WarSimBox
From biplane to monoplane
Hawker’s chief designer Sydney Camm started from the company’s successful Fury biplane and drew a monoplane fighter with an enclosed cockpit and retractable undercarriage. The fuselage was built the way Hawker built its biplanes: a frame of steel tubes with wooden formers and fabric covering over the rear half.
This conservative structure made the aircraft quick to build and easy to repair: factories and squadron workshops were doing work they already knew. The Air Ministry wanted enough firepower to bring down a bomber in a short burst, so eight machine guns went into the wings. The first production order, for 600 aircraft, came in June 1936. Early Hurricanes also had fabric-covered wings; metal-skinned wings arrived from 1939.
The Battle of Britain
In the summer of 1940 RAF Fighter Command had more Hurricane squadrons than Spitfire squadrons. Hurricanes were usually sent against the bomber formations and the faster Spitfires against the escorting Bf 109s, but this was no strict rule; both aircraft did both jobs.
Its thick wing and wide-track undercarriage made it a sturdy, steady gun platform, and it turned well. Cannon shells often passed through the fabric-covered fuselage without exploding, and a damaged aircraft could be made airworthy again quickly at squadron level.
Weaknesses
The Hurricane was slower than the Bf 109 E, and the gap grew with altitude. The thick wing limited its speed in a dive. The two-bladed, fixed-pitch wooden propeller of early aircraft hurt take-off and climb; once constant-speed propellers were fitted towards the summer of 1940, the aircraft improved markedly.
The Merlin’s float carburettor starved under negative g, when the nose was pushed down sharply, and the engine cut out for a moment. Bf 109 pilots, whose engine had direct fuel injection, knew this and escaped pursuit by pushing over into a dive.
On every front
The Hurricane fought in France in 1940, then over Malta, in North Africa, Burma and the Far East. Catapult-launched "Hurricats" protected Atlantic convoys, and thousands went to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. The Turkish Air Force was also among its wartime users.
Later versions got more powerful Merlins and heavier weapons: the twelve-gun Mk IIB, the Mk IIC with four 20 mm cannon and the Mk IID with two 40 mm anti-tank guns. The last Hurricane left the factory in the summer of 1944, named "The Last of the Many".
In WarSimBox
In the game it is a turn fighter: it wins dogfights in the horizontal and lacks the speed and climb to fight a Bf 109 on its terms. It shudders as a warning before it stalls and does not spin easily. The Merlin’s negative-g cut-out is modelled too: a Bf 109 on your tail can push over and get away.
Available from the start; no research needed. Leads on to: Supermarine Spitfire Mk I.
- Top speed
- 519 km/h · 5,000 m
- Climb
- 11.9 m/s
- Sustained turn
- 18 s
- Stall speed
- 130 km/h
These figures come from the game’s flight model (climb, turn and stall at sea level).
Fly it in WarSimBox