The Hawker Typhoon - History and Development [ WWII DOCUMENTARY ]

The last thing I remember is looking  up and seeing those RAF Typhoons! When I heard them screaming up ahead I thought  geez I'm glad they're on our side The Hawker Typhoons are easily recognizable  and they were among the best ground attack aircrafts in World War II. But initially  they were plagued with problems and their development was anything but smooth. So let's see  the origins and development of these interesting planes! The Hawker Hurricane was a very successful  design and during the

Battle of Britain it was more numerous than the Spitfire and was the  backbone of the RAF fighter force. But just as soon as it entered service the team at Hawker with  the lead of Sydney Camm immediately started working on a new fighter which would be the hurricane  successor. There was no formal request from the government for a new plane but it was assumed  there will be one soon. And so it happened not long after the Air Ministry issued specification  F18/37 which called for a single seat fi

ghter armed with 12 X 7.7mm machine guns, a maximum speed  above 400 mph and a service ceiling of 35,000ft. The new fighter had to use one of the new 24  cylinder engines in development either the Napier Saber or the Rolls-Royce Vulture. Since Hawker already  had the plans for a new plane they made two versions for each engine proposed. The two planned  aircraft was quite similar, one built around the Napier engine the other around the Rolls-Royce one.  They were initially just called N and R mo

dels. Though the r model initially used ventral radiator  placement soon it was moved forward to the chin similarly to the N variant as it was found the  ventral placement was not optimal for the planned high speeds. The Napier powered variant was to became  the Typhoon and the Rolls-Royce powered one the Tornado. The a Ministry accepted Hawker's proposals  in April 1938 and in August one prototype was ordered from both designs. The work on both versions of the  aircraft started in parallel but

since the Vulture engine was ahead of the saber the Rolls-Royce  powered prototype flew first in October 1939. Then after the first flight it was found, the ventral radiator placement was not optimal, so it was moved forward to the chin on the second prototype. The first  Napier engines had been delivered only in December 1939 so the prototype of the N version first flew  in February 1940. Both prototypes showed promise they were easy to fly but they both had initial  technical problems. Because

of the bigger Vulture engine the Tornado was 12in longer than the  Typhoon and meanwhile the latter was shorter because of the Napier engine was more compact the engine  was mounted so close to the wings it caused sever vibrations. Sadly not long after in May the  same year the ministry decided that all resources should be put towards the established aircrafts:  the Hurricane, Spitfire and the main bomber types so the development of Hawker's new planes grind  to a hold for nearly a year. The ne

xt prototype flight happened a year later in May 1941 meanwhile  during this time the Air Ministry gave an order for a thousand aircraft to Hawker split between  the Typhoon and the Tornado. But in July 1941 the Rolls-Royce Vulture engine project was cancelled. It  had too many problems and the Merlin engines were getting the same level of performance as well.  The cancellation of the Vulture engine meant the cancellation of the Hawker Tornado as well and  left the Typhoon as a sole project to r

eplace the Hurricane. But the problems with the Typhoon  were not over. By design it had very thick wings to mount the armament and provide enough space  for the fuel tanks but as it turned out this caused a significant amount of drag. The aircraft  barely managed to get above the requested 400 mph speed at 20,000 ft, and above that altitude its  performance was disappointing. But the performance problems were the smaller ones. The early typhoons  often suffered from engine troubles and structur

al failures and had a tendency of the whole tail  breaking of in dives if the speed exceeded 500 mph! These problems were found out when the Typhoons  were rushed into service just a few months after their test flights in September 1941 to counter  the Focke-Wulf 190 Fighters. Many typhoons were lost in the first year of their service and most of them  not to enemy fire. The investigation found the failure of the tail on the aircrafts were caused  by weak joints and metal fatigue because of the

tail flutter. To counter this problem the rear fuselage  was strengthened and riveted steel plates were attached. The main variants of the  Typhoon were: the IA built with 12 machine guns, the IB variant with  4 X 20 mm cannons. the NF.IB which was a sing single night fighter conversion  experiment, and the FR.IB a reconnaissance conversion. The canopy of the Typhoons also  changed from the early to the late models: initially they feature similar car doors like the P-39 fighters and the metal r

ear section. The second variant kept the over a layout  but added a see-through rear canopy section to improve visibility Finally the late model  Typhoons featured a rear sliding full bubble canopy. Now let's see the general  technical specifications of the Typhoon IB variant. The Typhoon was a very big plane: it  had a length of 31ft 11.5 in, and a wingspan of 41ft 7in. Its empty weight was 8,840 lbs  and the maximum takeoff weight was 13, 250lbs The plane used the Napier Sabre 24 cylinder, liq

uid  cooled engine which developed 2,180 HP With this engine the maximum speed it could reach  was 422mph. The typhoon had a range around 500miles when carrying bombs or around 1,000miles if equipped  with drop tanks. It service ceiling was 31,800ft. The main armament consisted of 4 X 20mm  Hispano cannons mounted in the wings, the secondary armament could be eight RP-3 rockets or 2 X 500lbs or optionally 2 x 1,000lbs bombs. As we mentioned before the Typhoon was pressed  into service in late 19

41 to counter the low level attacks of the Luftwaffe against the RAF airfields. Though  it had worse climb rate and high level performance than the Hurricane at low levels the Typhoon  performed quite well and enjoyed success against the enemy fighters. That is when the engine or  structural problems didn't occur. Another problem they encountered was that the shape of the typhoon  somewhat resemble the Focke-Wulf 190 and so to not get shot by their own air defense they started to use  white stri

pes under the wings - similar ones to the D-day invasion stripes. Nonetheless by the end of  1942 most of its early problems were fixed or partially fixed, they became more reliable and it  was found they perform very well in certain tasks. Actually the typhoon was the only RAF aircraft  capable of catching the Focke-Wulf 190 at low altitudes! It was around that time at the end of 1942  the allies started to use the Typhoons more and more in offensive roles to fly over France, strafe  airfields,

trains and other targets. And they were quite successful in this role. So when in 1943  the RAF was looking for a ground attack aircraft the Typhoon seemed like the logical choice. It  had good low altitude performance, a very strong engine and a sturdy airframe - which prevented  it to be a top fighter aircraft but allowed it to be modified to carry bombs and rockets for its  new role. The bombs were equipped on some Typhoons from late 1942, the rockets were only added about  a year later. In

the months leading up to D-day the Typhoons flying from south of England attacked  countless targets in France: ships, bridges, railways and communication centers. Some of them were used  in covert operations as well when they attacked German headquarters based on intelligence  reports going after the German officer meetings. During and after the Normandy landings  the Typhoon proved itself to be one of the best allied ground attack aircraft with its bombs and  rockets. The RAF set up close comm

unication with the ground troops and usually had a patrol of Typhoons  available to call on if the troops needed air support. Though there are different opinions on  how effective the rocket attacks actually were the allied and German witnesses stated that  the Typhoon's rockets knocked out German tanks fairly often. Their 20 mm cannons were also  effective against lightly armored troop carriers and support vehicles. They took part  in every major operation in Western Europe at Arnhem, at Mortai

n, they covered the troops at  the Rhine Crossing to Germany and were used until the end of the war, and they were always  a welcome sight for the ground troops. But when the war ended they were quickly removed from  service. Their place was taken by the faster and new a Hawker Tempest which started  as an evolution of the Typhoon but then it received its own separate name. We will  look at the Hawker Tempest in a separate video later. Hope you guys enjoyed this video! Please  leave a like, subs

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