Hurricane production numbers

[Vincenzo]

I found this page K5083 - Aircraft Production Summary
If i understand right the Hurricane production totalized 13951, including prototypes (2) and one broken up before to delivery and take in the count that 102 I were re-serialled as II, so need to count this only one time.

 

[Vincenzo]

That total, and the partials, are different from that commonly you can find on internet. and i missed that exclude production in Jugoslavia, 20, and Belgie, 2 or 3.
The data do not show the model production only the engine mounted, premise that Jugoslavian and Belgique production are all mk I so with early Merlin.
the canadian built 35 Hurricane with Merlin mk II or III, the Hawker 1904 and the Gloster 979 for a total of 2918
the canadian built 1031 Hurricane with Merlin of 20 family, the Hawker 7981, the Gloster 1720 and the Austin 300 for a total of 11,032
407 were instructional/maintenance airframes, near 3% of production; this was common?
351 were built or transformed in Sea Hurricane
19 were prototypes/test/trials aircrafts
1 get civilian registration
1 broken up before to delivery

 

[GregP]

Great find, Vincenzo, and thank you for sharing it.

Do you know what the sources were? I'd hate to count on it without some sort of reference other than a URL.

 

[Vincenzo]

Great find, Vincenzo, and thank you for sharing it.

Do you know what the sources were? I'd hate to count on it without some sort of reference other than a URL.

As the site is built i think from personal research of author. I hope our british expert can tell more

 

[Vincenzo]

thanks to this page RCAF 4 digits
i found there were an other 250 Hurricane built in Canada with only canadian serials
so total production go to 14,201, and Hurricane merlin 2x sub total go to 11,282

 

[stona]

The best numbers still come from Francis Mason.
He gives total Hurricane production as 14,231 but also gives a caveat, that the number be regarded with some scepticism

"At least 150 'new' aircraft were delivered by Hawker (and a similar number by Gloster) employing major spare parts, as well as cannabalised components from damaged aircraft; retrospective adjustments were of course made to contract terms. Moreover, almost 3,000 Hurricanes, which were struck off Royal Air Force charge (as being beyond Service capabilities to repair) were made good to the extensive Repair Organisation and taken back on charge as 'new' by the Service, in some instances with new serial numbers. This also, of course, complicates the generally accepted aircraft casualty figures issued for such periods as the Battle of Britain, when more than 400 Hurricanes admitted as having been shot down, lost and struck off charge, were subsequently salvaged, repaired and returned to the Service. In all, the civilian repair agencies returned about 4,500 damaged aircraft to the RAF, though many of them had not been struck off charge. A further 1,400 repaired aircraft were returned to the Service overseas and to the Fleet Air Arm. It is therefore impossible (and misleading) to quote an exact number of wholly new Hurricanes built - the true figure for the RAF is probably about 14,100 compared with about 14,380 'new' aircraft being taken on charge by the Service, and these figures do not include unquestionably new aircraft sold overseas before the war, some of which were taken from the Air Ministry's original order and then replaced for the RAF, reverting to their original serial numbers."

My bold.

Mason also lists other sources of confusion, for example the practice of applying completely spurious serial numbers to presentation aircraft for their 'photo shoot'.

The only honest answer to total Hurricane production numbers is that we don't know.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Vincenzo]

Stona thanks for the Mason words. Obviously we need accept don't have a number precise to unit, and we must use a convention for that is considered a new Hurricane, and get a new serial would be the convention.

Rereading the first page that i've presented i find that in the Hawker 2nd production block the 12 Hurricane for the Jugoslavia were replaced for the RAF so the new total of my count is 14,213 and the merlin II/III subtotal is 2,930

 

[Vincenzo]

I want ask some has the production numbers for the ground attack variants, IID&IV?
for Wiki we have 296 IID built by the Hawker, from 1/42 to 2/43, and 524 IV built by Hawker between 12/42 and 3/44