Hawker Hurricane Print

Hawker Hurricane Mk IIB; digital Illustration © Les Still

Hawker Hurricane Mk IIBs. 87 Squadron RAF, late 1941. Flying night defence from Exeter.

Hawker Hurricanes at 87 Squadron Print

87 Squadron RAF

In the summer of 1938 at RAF Debden, 87 Squadron replaced their Gloster Gladiator biplanes with Hawker Hurricanes. At the same time A Flight was removed to form 85 Squadron and a new A Flight was born. The squadron was rapidly worked up to operational pitch and on the outbreak of World war 2,  87 Squadron went to France along with 85 Squadron, as the air fighter arm of the British Expeditionary Force.
This initially provided little action apart from the occasional fight with German reconnaissance aircraft. Until May 1940 when the Germans launched their blitzkrieg against Belgium, the Netherlands and France. The squadron's primary role was to protect the Westland Lysanders deployed on reconnaissance, and this severely hampered 87 Squadron's opportunities to destroy enemy aircraft. It also brought too many aircraft losses and after only 12 days 87 Squadron was pulled back from France to Debden to refit. After a move to Church Fenton 87 Squadron had it's first combat over the UK, on 11th July, shooting down four Messerschmitt Bf 110s. At the same time 87 Squadron worked up as a night fighter unit and by the end of July 1940 had one flight in the south of England in these duties, whilst the rest of the Squadron remained at Church Fenton on day fighter duties. In November 1940 87 Squadron moved to the South West of England where it concentrated on night fighter duties. In the new year the Squadron established a long standing detachment at St. Mary's airfield on the Scillies as the only air defence of these islands. This detachment was involved mainly in hunting shipping raiders and bombers attacking convoys in the western approaches, as well as the islands defence. The main body of the Squadron became the RAFs longest serving Hurricane night fighter unit, flying in defence of the West country cities, but also on occasion flying intruder missions over German night fighter bases in France. This occupied the rest of 1941 and the first half of 1942. After flying ground attack missions during the abortive Dieppe attack in August 1942, the squadron began preparing to leave the UK.
Relocated to Gibraltar, still equipped with Hurricanes, the squadron flew air covering missions for convoys during Operation Torch. 87 Squadron moved to Algiers soon after the Allied landings in November 1942. There No 87 Squadron gave up it's Hawker Hurricanes and worked up on Supermarine Spitfires.

Hawker Hurricane

Origin;- Hawker Aircraft Ltd., also built by Gloster Aircraft, SABCA (Belgium) and Canadian
Car and Foundry Inc.

Type;- Single seat fighter, later fighter bomber, tank buster and ship based fighter.

Engine;- One Rolls-Royce Merlin vee-12 liquid cooled ( see below for sub types).

Dimensions;- Span 40' (12.19m), length 32' (9.75m), (Mk I) 31'5", Sea Hurricanes 32'3",
height 13'1" (4m).

Weights;- Empty (I) 4,670lb (2118kg), (IIA) 5,150lb (2335kg), (IIC) 5,640lb (2558kg), (IID)
5,800lb (2631kg), (IV) 5,550lb (2515kg), (Sea HIIC) 5,788lb (2625kg); loaded (I) 6,600lb
(2994kg), (IIA) 8,050lb (3650kg), (IIC) 8,250lb (3742lg), (IID) 8,200lb (3719kg), (IV)
8,450lb (3832kg), (Sea HIIC) 8,100lb (3674kg).

Performance;- Maximum speed (I) 318mph (511km/h), (IIA, B, C) 345-355mph (560-540kn/h), (IID) 286mph (460km/h), (IV) 330mph (531km/h), (SeaIIC) 342mph (550km/h), initial climb (I) 2,520ft (770m) /min, (IIA) 3,150ft (960m) /min, rest/typical 2,700ft (625m) /min, service ceiling (I) 36,000ft (10973m), (IIA) 41,000ft (12500m), (rest typical) 34,000ft (10365m); range (all typical) 460miles (740km), or with two 44 gal drop tanks 950 miles (1530km).

Armament;- (I) eight 0.303in Brownings each with 333 rounds (Belgian models four 0.5in FN-Brownings). (IIA) same with provision for 12 guns and two 250lb bombs, (IIB) 12 Brownings and two 250lb or 500lb bombs, (IIC) four 20mm Hispano cannon=n and bombs, (IIC) two 40mm Vickers S guns and two 0.303in Brownings, (IV) universal wing with two Brownings and two Vickers S, two 500lb bombs, eight rockets, smoke installation or other stores.

History;- First flight (prototype) 6 November 1935, production Mk.I) 12 October 1937, (II) 11 June 1940, (Canadian MK X) January 1940, final delivery September 1944.

Users;- (Wartime) Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Finland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Yugoslavia, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, South Africa, Soviet Union, Turkey, UK (RAF, RN).

Development;- Until well into 1941 the Hurricane was by far the most numerous of the RAF's combat aircraft and it bore the brunt of the early combats with the Luftwaffe over France and Britain. Designed by Camm as a Fury monoplane with Goshawk engine and spatted landing gear, it was altered on the drawing board to have the more powerful PV-12 (Merlin), inwards retractable landing gear and later to have not four machine guns, but the unprecedented total of eight. The Air Ministry wrote Specification F36/34 around it and after tests with the prototype ordering the then fantastic total of 600 in June 1936. In September 1939 the 497 delivered equipped 18 squadrons and by 7 August 1940 no fewer than 2,309 had been delivered compared with 1,383 Spitfires equipping 32 squadrons compared with 19 Spitfire squadrons. Gloster's output in 1940 was 130 per month. By this time the Hurricane I was in service with new metal skinned wings, instead of fabric, and three blade variable pitch (later constant speed) propeller, instead of the wooden Watts two blader. In the hectic days of 1940 the Hurricane was found to be an ideal bomber destroyer, with steady sighting and devastating cone of fire, turn radius was better than that of any other monoplane fighter, but the all round performance of the Bf 109E was considerably higher. The more powerful Mk II replaced the 1,030hp Merlin II by the 1,280hp Merlin XX and introduced new armament and drop tanks. In North West Europe it became a ground attack aircraft and in North Africa a tank buster with 40mm guns. While operating from merchant ship catapults and carriers it took part in countless fleet defence actions, the greatest being the defence of the August 1942 Malta convoy, when 70 Sea Hurricanes fought off more than 600 Axis attackers destroying 39 for the loss of seven fighters. The Hurricane was increasingly transferred to the Far East, Africa and other theatres, and 2,952 were dispatched to the Soviet Union, some being fitted with skis. Hurricanes were used for many special trials of armament and novel flight techniques. ( one had a jettisonable biplane upper wing).
Total production amounted to 12,780 in Britain and 1,461 in Canada (after 1941 with Packard Merlins) and many hundreds were exported both before and after World war II.
 

from Military Aviation Library - World War 2 British Aircraft.