Hurricane evolution

[michaelmaltby]

FlyBoy - don't worry about my bubble bursting. Soviets came to the Bell plant in Niagara Falls on a number of occasions 1943-45. A Soviet pilot demonstrated the deadly *flat spin* at the plant airport, I'm told. Yes - the P-63 probably more-accurately reflects Soviet input than the P-39. But: a. Larry Bell made the Soviets feel important; and b. He wanted a relationship with them because it guaranteed that his USAAF contacts kept getting renewed.

The Hurricane - and this is a Hurricane thread - like the Cobra, found a niche where it was right for the job. Solid airframe, responsive with punch.

Now somebody please, what does *rationalized the wing really mean ..* and likewise, I give up, what do those great graphs mean HoHun?

Chairs

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Actually, I've heard that the Bell corporation did listen to the Soviets, but the changes the Soviets wanted were, to my understanding, incorporated in the P-63 rather than the P-39.

Hard to say if it was based on operational experience with the P-39, but possible.

The P-63 came from the development of the XP-39E with the first orders coming June of 1941. The XP-63 first flew Dec 7, 1942.

The first P-39s reached the Soviet Union in late 1941 early 1942 way after the first P-63 were under development. Now a Soviet test pilot and engineer did go to the Bell factory and give a bunch of input into the P-63A and their ideas were incorporated, all this happening around 1943.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

FlyBoy - don't worry about my bubble bursting. Soviets came to the Bell plant in Niagara Falls on a number of occasions 1943-45. A Soviet pilot demonstrated the deadly *flat spin* at the plant airport, I'm told. Yes - the P-63 probably more-accurately reflects Soviet input than the P-39. But: a. Larry Bell made the Soviets feel important; and b. He wanted a relationship with them because it guaranteed that his USAAF contacts kept getting renewed.

The Hurricane - and this is a Hurricane thread - like the Cobra, found a niche where it was right for the job. Solid airframe, responsive with punch.

Now somebody please, what does *rationalized the wing really mean ..* and likewise, I give up, what do those great graphs mean HoHun?

Chairs

See my post - all the Soviet input was on the P-63A. As for the P-39, they got what they got and made modifications once the aircraft were in country.

*EDIT* Read your full post - yes it was all on the P-63A where Bell brought in the Soviets

 

[Nightwitch]

Hard to say if it was based on operational experience with the P-39, but possible.

The P-63 came from the development of the XP-39E with the first orders coming June of 1941. The XP-63 first flew Dec 7, 1942.

The first P-39s reached the Soviet Union in late 1941 early 1942 way after the first P-63 were under development. Now a Soviet test pilot and engineer did go to the Bell factory and give a bunch of input into the P-63A and their ideas were incorporated, all this happening around 1943.

Yeah, I've also seen pics of a Soviet pilot doing a test flight in a P-63 at the Bell factory in 1944. So, they were definitely there, giving their input on the P-63. I think you're right though, regarding the P-39 variants not being specifically built with the Soviets in mind. (And I'll leave it at that so as not to hijack the thread any further).

 

[Venganza]

A picture of that can be found on page 22 of Osprey's "Soviet Lend-Lease Fighter Aces of World War 2" by George Mellinger. In the book though, it is labeled as an "artillery spotter."

You're correct; I have seen it mentioned as an artillery spotter as well as a courier. Below is a picture taken from the Russian aviation magazine "Voyna V Vozduche" of the modified Hurricane.

Venganza

 

[Colin1]

The Soviets didn't change much else about the plane, and they really seem to have disliked it. There were very few Soviet Hurricane aces, certainly none I can think of off-hand that made ace in the Hurricane

I would suggest

Swastika in the Gunsight, Memoirs of a Russian Fighter Pilot
Igor Kaberov
Sutton Press
ISBN: 0 7509 2240 0

a decent'ish account of the air war seen from Soviet eyes, if a little tainted with Communist rhetoric ie the general theme (based around the Hurricane) that they (the Soviets) '...could really show our Western cousins a thing or two about aircraft design...'

Sure they could, that's why Lend-Lease was set up...
The Soviets had no a/c of their own worth speaking of, the MiG-1 and MiG-3 were hopeless low down and that's where the Germans were hitting the Soviets hardest. The I-16 was not in the same class as the Bf109. The Hurricane was available in decent numbers and the Soviets got what they got, (to paraphrase Joe's point, from the British perspective) the fact that they didn't really like the armament was a point being argued at the end of the Battle of Britain as to the efficacy of machine guns against armoured a/c, so even that wasn't news.

Further to that and to your point in general, if the Hurricane was all but obsolete in the late Fall of 1940, how do you think it was going to fare at the stage where the Soviet Union were sucked into the war, mid to late 1941?

The lack of Soviet aces could quite feasibly be attributed to Stalin's purges in which he seemed to want anyone with a bit of potential out of the way and secondly to the utter destruction of the Soviet Air Force in the early weeks of the campaign, although I don't know for sure how many 'bright young things' Stalin did get rid of and how many of the remaining were lost in their catastrophic start to the campaign.

 

[Colin1]

And as for *it depends what you call evolution* - Camm was trying to influence events by anticipating/reacting design

Which?
Anticipation will certainly help to influence events
Reacting suggests that far from influencing events, you're the victim of them

What I would call evolution is what the Spitfire, Typhoon through the Tempest, Bf109, Fw190, P-47 and P-51 went through from their introduction through to the end of the war (and beyond, in some cases). Though outwardly reasonably similar, the final product bore little resemblance performance-wise to their initial forebears in terms of speed, armament, ceiling and/or range.

When Camm started work on his next-generation fighter, he potentially had the basis for it right in front of him - the Hurricane. The fact that he dismissed the idea and started his (Typhoon) project from a clean sheet is testament to the fact that the Hurricane had evolved as far as it was going to.

 

[tomo pauk]

Re: Sidney Camm's designs:

What level of performance of Typhoon was expected by Camm? The reason I ask is that Typhoon was as fast as Spit Mk V, so not someting one could expect with 2000+ HP onboard.

 

[davebender]

Considering how hard up the Australians and others in the Commonwealth (Indians for another example) were for fighters

Britain had plenty of fighter aircraft from 1941 onward. In addition to plenty of Spitfires they received hundreds of American made P-40s. If Australia and other Commonwealth nations were short of decent fighter aircraft during 1941 it was the result of a deliberate decision by the British government.

 

[michaelmaltby]

Colin1 I can't argue with: *When Camm started work on his next-generation fighter, he potentially had the basis for it right in front of him - the Hurricane. The fact that he dismissed the idea and started his (Typhoon) project from a clean sheet is testament to the fact that the Hurricane had evolved as far as it was going to*. That said, Typhoon airframe and engine both took a long time to become seasoned systems and while cannon-rocket armed Hurricanes kept filling the ranks. In nature, evolution is made up of 000,000,000's of adaptations (large and small). In engineering, a design usual starts with a drawing and measurements. Having designed the HH for a certain era Camm went on to improve on what he knew and changing conditions - that's how aircraft evolve. But in war, humans are evolving constantly to adapt to conditions and one way is by taking less-than-perfect tools (the Hurricane) and pushing them to the edge. Of course the HH was never going to be better or more advanced than its limitations but nonetheless pilots had to fly them and fight with them. That's the process that I find very interesting.

On another note - I have somewhere Larry Bell's biography. (I'll try and find it for exact quotes but meanwhile several things stand out). Like lots of other Soviet Lend Lease stuff, the Soviets had purchasers/inspectors in the USA all the time. One guy in particular spent nearly all his time at the Bell plants. Furthermore: feedback is a two-way street. Bell complained that the Soviets never told him diddly about how they were using his planes (Paraphrase: *We might as well push the planes into Lake Ontario for all the input we get from them*) Bell also wanted to send the Russians pilots Zippos but that was frownd on.

I agree that most mods to P-39's were done in the field by the Soviets. But that mostly consisted of removing unwanted 30 mm Brownings from the wings.

Nightwitch - I stand corrected on Spits doing well in the Kazan canpaign. I thought they did. I know that the Soviets hated that narrow track undercarriage.

 

[Bernhart]

there were still units using hurricanes at the end of the war, in India/Burma and Northren Italy/ yugoslavia. they were the Mk 4's. i have pictures with them carrying rockets on one wing and fuel tanks on the other

www.randysek.de/hurricane/bild_hurri_2.jpg

www.raf.mod.uk/history_old/images/hurrihist28.jpg
royal airforce webv site on hurricanes

 

[claidemore]

Re: Sidney Camm's designs:

What level of performance of Typhoon was expected by Camm? The reason I ask is that Typhoon was as fast as Spit Mk V, so not someting one could expect with 2000+ HP onboard.

Max level speed for Spitfire Mk Vs was between 354 to 375 mph (depending on engine etc), Typhoon max level speed was 392 to 406 mph.

Maybe you were thinking of the Spitfire Mk IX? 408 mph?

The first Spitfires the Soviets got were a mix of refurbished and new production Mk V's. They didn't do very well, though there are many factors that contributed to that. Subsequently the newer Mk IXs (1185 of them)that they got were used mostly for PVO duties, which makes sense since they were the best high alt planes in good numbers in the Soviet inventory. (PVO interceptions tended to be on high alt recon planes).
Here's a link with a decent account of the Mk Vs in Soviet service.
Spitfires over the Kuban

 

[Colin1]

What level of performance of Typhoon was expected by Camm? The reason I ask is that Typhoon was as fast as Spit Mk V, so not something one could expect with 2000+ HP onboard

Claidemore covered that
but I was wondering what you meant by the bit in bold? I don't understand what you're saying

 

[tomo pauk]

I stand corrected for the type of Spitfire.

The 2000+HP was the power Sabre was developing; it's the 2200HP figure actually.

 

[Colin1]

The 2000+HP was the power Sabre was developing; it's the 2200HP figure actually

So what could you not expect from it?

 

[tomo pauk]

So what could you not expect from it?

I would expect a superior speed from a plane that is contemporary of Fw-190, having 2200HP on board.

 

[Colin1]

I would expect a superior speed from a plane that is contemporary of Fw-190, having 2200HP on board.

Still a little confused by what you are saying, so

so something one could expect with 2000+ HP onboard

rather than

so not something one could expect with 2000+ HP onboard

which is what you said in the quote I included in post #33

 

[tomo pauk]

When I've said:

What level of performance of Typhoon was expected by Camm? The reason I ask is that Typhoon was as fast as Spit Mk V*, so not someting one could expect with 2000+ HP onboard.

...I meant that plane (=Typhoon) wih 2000+HP** should've been faster. So, dissapointment, if that's not to strong a word.

*Meaning the Spit IX, with 1650HP.
**2200HP actually.

 

[Colin1]

...I meant that plane (Typhoon) with 2000+HP** should've been faster. So, disappointment, if that's not too strong a word...

Now I see
I agree in most part. The Typhoon wasn't elegant in any sense of the word, it was a muscular, 7-ton brute. It hurtled through the air largely through brute strength and horsepower, rather than aerodynamic finesse. The massive chin radiator and the thick, Hurricane-esque wing section all served to drag at it's cd factor.
The lessons learned on the Typhoon were what transformed it into the Tempest although I can't understand why they insisted on hanging on to that chin radiator, the Tempest II was good for about 462mph and a trial fitting of an annular radiator (a la Fw190D) to a Sabre IV in the Typhoon yielded a top speed of 452mph; by this time Tempest production was going well so it wasn't considered worthwhile to make the major changes necessary to Typhoon production lines.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Michael,

>what do those great graphs mean HoHun?

They show speed and climb rate for each type as a function of altitude. Traditionally, in aircraft performance diagrams the vertical axis is selected as altitude axis.

For example, by comparing the green and the red graph, you see the benefit the Hurricane I gained from increasing maximum boost from +6.25 lbs/sqin to +12 lbs/sqin, which was made possible by the use of 100 octane fuel. The graphs show that this gain only makes itself felt below some 5200 m altitude, with performance above that level being identical.

(In case you wonder, the slight difference in climb rate at high altitude is an artifact of my calculation of the climb rates for different constant airspeeds. The airspeeds I selected give the best climb rate up to 4 km, which requires the 100-octane-fuled Hurricane to use a slightly higher climb speed. If the pilot of the "red graph" Hurricane would use the same climb speed as the "green graph" Hurricane above 5 km, their graphs would coincede perfectly.)

In a similar way, you can check the impact of the 20-series-Merlin in the Hurricane II (which was heavier than the Hurricane I) and its different boost levels. Of course, it would be beneficial to know the exact boost level history to understand the implications of the graph perfectly - I don't think we were able to establish a perfect time line for the permissible boost level, but the "blue line" boost was not available when the Merlin XX was originally introduced, showing that the Hurricane II probably was an improvement over the Hurricane I only at high altitude, and maybe actually a step backwards at lower altitude.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)