Westland Whirlwind. Twin
Hawker Tempest 2 Single (arguably just missed operationally but barely)
De Havilland Hornet had the war lasted a little longer.
They didn't actually need to invade they just needed for Britain to submit with the offer of keeping their Empire blah blah which is the offer in fact that was made. Without Churchill that would have happened, Lord Halifax who was offered the premiership before him remember openly admitted that...
Simple fact is that had the Battle of Britain not been won the war would almost certainly have either been 'won' by the Axis or though a fair bit less likely the Russians. The US would not have entered the European War (they only did so because Germany declared war on them specifically to be...
About Eric Brown, I did actually participate in a long interview with him some years back (alongside an experienced pilot on the type) regarding the Whirlwind fighter as we were trying to create a documentary about it specifically to raise its profile and led by someone who's father was the...
There is a Hawker Typhoon in the RAF Museum London and a beautiful beast it is too. I certainly don't think the Typhoon is ignored by the way, indeed was, and still is a very popular Airfix kit I remember from my childhood. Strangely enough I was reading up about it prior to coming on this forum...
Beat me to it a Merlin P40 was tested just as the Merlin P51 was tested however the former gained virtually no advantage whatsoever unlike the latter. Equally later the P40 was redesigned/re-engineered into one of the most beautiful looking prototypes of the war and it still couldn't compete...
You have hit the bullseye there. Have just done a profile for it and nothing I researched suggested it would be, at the very best, marginally better overall than the 109 yet with all the cost, manpower and re tooling to consider to replace it. It had the wrong engine in the 603 with only at the...
One thing I picked up yesterday was that Camm designed the Tempest from the start to take the Centaurus having been ordered to remove it from the original (3rd) Tornado prototype (which it fitted relatively easily due to the dimensions of the Vulture) and later a modified Typhoon prototype (when...
I know what you mean I love the Seafury but I think its slight cockpit hump just slightly annoys me whereas the Tempest II is that bit cleaner in that regard. I believe the Fury design also had that hump didn't it, so not just a mod for carrier ops if so.
Bit surprised to hear that it is...
Whirlwinds were held back from the BOB which also precludes any real assessment of their capabilities in the role that they were designed for i.e. killing bombers. As the only cannon armed fighter available at the time it seems from available evidence they were being prepared for the role of...
The Hornet (DH) is a great example to use in this discussion. While working on a Whirlwind project I wanted to compare it to its nearest UK equivalent as it used the streamlined Merlin versions that would have been ideal for the WW and came up with some interesting information as I did so. The...