting its range. It was after receiving these results and after further flights by a number of USAAF pilots that North American began work on converting several aircraft developing into the P-51B/C models. North American Aviation had originally built the Mustang for the Royal Air Force so without the British there would have been no Mustang.
This.
BTW, the names "Tornado", "Typhoon" and "Tempest" have a more modern day relationship. The Panavia Tornado, was a joint project between the UK, Germany, and Italy in the 1970s. It was a fighter bomber aircraft with a production run of around 1,000 aircraft. Germany still has a few flying in active service today.
The follow on to the Tornado was the Eurofighter project that became the modern Typhoon. This is a joint project of the UK, Germany, Italy, and Spain. It is still being produced today.(It is rumored that Germany has officially continued with the name Eurofighter, refusing the name "Typhoon" because of the legacy Hawker Typhoon actions against the German armed forces during WW2.)
The follow on to the Eurofighter Typhoon for the UK, and Italy is the FCAS called Project Tempest. It is supposed to be the 6th Gen fighter, and includes Japan as a full partner. If it does end up flying, the aircraft will be called the Tempest.
And so it goes... I don't think the names "Hurricane" and "Spitfire" will ever be reused by the armed forces of the UK.
Lol Krauts still butt hurt with those names😂
Btw the Germans call them Eurofighter as they are a joint European project. They refuse to name them typhoon due to the fact that it would give Britain bragging rights for a project Britain contributed very very little towards.
But even if they refused to to the typhoons actions in ww2 that would be understandable as the Typhoon was solely used to kill women and children
@@BenJamInn-q3o That is an *interesting* claim there, do you have any sources for that? Because everything I've read so far (books, online articles) agree that it was mostly used as tactical support, i.e. soldiers and materiel on or near the front line. Such as en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Typhoon#Low-level_interceptor
I'd more understand if you were talking about strategic night bombers. I mean, you'd be still wrong, but not completely.
The Vulture wasn't really a bad engine, it was simply pushed into service too soon. It flew its first missions on the slightly overweight AVRO Manchester in Feb 1941. About 6 months latter the Sabre entered service on the Hawker Typhoon and proved a disaster, having to be withdrawn. It wasn't till October 1942 that the Sabre problems were mostly resolved.
During the Battle of Britain development of the Vulture stopped so that work could concentrate on the Merlin. This meant the Vulture was underdeveloped.
Finally the Vulture could be fixed it was decided to concentrate on the Merlin and Griffon because they could fit into the Spitfire.
The channel "Let's Go Aviate" just 2 days ago did an in depth look at 2 X-configuration engines "Were the Rolls-Royce Vulture & Packard X-2775 Horrible Failures?". It's nice and short-ish (20 minutes) and gave me a more nuanced view on X-config engines and the Vulture in particular than I've had from reading about the failures of the Vulture.
I'll now go enjoy your video, but I thought this info would be a bit more useful than the usual "first comment!" crap you get here on YT.
Yes, I watched it yesterday and appreciated his balanced take on the Vulture
Second reply
The main issue with the Vulture was that 4 conrods shared the one crankshaft journal which led to oil starvation to the the conrod bearings and subsequent failure. It was an issue Rolls Royce were unable to solve
.303 British!
@@EVISEH Thank you for that detail. ❤
The channel I mentioned thinks that RR would have been able to solve those problems with time, but (and I paraphrase badly here) that time was smack in the middle of the Battle of Britain with it's desperate need for Merlin's.
After the BoB the Merlin started to reach Vulture-levels of performance and more promising new (Griffon, Sabre, Centaurus) designs started to get ready. So further bug-fixing and development on the Vulture was shelved.
That was the impression I now have, did I understand that correctly and would you agree with that?
You can see where Gloster's influence went with the De Havilland went with their design in the Vampire jet.
Not sure if they collaborated that much?
Vampire was a beaut to see.
Top work finding pictures of a Rolls Royce Vulture engined aircraft where it isn't on fire.
WW2 was before my time, but as a teenager/early 20s, I was working alongside people who had been directly involved, some of them as RAF ground crew. The Hurricane was generally regarded as a much easier aircraft to maintain than the Spitfire, largely due to its open frame structure, which is touched on in this extremely interesting video.
Returning from battle, holes in Hurricanes could be often quickly patched by just slapping doped linen over them. Provided there was no serious damage to the underlying structure - which was mostly empty space - that would have battle damage repaired in minutes! On the other hand, the Spitfire was not only a stressed skin structure, but the panels were fitted with flush screws and rivets. Holes in the panels seriously weakened the structure, which was more difficult to repair, meaning it took longer to get a damaged Spitfire back in the air again.
Also, the Spitfire had a very narrow track undercarriage, which made ground-handling difficult. The Hurricane had a much more robust and wider track undercarriage, which made it easier to take-off and land.
The Spitfire had the performance edge, but even its most experienced pilots were heard to observe that it was "A lady in the air, but a b***h on the ground!"
Really enjoy your show, always informed and never short of a jibe where needed.
The Napier engine originally suffered from a lot of engine fires, at start up. Notably from inadequate procedures used by the pilots. They were known to burst into flame, due to over pressure on the fuelling. Once a well established startup routine was taught, this issue disappeared.(largely, when adhered to)
don't forget the Typhoon engines failing in flight, CO poisoning, wings exploding in flight, tails falling off in flight, etc.
That engine burned almost as much oil as fuel and it had to be fun changing all 48 spark plugs after almost every flight.
Though didn't the Sabre have a wartime service life of 24 hours?
A lot of the serious problems turned out to be bad quality control. But it was a very new engine and a very complicated one. Still, it worked, which is more than be said for Axis 'next generation' engines.
@@keithstudly6071 Compared to, say, the allowable 33 US Quart/hr (over 8 US Gal/hr) - at max cont power for a P-47 R-2800. Only 21 US Quart/hr at max cruise though.
The British referred to the Allison-powered Mustangs as Apaches. As for the Griffon-powered Spitfires, the modifications were so extensive that Supermarine officials very much wanted to change the name, but the Spitfire was by that time almost mythological. It might have damaged public morale if people thought it was being replaced. So yes, changing the engine often meant changing the name.
Great video.
That picture of the Spitfire that may have broken the sound barrier (or gone transonic) in the dive. Never saw the picture. And it landed sand prop and with wing damage. WOW!
it did Not go supersonic
@@SoloRenegade Yup. Compressibility happened well before supersonic speeds. The prop blades might have made it though - however briefly.
Didn't know about this airplane, so, I learned something today! Thanks IHYLS!
I actually think the reason the Spitfire is so famous is because they kept the name even when there were very few similarities. Had the Typhoon been the Hurricane Mk III and the Tempest the Hurricane Mk IV, Hawker would get the recognition they deserve.
"Huck Magma"😂
Well played, Sir, well played.👏
According to British archives and memoirs the Tornado was so badly rushed into production it nearly killed all its pilots from carbon monoxide poisoning from the poorly designed exhaust. At war's end the RAF immediately destroyed every example in retaliation. It took many decades for a determined historian to gather enough bits of the aircraft type to assemble one static airframe.
The Typhoon inherited that exhaust leakage problem.
The Tornado never entered production. Only 4 prototypes were made so you must be referring to the Typhoon.
Another outstanding video! Merry Christmas to you and all viewers!
Excellent summary of a fascinating development of what then became our most advanced fighter at the end of the war.
The P51 with the Allison engine originally wasn't called the mustang. Originally it was called the A36 apache. So swapping the engine used in that plane did result in a name change
As I understand, the Americans initially called it the Apache, while the British called it the Mustang, even with the Allison engine. The Americans later conceded at called it the Mustang as well.
The A-36 came after the P-51; the name change was because it was a new type with specific changes made to turn it into a dive bomber, it had nothing to do with the engine (the Mustang I in RAF service and P-51A Mustang in USAAF service had the Allison too).
The Mustang had already entered service with the British by the time the Apache was rolling off the assembly line. And while it could have been listed as a P-51 Mustang variant instead of a whole new aircraft, it was named A-36 Apache in light of its primary role being ground attack, but also for accounting purposes. The budgets for pursuit planes and attackers was not the same pot of money; for budgetary reasons the USAAF actually got the planes ordered and out the door faster by changing the name to A-36 Apache since the pursuit plane budget in early 1942 was all used up.
a36 was dive bomber
IIRC the USAAF designated the Mustang as the A-36 Apache because in the bomber oriented AF they’d spent the new fighter plane budget. A budgetary sleight of hand.
And the late model Spitfires did change their name with the Griffin Engined laminar flow wing (and inward retractable gear) Mk14 Spitfire becoming the Mk14 Spiteful (and Seafang) before it served as the basis for the Supermarine Attacker.
I love your sense of humor…makes all your productions fun to watch
Very good summary of the production of these planes.
Got to say a very interesting video tonight, thoroughly fascinating as always. Brilliant. Well done.
I like your content! Nice, clear, and I appreciate the fact that you're reading it slowly to make it easier to understand for non-native viewers, but it's too slow for me, and I end up watching your videos at 1.25x speed!! XD
Great stuff regardless!
The Hurricane had a three metal bladed propeller by the time of the Battle of Britain that made it faster and not the two bladed wooden propeller as sown which the Hurricane was first fitted with at the beginning.
Those improved propellers were not common until after the Battle of France. Combat there showed how necessary constant speed propellers were.
And the British recovered both hydraulic and electric German constant speed propellers vs. British variable pitch (pilot adjusted).
The two bladed wooden propellers were still installed, on some Hurricanes, in service both in France & Britain during 1940. This was due to a shortage of DeHaviland 5-20 "two" speed adjustable propellers, though these were frequently field modified (bodged) to give more than the OEM two pitch settings. However, this propeller is notorious for not having a free spinning ability, during dives and would force the engine to redline as the dive speed increased.
During the run up to the Battle of Britain, following the Dunkirk evacuation, the RAF took measures to convert as many Spitfires & Hurricanes as possible, from DeHaviland 5-20 "two" speed propellers to Rotol variable pitch propellers.
The British learned the hard way about the disadvantages of two bladed fixed pitch propellers, on their Hurricanes, while fighting in France. Their propellers were optimised for performance above 200mph and consequently produced more drag than power during take-off and climbing. As many of the French airfields the squadrons were based at were just grass fields, quite often in wet conditions the Hurricanes could not lift off. A problem that resulted in hedges and telegraph poles being cut down to enable the planes to take off from nearby roads. The Germans quickly learned how vulnerable the Hurricane was when taking off and climbing and exploited this weakness. Only about 66 Hurricanes returned to England out of the 800 sent to France.
@@CZ350tunerI've never seen any pictures of british hurricanes still mounting two bladed wooden props dating to 1940.
Belgian hurricanes yes.... but not brish....
As far as i know by 1940 all british hurricanes were retrofited with three bladed, two stage, variable pitch propellers.
These had problems with overeving and converting the enginepower into thrust in general....
Only turing the battle of britain constant speed propellers became more widely available.
But that is exactly the same story as with early spitfires, which started out with two blade wooden propellers, switching to 3 bladed veriable pitch in 1939 and to constant speed propellers in 1940.....
@@tobiasfreitag2182The three bladed propellers were the same - variable speed governors were retrofitted to all the RAF aircraft just before the Battle of Britain (along with “Miss Shillings Orifice” flow restrictor to prevent the Merlin flooding in inverted flight).
Very well done, well put-together video. One of your best so far!
Pusher prop installations tend to be more efficient than tractors prop engines. Cooling is however a fairly consistent problem because the radiators or piston cooling fins are out of the propeller slipstream…
Until you factor in the losses of the propeller working in turbulent air.
That is one of the major reasons why tractor designs are predominant.
(Much like canards)
@ Even with the “turbulence” pusher designs are more efficient than tractors.
They are just harder to build and with “conventional” gear had much poorer ground clearance.
Tractor engines increase the total airframe drag significantly because of the higher air stream velocity behind the propeller. This same effect enhances cooling - and fans often get fitted to help with pusher engine cooling (but then some tractor engines need them too (like the FW190’s installation).
Win some, lose some.
@allangibson8494 why do you put turbulence in quotes? You don't believe in vortices behind an airfoil or dirty airstream behind the fuselage?
The losses and other disadvantages (apart from cooling) by far outweigh any potential gains. That's why the vast majority of propeller aircraft are tractor designs. Else the designers would be stupid or lazy. 😉
Cooling was not the sole consideration when the VK-30 was abandoned and instead the design was switched over to the SR20.
@@daszieher I'm pretty sure tractor configs also produced greater lift than pushers
@ Compared to the dirty air generated by a propeller, the slipstream off a well designed fuselage and wing is clean. Ultralights are a completely different question…
Excellent video . Thanks for posting keep up the good work .
Honestly when I think 'British WW2 planes' the ones that come to mind are:
Spitfire
Hurricane
Mosquito
Lancaster
Typhoon
Definitely showing my own bias there.
you forgot the Beaufighter (beau) and Swordfish (Stringbag).
I am learning that aviation is all about engines not so much airframes.
On the topic of names locally small Tornados are called Cockeyed Bob's, Hawker missed out on that one too 😂
Thank you for another very informative video. I agree with you 100% about the naming of this aircraft. But that it is not how history was written back in the day.
Great info love the development of machines in war time
Do not forget that the Mustang was a built-for-Britain escort fighter built to a british specification. And adopted by the USAAF as the P.51 later. It's counterpart the Spitfire was the interceptor.
In 1937, the Air Ministry selected the 20mm cannon, although at that point in time, it was not a reliable weapon. Hence, the decisi9n to stick with the 0,303 Browning machine guns at the time when F.18/37 was issued
Typhoon, Tornado, Tempest, they looked really cool, my favorite british fighters, no matter how elegant the Spitfire looks.
The Sabre had issues with fumes leaking into the cockpit and early Typhoons also had the inconvenient issue of the tailplanes falling off.
New to the channel, great stuff mate!
Good vid.
The Tornado was made at Yeadon I think, or at least tested there, which had a huge Lancaster shadow factory. I think 'Tornado' was a brand of contraceptive at the time, so there may have been than reason too the RAF weren't too keen on it, (though as you say, they could've skipped it entirely...).
Griffon engine Spitfires nearly were re-named, but thankfully not.
There was a partial mock up of a 'Twin Spit', but it was destroyed in a German bombing raid.
The Typhoon was a beautiful fighter which had a weak tail structure, the Tempest was utterly gorgeous and as big improvement. 🏴
The Gloster looks a lot like the Dehaviland Vampire.
And as a result Gloster went directly from building biplane Gloster Gladiators to Gloster Meteors…
The P-51B was originally going to be designated P-78.
When the Spitfire 20-series variant was being developed, a name change to "Victor" was considered. It differed from earlier Spitfires in having a new, stronger wing.
I don't have any need for the History Channel when I have you don't I :-)
As far as I understand, the Napier engine, once sorted, had up to 3500 HP typically.
Once the issues were sorted, it typically had between 2200 and 2400 hp while the 3500 hp version never reached production standard. The Sabre was a very capable engine and decisively helped the RAF in keeping ahead of the Germans with their BMW 801 radial engine (also a very powerful engine design, used in FW 190A)
Thankyou. Good coverage of the subject. But omits the important high level decision to prevent development in 1942-2 of the Centaurus Tempest due to prejudice against the Radial engine. By that time the Centaurus Tornado iteration had exceeded 400 mph comfortably. The development of a following variant of a Centaurus powered Typhoon 11 (renamed Tempest by then) was ordered grounded although proving itself fastest of the lot. Then along came a lost Luftwaffe pilot conveniently mistakenly inadvertently gifting his FW 190 Radial powered aircraft which was proving such a headache for the RAF in particular the mkv spit. So much for Radials not being good enough . Sadly Not enough time then to halt the production of the Tempest v which left no scope ( or facility) for the MK11 (we now have flying version of the Mk 2 Tempest; pr533 , which developed further into the Fury post war . So much design genius and effort wasted under the pressure of war and expedients adopted to work within the constraints of production limitation. The Merlin 61 developed in response to the FW just to get on terms with it ended up with the mk9 spit’. Ron Harker and RR were developing the Merlin 61 Mustang concurrently so evolved the 2 stage supercharger which enabled the fabulous P51D to come into service just in time. But even the most slow thinkers were then realising the piston engine was soon to be obsolete, the Germans were ahead on that too by 1944.
As an Australian we don't do thanks giving so I had no idea what it was all about. But thanks for the explanation so now I know. Oh yes and thanks for the video too most enjoyable.
Google Vid, mate. It's always nice to see one of our American Cousins taking an interest in our WW2 aircraft. Happy Thanksgiving, and you are probably better off avoiding political conversation at the moment. All the best from Glasgow Scotland.
Great video as usual, with a lot of nerdy stuff to whet the appetite of the aviation geek. There was a good deal of skullduggery happening within the various departments that determined funding and procurement for the British aircraft industry. Rolls-Royce either 1) Produced a bad engine for it's intended plane, 2) Deliberately interfered with other manufacturers' engine programs causing delays in funding and watered-down official interest. 3) Helped bring about the failure of several promising aircraft by eleventh-hour cancellations of the intended RR engine for that plane. This last one carried on well into the Cold War era, with TSR-2, Arrow, and a few others.
What a lot of horseshit!!! Go read some decent books about aircraft instead of books written by the aviation correspondent of the Daily Express!!! (i.e. Project Cancelled!!!).
Very good documentary. I would point out that neither Sabre or Vulture are inline engines, each having 4 banks of 6 cylinders. Also many aircraft, I would hazard a guess actually most, had fabric covered control surfaces in WW2. This was to reduced the size of counterbalances and was progressively phased out to be replaced by sold skinning due to compressibility problems at high speed. It is ironic that Typhoons and tornados had thicker, metal, rear fuselages where the hurricane depended on wood - the tails of the hurricane appears to have been robust where the tails of Typhoons had structural issues and some failures which resulted in external strapping being applied as an in field modification. To change the subject why did so many manufacturers consider pusher designs which would have been very effective at mincing a pilot in a bale out situation?
Pushers have inherent aerodynamic advantages, with slower and more stable air moving over the engine nacelles creating less drag. Late war propeller planes took advantage of this for range, such as the B36. There are other reasons exiting a plane can be difficult, most solve by orienting the plane correctly for the bailout, such as inverted for twin pusher props. IIRC, some single pushers had a jettisonable propellor, for this reason.
A huge difference e between the Tempest and it’s Typhoon predecessor was a much slimmer wiring.
Aero enginess were critical limited assets followed by aluminium and restricted the build of alternative fighters and materials used, then followed by production line availability
Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving !
Love your videos….
And …. YES!
I always learn something!😎🇺🇸
Hurricane was partially more prominent in the Battle of Britain because it used structural technology similar to its Fury predecessor. Later Hawker designs went with more modern structure.
The Tornado had potential *if* the Vulture had received the same level of development effort the Merlin and Griffon did. For that matter, that same effort could have also improved the Peregrine engines into in Whirlwind fighters.
The Centaurs version was killer! It was GR8 as the Tempest Mk II! 👍👍
One highly significant aspect, covered in the name designations, was a serious problem of the tail section falling off mid-flight with the earlier version. The name change was due to a desire to reflect the improvement in type, which presented a separate designation for phycological purposes. Where previously the pilots feared buckling up on startup, fearing an engine fire, with fuel spilling onto the cabin's floor. Whoops.
You darn right, the Griffon Spitfire wasn't called the Huakmagma. *shudder*. But the last versions of the Spitfire were called the Spiteful. Alternately when the Dornier Do 335 was called the Pfiel, the one with Jumo 222 engine would have been called the Uberpfiel and would have been fearsome.
At 24:00 minute mark when describing the Tempest, one very important point missed, is the new wing design. The wing was thinner, elliptical wing & and stated to be of “laminar”design with flush rivets. The so called “laminar” wing, a la P51, implied it contributes to laminar air flow over the wing surface. In reality this does not happen in reality. But the laminar wing means the deepest part of the wing is further back about 50% from the leading edge from more conventional wing designs used early in the war. Maximum depth at 50% aft reduced drag, but had other adverse side effects. This contributed significantly in achieving the speed performance gains that had been sought for so long.
This as I understand was on the Tempest.
9:20 I assumed that placing the props in the pusher configuration would allow for a more aft CG, as well as the ability to better armour the engines against frontal attacks.
With that, the effect of propeller slipstream would be lost, perhaps reducing drag for higher top speed at the cost of less lift at lower speeds.
The Tornado ended up being an excellent test platform for the Bristol Centaurus radial engine, one that saw service in a variety of post World War II aircraft.
Including the Hawker Sea Fury
The prototype Spitfire was actually slower than the Hurricane to begin with. Barely reaching 300mph in level flight. During its first week of testing a more powerful engine was fitted and several propellers tested to try and improve the performance of the plane. Eventually the problem was identified as one caused by induced drag due to the method used to construct the wing. Sorting out this out took nearly 18 months thanks to the wing requiring a significant internal re-design then new drawings and re-tooling.
Indeed....this was the era of many new design and construction concepts and the move from fabric coverings to all metal, stressed skin designs. There was a great deal of issue getting the Mustangs wings made to the proper spec and in use/battle damage issues could severely alter the individual aircraft speed and handling characteristics as field repairs to these new kinds of design and manufacturing materials and concepts took some time to develop.
One of the little known reasons that some of the USA aircraft were so fast was that they employed manufacturing techniques....welded, seamless, panels in particular...that required very specific maintenance and even forbid someone walking on the wings as that could cause significant damage and reduction in performance.
The Mk 9 Spitfire and the P51 Mustang both used the same Rolls Royce RM 66 engine. The P51 was 50mph faster due to the reason you mention of minimal gaps, panel joins and other interruptions to the air flow both across the wings and along the fuselage.
Tornado was a BRUTE!
The Hurricane was a stop-gap, using existing Hawker designs as its basis in order to get it into production quickly.
The Hurricane was not a stop gap. It was in fact a progression of the Hawker Hart/ Demon/ Audax designs of Sydney Camm only in monoplane form.
Hurricane was to meet air ministry 1930s specification for a high speed monoplane fighter. It was not a stop gap and was a significant design development. Proved its worth throughout the war. Especially later in the taxi rank approach as ground attack
Good video 🎬🏅
...in the end the RAF got a Tornado, which was a great plane...just some 40 years later...! 😉
4:35 how many wildcats and zeros at the battle of brittan
How many battles of Britain in the war?
ruclips.net/video/XlphnnV6WCY/видео.htmlsi=SQmRqv15JmZY0C8h
None 😂😂😂
the Brits did well in the Battle of Britain because of those electronic wizards that invented the magnetron evolving into the Chain Home radar system.
The original Allison version of the Mustang was called the Apache and designated the A-36!
This is marvellous. Hawker pronounced like Fokker .
"shined" - in English, shone (past participle). Aircraft is both a singular and plural word - "aircrafts" doesn't hack it . . .
Here's a future episode suggestion for you: how wing mounted MGs and cannons were sighted in during WWII. Did mechanics sit on the wings and keep twisting adjusting bolts or what, I don't know and that's why a well researched video would be interesting. Thanks.
The Spitfire only achieved near Mach 1 and Mach 1 speeds just before the crash indicator went off. The crash indicator on most aircraft is when the dirt is coming through the windscreen. The plane was completely uncontrollable at transonic and supersonic speeds 690 mph is well into transonic speeds and is over supersonic if it's at any appreciable altitude
In terms of aircraft designation names, it was British convention to give names to aircraft, where the USAAF used number designators. Hence, Mustang vs P-51, latter shifting to the 'F'; prefix in US parlance.
American fighters were designated by a letter by the US Army Air Force, the letter designating the aircrafts role. Hence the P Stood for Pursuit. The P designation was changed to F for Fighter after World War Two on the formation of the US Air Force as a separate independent service.
Informayive and interestinh. Thakks!
And this is why the new British Fighter under development is called the Tempest!! A follow on from the Typhoon, which was proceeded by the Tornado!!
Tempest was a Typhoon with a new, lower drag, wing.
If the engine had been competitive the Tornado would have been hindered by a fundamental design flaw of too thick a wing. Hawker went down this road because they used research from the new wind tunnel at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough that had been built in the early 30s. This research showed that there was relatively little drag penalty for a thick wing section over a thin and so Hawkers exploited this produce a wing that offered plenty of space for guns whilst being stronger for a given weight over a thinner wing. Supermarine and De Havilland did not use this research taking instead inspiration from their pre war racing aircraft which pointed to the advantage of thinner wing sections. It was however realised with the poor performance of aircraft like the Tornado and Typhoon (along with the Hurricane not yielding any material speed gains with increased engine power unlike the Spitfire) that the research was flawed and it was discovered that the wind tunnel at Farnborough had a turbulent airflow that concealed the advantages of thinner wing sections. The result was the Tempest, essentially a Typhoon with a thinner wing, which enjoyed a considerable speed advantage over the Typhoon with only a modest increase in power.
This just reminds me, what was the distinction between the Typhoon and the Tempest?
Performance, roles, or doctrine?
The Tempest started out as the _Typhoon II_ with a new wing for improved higher altitude performance. More changes over time prompted the revised name.
24:00 The last thing many German Me262 pilots saw was a Hawker Tempest's guns flashing away in his rear view mirrors.
Anyone remembers the Commando Comics?
Aloha, dude! Doing great!
Unless they were side by side I’d never have been able to tell the Tornado and the Tempest apart.
Do you mean the Typhoon and Tornado or do you mean the Tornado and Tempest. if the latter, then it would be very easy to tell the two aircraft apart. the Tempest has a different shaped tail
@ Yes.
What about the change to the laminar flow wing on the tempest / typhoon.
Those guys @19.47 must have been strafed by a Hurricane at some stage! , until i put my glasses i thought it said "no wankers" LOL
both the hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine spitfire both served in the RIAF ( the Royal Indian Air Force)
Camm went for evolution rather than revolution in his designs.
Hey IHYLS could you please make a video about the polish light bomber the pzl.p23 karaś?
PS it was the first plane to bomb Germany in WW2
The spitfire was the greyhound,
The hurricane the bulldog
So the Tornado gave us the mighty Hawker Sea Fury ! ... ;)
The Hurricane was used to attack bombers while the Spitfire dealt with the fighters. The Hurricane could be built much quicker and more cheaply that the Spit, and Hurricane much easier to repair. The Hurricane did shoot down more aircraft in WW2 than the Spit, but they complimented each other rather than being rivals. Many Hurricanes were shipped to Russia in 1941 but don't know if Russia received any Spits. The original name for the Spitfire was the 'Supermarine Shrew'....
Yes, the Russians did receive worn out Spitfires, with the hi-tech gunsight removed. Because of this they had a very low opinion of the Spit as a fighter.
The Hawker was more akin in comparison with the American equivalent of the Wildcat. Good solid design. But near the end of their development when they were called to action. Fortunately, the Brits already had a replacement, the Spitfire. The Americans had to develop the Hellcat and Mustang. But if I would have been given the choice of any WW2 fighter. I'd choose the Spit just about every time.
The Rolls Royce Vulture - same engine as used on the Avro Manchester! Need we say any more?
Don’t forget the Mitsubishi Zero! Very silly to give speeds of aircraft in a Dive! Just saying! I still love the Hurricane! The Hurricane could have better fire power with some having 4 20mm cannons. The Spits wing was too slim!
The Tornado looks like a beast….the Typhoon had some serious flaws……Engines exploding, Tails breaking off etc etc…….Thats why we got the Tempest…..in my mind the British Empires best Piston Fighter of WW2.
The P-51 D with its Rolls Royce Merlin (Packard) engine was a beautiful aircraft…. Anyway I love this old British Empire Stuff coming from New Zeaaland!
I think you forgot the Tempest, which was actually the Typhoon 2, both never achieved their fighter prowess as intended, but Germans on the ground and in bombers hated them as they used unguided rockets, bombs and their guns to wreak havoc across France and Germany.
11:29 - are you under the impression that crankshaft DRIVE the pistons in reciprocating engines?
As, of course, the crankshaft does for 3 of the 4 cycles on most such engines.
So the Tornado developed the installation of the Bristol engine for Hawker but got no credit for the best naval fighter of the war (missed on by a few months) the Hawker Sea Fury? The Tempest was discarded as soon as combat was over mostly because of it's difficult to maintain Napier Saber engine, while the Spitfire went on for years. I think that last part is all that needs to be said about the Tempest. The Sea Fury was a truly excellent aircraft that did see combat in Korea before the jets could be adapted to carriers.
The Fury and Sea Fury were refinements of the Tempest design. The prototype Fury was originally named as a Tempest but because of the many changes made to the original Tempest design was renamed Fury.
That Gloster design at 8:25 looks pretty, too bad they didn't even built a prototype version!
Type designations is a whole can of worms. There were concurrent developments like Tornado and Typhoon, and later the Tempest had a completely different wing and slightly different tail. The Tempest also had concurrent developments - marks I to V, of which V was first, II second, and the rest didn't leave prototype stage. Similarly, Messerschmitt Me 410 was just a 210 with a redesigned wing and nothing else. Efforts to distance from an unsuccessful design (remember, Typhoon was meant to be an interceptor).
Compare that to a successful design: Bf 109 had not one, but two radical redesigns and three major engine changes even if I only count major variants: From the early B and C variants with the Jumo 210 and chin scoop, through the E variant with DB 601 and underwing air scoops, F variant with the same engine, but radical wing redesign and fuselage streamlining, to the G and K variants with DB 605 engine. You could name four distinct planes in this.
"Hock Magma". An intimidating name for a combat aircraft.
Neithe the Vulture nor the Sabre are, "... 24 cylinder in-line engines ..." 00:40 . The Vulture was 'X-24' configuration, whilst the Sabre was a 'H-24' engine. Can you imagine how long a 24 cylinder in-line engine would be?
I remember reading Ernest Hemingway's first impressions of the Typhoon. Big, ugly, and so fast he couldn't talk about it in print. They were being used to chase down V-1 Buzz bombs. Not sure if they were using .303 machine guns or 20mm cannons.
11:29 It would seem that the Napier engine was of the much lauded / much despised "Boxer" configuration.