200-701: The Hawker Tempest is a British fighter aircraft that was primarily used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Second World War . The Tempest, originally known as the Typhoon II , was an improved derivative of the Hawker Typhoon , intended to address the Typhoon's unexpected deterioration in performance at high altitude by replacing its wing with a thinner laminar flow design. Since it had diverged considerably from
400-504: A radiator blind (or radiator shroud ) to the radiator that can be adjusted to partially or fully block the airflow through the radiator. At its simplest the blind is a roll of material such as canvas or rubber that is unfurled along the length of the radiator to cover the desired portion. Some older vehicles, like the World War I-era Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 and SPAD S.XIII single-engined fighters, have
600-407: A Spitfire . This is similar to Formula 1 cars of today, when stopped on the grid with engines running they require ducted air forced into their radiator pods to prevent overheating. Reducing drag is a major goal in aircraft design, including the design of cooling systems. An early technique was to take advantage of an aircraft's abundant airflow to replace the honeycomb core (many surfaces, with
800-406: A bellows type thermostat, which has corrugated bellows containing a volatile liquid such as alcohol or acetone. These types of thermostats do not work well at cooling system pressures above about 7 psi. Modern motor vehicles typically run at around 15 psi, which precludes the use of the bellows type thermostat. On direct air-cooled engines, this is not a concern for the bellows thermostat that controls
1000-456: A better view as well but the Typhoon would be the interim aircraft for the role. In practice the Typhoon proved very good for ground attack. Work on the Tempest Mk.IV variant was abandoned without any prototype being flown at all. The Tempest Mk.II, which was subject to repeated delays due to its Centaurus powerplant, was persisted with, but would not reach production in time to see service during
1200-418: A bigger radiator which displaced the oil cooler and carburettor air intake from the radiator's centre; air for the carburettor was drawn through intakes on the leading edge of the inner wings, while the oil cooler was located behind the radiator. Most Tempest VIs were tropicalised, the main feature of this process being an air filter which was fitted in a fairing on the lower centre section. Other changes included
1400-565: A by now mediocre performance. The first Eindecker victory came on 1 July 1915, when Leutnant Kurt Wintgens , of Feldflieger Abteilung 6 on the Western Front, downed a Morane-Saulnier Type L. His was one of five Fokker M.5 K/MG prototypes for the Eindecker , and was armed with a synchronized aviation version of the Parabellum MG14 machine gun. The success of the Eindecker kicked off
1600-463: A cadre of exceptional pilots. In the United Kingdom, at the behest of Neville Chamberlain (more famous for his 'peace in our time' speech), the entire British aviation industry was retooled, allowing it to change quickly from fabric covered metal framed biplanes to cantilever stressed skin monoplanes in time for the war with Germany, a process that France attempted to emulate, but too late to counter
1800-435: A competitive cycle of improvement among the combatants, both sides striving to build ever more capable single-seat fighters. The Albatros D.I and Sopwith Pup of 1916 set the classic pattern followed by fighters for about twenty years. Most were biplanes and only rarely monoplanes or triplanes . The strong box structure of the biplane provided a rigid wing that allowed the accurate control essential for dogfighting. They had
2000-505: A delay hit one engine, an alternative powerplant would already be available.An order was approved for six more prototypes with alternate engines in May and the contract for two with Sabres, two with Centaurus and two with Rolls Royce Griffons followed in June. The six prototypes built were as follows: The Tempest Mk.I featured other new features, such as a clean single-piece sliding canopy in place of
2200-443: A difficult deflection shot. The first step in finding a real solution was to mount the weapon on the aircraft, but the propeller remained a problem since the best direction to shoot is straight ahead. Numerous solutions were tried. A second crew member behind the pilot could aim and fire a swivel-mounted machine gun at enemy airplanes; however, this limited the area of coverage chiefly to the rear hemisphere, and effective coordination of
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#17328477494692400-557: A difficult opponent for the Luftwaffe ' s Messerschmitt Bf 109G and Fw 190 fighters to counter. Armed reconnaissance missions were usually flown by two sections (eight aircraft), flying in finger-four formations, which would cross the front lines at altitudes of 7,000 to 8,000 feet: once the Tempests reached their allocated target area the lead section dropped to 4,000 ft (1,200 m) or lower to search for targets to strafe, while
2600-593: A ducted spinner, similar to that fitted to the Fw 190 V1 . Tempest V SN354 was fitted with two experimental underwing Class P 47 mm guns (built by Vickers ) just after the war. These guns were part of a project started in mid-1942 to develop a more powerful airborne anti-tank gun than the Vickers 40 mm Class S gun which had been used on the Hurricane IID. The Vickers guns were housed in long slim streamlined gun pods carried on
2800-427: A flap valve in the air passages. Other factors influence the temperature of the engine, including radiator size and the type of radiator fan. The size of the radiator (and thus its cooling capacity ) is chosen such that it can keep the engine at the design temperature under the most extreme conditions a vehicle is likely to encounter (such as climbing a mountain whilst fully loaded on a hot day). Airflow speed through
3000-552: A form that would replace all others in the 1930s. As collective combat experience grew, the more successful pilots such as Oswald Boelcke , Max Immelmann , and Edward Mannock developed innovative tactical formations and maneuvers to enhance their air units' combat effectiveness. Allied and – before 1918 – German pilots of World War I were not equipped with parachutes , so in-flight fires or structural failures were often fatal. Parachutes were well-developed by 1918 having previously been used by balloonists, and were adopted by
3200-471: A four-blade propeller. LA602 initially flew with a Typhoon-type fin and rudder unit. This was followed by the second, LA607 , which was completed with the enlarged dorsal fin and first flew on 18 September 1943: LA607 was assigned to engine development. The first major problem experienced during the first few flights was serious engine vibrations, which were cured by replacing the rigid, eight-point engine mountings with six-point rubber-packed shock mounts. In
3400-411: A further attempt to alleviate engine vibration, the four-blade propeller was replaced with a five-blade unit; eventually, a finely balanced four bladed unit was settled on. Problems were also experienced with engine overheating, poor crankshaft lubrication, exhaust malfunctions and reduction-gear seizures. Because of these problems, and because of the decision to "tropicalise" all Tempest IIs for service in
3600-645: A great deal of ground-attack work. In World War II, the USAAF and RAF often favored fighters over dedicated light bombers or dive bombers , and types such as the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and Hawker Hurricane that were no longer competitive as aerial combat fighters were relegated to ground attack. Several aircraft, such as the F-111 and F-117, have received fighter designations though they had no fighter capability due to political or other reasons. The F-111B variant
3800-422: A harmfully false reading. Opening a hot radiator drops the system pressure, which may cause it to boil and eject dangerously hot liquid and steam. Therefore, radiator caps often contain a mechanism that attempts to relieve the internal pressure before the cap can be fully opened. The invention of the automobile water radiator is attributed to Karl Benz . Wilhelm Maybach designed the first honeycomb radiator for
4000-470: A high ratio of surface to volume) by a surface-mounted radiator. This uses a single surface blended into the fuselage or wing skin, with the coolant flowing through pipes at the back of this surface. Such designs were seen mostly on World War I aircraft. As they are so dependent on airspeed, surface radiators are even more prone to overheating when ground-running. Racing aircraft such as the Supermarine S.6B ,
4200-458: A less efficient but simpler construction. Radiators first used downward vertical flow, driven solely by a thermosyphon effect. Coolant is heated in the engine, becomes less dense, and so rises. As the radiator cools the fluid, the coolant becomes denser and falls. This effect is sufficient for low-power stationary engines , but inadequate for all but the earliest automobiles. All automobiles for many years have used centrifugal pumps to circulate
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#17328477494694400-437: A liquid called engine coolant through the engine block and cylinder head where it is heated, then through a radiator where it loses heat to the atmosphere, and then returned to the engine. Engine coolant is usually water-based, but may also be oil. It is common to employ a water pump to force the engine coolant to circulate, and also for an axial fan to force air through the radiator. In automobiles and motorcycles with
4600-444: A liquid-cooled internal combustion engine , a radiator is connected to channels running through the engine and cylinder head , through which a liquid ( coolant ) is pumped by a coolant pump. This liquid may be water (in climates where water is unlikely to freeze), but is more commonly a mixture of water and antifreeze in proportions appropriate to the climate. Antifreeze itself is usually ethylene glycol or propylene glycol (with
4800-447: A major area of research. The most obvious, and common, solution to this problem was to run the entire cooling system under pressure. This maintained the specific heat capacity at a constant value, while the outside air temperature continued to drop. Such systems thus improved cooling capability as they climbed. For most uses, this solved the problem of cooling high-performance piston engines, and almost all liquid-cooled aircraft engines of
5000-472: A new de Havilland 14 ft (4.3 m) diameter four-blade propeller. The main undercarriage units were Dowty levered suspension units incorporating trunnions which shortened the legs as they retracted. The retractable tailwheel was fully enclosed by small doors and could be fitted with either a plain Dunlop manufactured tyre, or a Dunlop-Marstrand "twin-contact" anti-shimmy tyre. During development, Camm and
5200-452: A new forged, lightweight assembly which connected to new spar booms: the upper wing root blisters were replaced by small "teardrop" fairings under the wings. The first 100 Tempest Vs were fitted with 20 mm (0.79 in) Hispano Mk.II cannon with long barrels which projected ahead of the wing leading edges and were covered by short fairings; later production Tempest Vs switched to the short-barrelled Hispano Mk.Vs, with muzzles flush with
5400-431: A number of twin-engine fighters were built; however they were found to be outmatched against single-engine fighters and were relegated to other tasks, such as night fighters equipped with radar sets. By the end of the war, turbojet engines were replacing piston engines as the means of propulsion, further increasing aircraft speed. Since the weight of the turbojet engine was far less than a piston engine, having two engines
5600-472: A pair of metal or plastic header tanks, linked by a core with many narrow passageways, giving a high surface area relative to volume. This core is usually made of stacked layers of metal sheet, pressed to form channels and soldered or brazed together. For many years radiators were made from brass or copper cores soldered to brass headers. Modern radiators have aluminum cores, and often save money and weight by using plastic headers with gaskets. This construction
5800-534: A part of military nomenclature, a letter is often assigned to various types of aircraft to indicate their use, along with a number to indicate the specific aircraft. The letters used to designate a fighter differ in various countries. In the English-speaking world, "F" is often now used to indicate a fighter (e.g. Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II or Supermarine Spitfire F.22 ), though "P" used to be used in
6000-602: A proposed British and Commonwealth long-range bomber force based on Okinawa to attack the Japanese home islands. The Pacific War ended before they could be deployed. Various engineering refinements that had gone into the Tempest II were incorporated into the last Tempest variant, designated as the Tempest VI . This variant was furnished with a Napier Sabre V engine with 2,340 hp (1,740 kW). The more powerful Sabre V required
6200-408: A racing seaplane with radiators built into the upper surfaces of its floats, have been described as "being flown on the temperature gauge" as the main limit on their performance. Surface radiators have also been used by a few high-speed racing cars, such as Malcolm Campbell 's Blue Bird of 1928. It is generally a limitation of most cooling systems that the cooling fluid not be allowed to boil, as
Hawker Tempest - Misplaced Pages Continue
6400-470: A radiator is a major influence on the heat it dissipates. Vehicle speed affects this, in rough proportion to the engine effort, thus giving crude self-regulatory feedback. Where an additional cooling fan is driven by the engine, this also tracks engine speed similarly. Engine-driven fans are often regulated by a fan clutch from the drivebelt, which slips and reduces the fan speed at low temperatures. This improves fuel efficiency by not wasting power on driving
6600-622: A range of specialized aircraft types. Some of the most expensive fighters such as the US Grumman F-14 Tomcat , McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle , Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and Russian Sukhoi Su-27 were employed as all-weather interceptors as well as air superiority fighter aircraft, while commonly developing air-to-ground roles late in their careers. An interceptor is generally an aircraft intended to target (or intercept) bombers and so often trades maneuverability for climb rate. As
6800-719: A result, during the early months of these campaigns, Axis air forces destroyed large numbers of Red Air Force aircraft on the ground and in one-sided dogfights. In the later stages on the Eastern Front, Soviet training and leadership improved, as did their equipment. By 1942 Soviet designs such as the Yakovlev Yak-9 and Lavochkin La-5 had performance comparable to the German Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 . Also, significant numbers of British, and later U.S., fighter aircraft were supplied to aid
7000-638: A separate (and vulnerable) radiator, but had increased drag. Inline engines often had a better power-to-weight ratio . Some air forces experimented with " heavy fighters " (called "destroyers" by the Germans). These were larger, usually twin-engined aircraft, sometimes adaptations of light or medium bomber types. Such designs typically had greater internal fuel capacity (thus longer range) and heavier armament than their single-engine counterparts. In combat, they proved vulnerable to more agile single-engine fighters. The primary driver of fighter innovation, right up to
7200-413: A separate small radiator to cool the engine oil . Cars with an automatic transmission often have extra connections to the radiator, allowing the transmission fluid to transfer its heat to the coolant in the radiator. These may be either oil-air radiators, as for a smaller version of the main radiator. More simply they may be oil-water coolers, where an oil pipe is inserted inside the water radiator. Though
7400-507: A series of shutters that can be adjusted from the driver's or pilot's seat to provide a degree of control. Some modern cars have a series of shutters that are automatically opened and closed by the engine control unit to provide a balance of cooling and aerodynamics as needed. Because the thermal efficiency of internal combustion engines increases with internal temperature, the coolant is kept at higher-than-atmospheric pressure to increase its boiling point . A calibrated pressure-relief valve
7600-420: A single operator, who flew the aircraft and also controlled its armament. They were armed with one or two Maxim or Vickers machine guns, which were easier to synchronize than other types, firing through the propeller arc. Gun breeches were in front of the pilot, with obvious implications in case of accidents, but jams could be cleared in flight, while aiming was simplified. The use of metal aircraft structures
7800-405: A small amount of corrosion inhibitor ). A typical automotive cooling system comprises: The combustion process produces a large amount of heat. If heat were allowed to increase unchecked, detonation would occur, and components outside the engine would fail due to excessive temperature. To combat this effect, coolant is circulated through the engine where it absorbs heat. Once the coolant absorbs
8000-614: A typical pursuit and would either use cannon fire or nudge the V-1 with the aircraft itself to destroy it. In September 1944, Tempest units, based at forward airfields in England, supported Operation Market Garden , the airborne attempt to seize a bridgehead over the Rhine . On 21 September 1944, as the V-1 threat had receded, the Tempest squadrons were redeployed to the 2nd TAF, effectively trading places with
8200-402: Is a fast, heavily armed and long-range type, able to act as an escort fighter protecting bombers , to carry out offensive sorties of its own as a penetration fighter and maintain standing patrols at significant distance from its home base. Bombers are vulnerable due to their low speed, large size and poor maneuvrability. The escort fighter was developed during World War II to come between
Hawker Tempest - Misplaced Pages Continue
8400-539: Is able to defend itself while conducting attack sorties. The word "fighter" was first used to describe a two-seat aircraft carrying a machine gun (mounted on a pedestal) and its operator as well as the pilot . Although the term was coined in the United Kingdom, the first examples were the French Voisin pushers beginning in 1910, and a Voisin III would be the first to shoot down another aircraft, on 5 October 1914. However at
8600-616: Is known as an interceptor . Recognized classes of fighter include: Of these, the Fighter-bomber , reconnaissance fighter and strike fighter classes are dual-role, possessing qualities of the fighter alongside some other battlefield role. Some fighter designs may be developed in variants performing other roles entirely, such as ground attack or unarmed reconnaissance . This may be for political or national security reasons, for advertising purposes, or other reasons. The Sopwith Camel and other "fighting scouts" of World War I performed
8800-407: Is more difficult to build an aircraft radiator that is able to handle steam, it is by no means impossible. The key requirement is to provide a system that condenses the steam back into liquid before passing it back into the pumps and completing the cooling loop. Such a system can take advantage of the specific heat of vaporization , which in the case of water is five times the specific heat capacity in
9000-411: Is more prone to failure and less easily repaired than traditional materials. An earlier construction method was the honeycomb radiator. Round tubes were swaged into hexagons at their ends, then stacked together and soldered. As they only touched at their ends, this formed what became in effect a solid water tank with many air tubes through it. Some vintage cars use radiator cores made from coiled tube,
9200-438: Is that the specific heat capacity changes and boiling point reduces with pressure, and this pressure changes more rapidly with altitude than the drop in temperature. Thus, generally, liquid cooling systems lose capacity as the aircraft climbs. This was a major limit on performance during the 1930s when the introduction of turbosuperchargers first allowed convenient travel at altitudes above 15,000 ft, and cooling design became
9400-437: Is usually incorporated in the radiator's fill cap. This pressure varies between models, but typically ranges from 4 to 30 psi (30 to 200 kPa). As the coolant system pressure increases with a rise in temperature, it will reach the point where the pressure relief valve allows excess pressure to escape. This will stop when the system temperature stops rising. In the case of an over-filled radiator (or header tank) pressure
9600-434: Is vented by allowing a little liquid to escape. This may simply drain onto the ground or be collected in a vented container which remains at atmospheric pressure. When the engine is switched off, the cooling system cools and liquid level drops. In some cases where excess liquid has been collected in a bottle, this may be 'sucked' back into the main coolant circuit. In other cases, it is not. Before World War II, engine coolant
9800-540: The Combined Bomber Offensive . Unescorted Consolidated B-24 Liberators and Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers, however, proved unable to fend off German interceptors (primarily Bf 109s and Fw 190s). With the later arrival of long range fighters, particularly the North American P-51 Mustang , American fighters were able to escort far into Germany on daylight raids and by ranging ahead attrited
10000-544: The Commonwealth Tiger Force . During development of the earlier Hawker Typhoon , the design team, under the leadership of Sydney Camm , had already planned out a series of design improvements; these improvements culminated in the Hawker P. 1012 , otherwise known as the Typhoon II or "Thin-Wing Typhoon". Although the Typhoon was generally considered to be a good design, Camm and his design team were disappointed with
10200-572: The Junkers D.I , made with corrugated duralumin , all based on his experience in creating the pioneering Junkers J 1 all-metal airframe technology demonstration aircraft of late 1915. While Fokker would pursue steel tube fuselages with wooden wings until the late 1930s, and Junkers would focus on corrugated sheet metal, Dornier was the first to build a fighter (the Dornier-Zeppelin D.I ) made with pre-stressed sheet aluminum and having cantilevered wings,
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#173284774946910400-551: The Mercedes 35hp . It is sometimes necessary for a car to be equipped with a second, or auxiliary, radiator to increase the cooling capacity, when the size of the original radiator cannot be increased. The second radiator is plumbed in series with the main radiator in the circuit. This was the case when the Audi 100 was first turbocharged creating the 200. These are not to be confused with intercoolers . Some engines have an oil cooler,
10600-578: The Mustang III squadrons of 122 Wing , which became part of the Fighter Command units deployed on bomber escort duties. 122 Wing now consisted of 3 Sqn., 56 Sqn., 80 Sqn. , 274 Sqn. (to March 1945), and 486(NZ)Sqn. From 1 October 1944 122 Wing was based at ALG B.80 (Volkel) near Uden , in the Netherlands . During the early phase of operations, the Tempest regularly emerged victorious and proved to be
10800-587: The Normandy landings , Tempests would routinely conduct long-range sorties inside enemy territory and penetrate into Northern France and the Low Countries , using a combination of cannons and bombs to attack airfields, radar installations, ground vehicles, coastal shipping and the launch sites for the German V-1 flying bombs . The build-up of Tempest-equipped squadrons was increased rapidly, in part due to factors such as
11000-539: The P-51 Mustang ) derive thrust from it. The thrust was significant enough to offset the drag of the duct the radiator was enclosed in and allowed the aircraft to achieve zero cooling drag. At one point, there were even plans to equip the Supermarine Spitfire with an afterburner , by injecting fuel into the exhaust duct after the radiator and igniting it . Afterburning is achieved by injecting additional fuel into
11200-453: The P.1027 was essentially a slightly enlarged Tempest with the R.46 engine, which Hawker expected to develop around 4,000 hp (2,980 kW). This engine would have driven a pair of four-bladed contra-rotating propellers. The radiator was relocated into a ventral bath set underneath the rear fuselage and wing centre section: the wingspan was 41 ft (12 m) and the length was 37 ft 3 in (11.35 m). However, work upon
11400-502: The RAF and the USAAF against German industry intended to wear down the Luftwaffe. Axis fighter aircraft focused on defending against Allied bombers while Allied fighters' main role was as bomber escorts. The RAF raided German cities at night, and both sides developed radar-equipped night fighters for these battles. The Americans, in contrast, flew daylight bombing raids into Germany delivering
11600-569: The Sopwith Tabloid and Bristol Scout . The French and the Germans didn't have an equivalent as they used two seaters for reconnaissance, such as the Morane-Saulnier L , but would later modify pre-war racing aircraft into armed single seaters. It was quickly found that these were of little use since the pilot couldn't record what he saw while also flying, while military leaders usually ignored what
11800-462: The South-East Asian theatre , production was delayed. Orders had been placed as early as September 1942 for 500 Tempest IIs to be built by Gloster but in 1943, because of priority being given to the Typhoon, a production contract of 330 Tempest IIs was allocated instead to Bristol , while Hawker were to build 1,800. This switch delayed production even more. On 4 October 1944, the first Tempest II
12000-760: The Stangensteuerung in German, for "pushrod control system") devised by the engineers of Anthony Fokker 's firm was the first system to enter service. It would usher in what the British called the " Fokker scourge " and a period of air superiority for the German forces, making the Fokker Eindecker monoplane a feared name over the Western Front , despite its being an adaptation of an obsolete pre-war French Morane-Saulnier racing airplane, with poor flight characteristics and
12200-454: The Supermarine Spitfire 's 13.2 per cent tapering to 6 per cent at the tip, the thinner design being deliberately chosen to reduce drag. In addition, there had been other issues experienced with the Typhoon, such as engine unreliability, insufficient structural integrity, and the inability to perform high altitude interception duties. In March 1940, engineers were assigned to investigate the new low–drag laminar flow wing developed by NACA in
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#173284774946912400-643: The British Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force referred to them as " scouts " until the early 1920s, while the U.S. Army called them "pursuit" aircraft until the late 1940s (using the designation P, as in Curtiss P-40 Warhawk , Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and Bell P-63 Kingcobra ). The UK changed to calling them fighters in the 1920s , while the US Army did so in the 1940s. A short-range fighter designed to defend against incoming enemy aircraft
12600-621: The British, the Americans, the Spanish (in the Spanish civil war) and the Germans. Given limited budgets, air forces were conservative in aircraft design, and biplanes remained popular with pilots for their agility, and remained in service long after they ceased to be competitive. Designs such as the Gloster Gladiator , Fiat CR.42 Falco , and Polikarpov I-15 were common even in the late 1930s, and many were still in service as late as 1942. Up until
12800-704: The Centaurus; the DTD stating that the development was highest priority. Delays with the Sabre IV development affected the project. With the expected first flight date for the Tempest was September 1942, the engine for HM595 was changed to a Sabre II complete with the Typhoon cooling system and under nose radiator. Due to this previous experience on other programmes, the Air Ministry was sufficiently motivated to request that Tempest prototypes be built using different engines so that, if
13000-755: The European battlefield, played a crucial role in the eventual defeat of the Axis, which Reichmarshal Hermann Göring , commander of the German Luftwaffe summed up when he said: "When I saw Mustangs over Berlin, I knew the jig was up." Radiator (engine cooling) Radiators are heat exchangers used for cooling internal combustion engines , mainly in automobiles but also in piston-engined aircraft , railway locomotives , motorcycles , stationary generating plants or any similar use of such an engine. Internal combustion engines are often cooled by circulating
13200-483: The German flying services during the course of that year. The well known and feared Manfred von Richthofen , the "Red Baron", was wearing one when he was killed, but the allied command continued to oppose their use on various grounds. In April 1917, during a brief period of German aerial supremacy a British pilot's average life expectancy was calculated to average 93 flying hours, or about three weeks of active service. More than 50,000 airmen from both sides died during
13400-606: The German invasion. The period of improving the same biplane design over and over was now coming to an end, and the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire started to supplant the Gloster Gladiator and Hawker Fury biplanes but many biplanes remained in front-line service well past the start of World War II. While not a combatant in Spain, they too absorbed many of the lessons in time to use them. The Spanish Civil War also provided an opportunity for updating fighter tactics. One of
13600-492: The Hawker design team had placed a high priority on making the Tempest easily accessible to both air and ground crews; to this end, the forward fuselage and cockpit areas of the earlier Hurricane and the Tempest and Typhoon families were covered by large removable panels providing access to as many components as possible, including flight controls and engine accessories. Both upper wing roots incorporated panels of non-slip coating. For
13800-673: The Italians developed several monoplanes such as the Fiat G.50 Freccia , but being short on funds, were forced to continue operating obsolete Fiat CR.42 Falco biplanes. From the early 1930s the Japanese were at war against both the Chinese Nationalists and the Russians in China, and used the experience to improve both training and aircraft, replacing biplanes with modern cantilever monoplanes and creating
14000-932: The Japanese Nakajima Ki-27 , Nakajima Ki-43 and Mitsubishi A6M Zero and the Italian Fiat G.50 Freccia and Macchi MC.200 . In contrast, designers in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States believed that the increased speed of fighter aircraft would create g -forces unbearable to pilots who attempted maneuvering dogfights typical of the First World War, and their fighters were instead optimized for speed and firepower. In practice, while light, highly maneuverable aircraft did possess some advantages in fighter-versus-fighter combat, those could usually be overcome by sound tactical doctrine, and
14200-558: The Luftwaffe to establish control of the skies over Western Europe. By the time of Operation Overlord in June 1944, the Allies had gained near complete air superiority over the Western Front. This cleared the way both for intensified strategic bombing of German cities and industries, and for the tactical bombing of battlefield targets. With the Luftwaffe largely cleared from the skies, Allied fighters increasingly served as ground attack aircraft. Allied fighters, by gaining air superiority over
14400-637: The Luftwaffe, and while the Luftwaffe maintained a qualitative edge over the Red Air Force for much of the war, the increasing numbers and efficacy of the Soviet Air Force were critical to the Red Army's efforts at turning back and eventually annihilating the Wehrmacht . Meanwhile, air combat on the Western Front had a much different character. Much of this combat focused on the strategic bombing campaigns of
14600-487: The P.1027 design was soon dropped in favour of concentrating upon a further developed design, the P.1030, in September It featured wing leading edge radiators and had larger overall dimensions of 42 ft (13 m) wingspan and 39 ft 9 in (12.12 m) length. The top speed was calculated as 509 mph (819 km/h) at 20,000 ft, with a rate of climb of 6,400 ft/min (1,951 m/min). Service ceiling
14800-525: The Second World War. Continual problems with the Sabre IV meant that only the single Tempest Mk.I ( HM599 ) was built; consequently, Hawker proceeded to take the Sabre II-equipped "Tempest V" into production instead. In August 1942, even before the first flight of the prototype Tempest V had been conducted, a production order for 400 Tempests was placed by the Air Ministry. This order was split, with
15000-539: The Soviet Polikarpov I-16 . The later German design was earlier in its design cycle, and had more room for development and the lessons learned led to greatly improved models in World War II. The Russians failed to keep up and despite newer models coming into service, I-16s remaining the most common Soviet front-line fighter into 1942 despite being outclassed by the improved Bf 109s in World War II. For their part,
15200-580: The Soviet war effort as part of Lend-Lease , with the Bell P-39 Airacobra proving particularly effective in the lower-altitude combat typical of the Eastern Front. The Soviets were also helped indirectly by the American and British bombing campaigns, which forced the Luftwaffe to shift many of its fighters away from the Eastern Front in defense against these raids. The Soviets increasingly were able to challenge
15400-412: The Tempest II was longer than the Tempest Mk.V (34 ft 5 in (10.49 m) versus 33 ft 8 in (10.26 m) and 3 in (76 mm) lower. The weight of the heavier Centaurus engine (2,695 pounds (1,222 kg) versus 2,360 pounds (1,070 kg) was offset by the absence of a heavy radiator unit, so that the Tempest II was only some 20 pounds (9.1 kg) heavier overall. Performance
15600-483: The Tempest Mk.V attained general clearance to carry such ordnance, but few Tempest Mk.V deployed bombs operationally during the war. Rockets were never used operationally during the war by the Mk.Vs. As in all mass-produced aircraft, there may have been some overlap of these features as new components became available. In mid-to-late 1944 other features were introduced to both the Typhoon and Tempest: A Rebecca transponder unit
15800-535: The Tempest V had attained general acceptance and was in the hands of operational squadrons; 3 Squadron was the first to be fully equipped, closely followed by 486 (NZ) Squadron (the only Article XV squadron to be equipped with the Tempest during the Second World War), replacing their previous Typhoons. A third unit— 56 Squadron —initially kept its Typhoons and was then temporarily equipped with Spitfire IXs until sufficient supplies of Tempests were available. By
16000-433: The Tempest V, both the improved Sabre IIB and IIC were used, these engines were capable of producing over 2,400 hp (1,800 kW) on emergency boost for short periods of time. Alternative engines were used on some production variants, such as the Tempest II, for which a single Bristol Centaurus 18 cylinder radial engine was adopted, or the final Tempest VI, upon which a Napier Sabre V was used. Early on in development,
16200-503: The Tempest VI standard in order to participate in service trials at RAF Boscombe Down. At one point, 250 Tempest VIs were on order for the RAF; however, the end of the war led to many aircraft programs being cut back intensively, leading to only 142 aircraft being completed. For a long time, it was thought there were Tempest VIs that had been converted for target towing purposes; however, none of
16400-521: The Typhoon II, was granted. The design at the time encompassed the Sabre E.107C (as it was then known) with a four-blade propeller, 42 ft span elliptical wing with six cannon armament; while the front of the fuselage was redesigned the rear was unchanged from the Typhoon. At this point, work was undertaken by a team of 45 draughtsmen at Hawker's wartime experimental design office at Claremont , Esher to convert
16600-628: The Typhoon by the longer nose incurred by the new fuel tank. The horizontal tailplanes and elevators were also increased in span and chord; these were also fitted to late production Typhoons. Test pilots found the Tempest a great improvement over the Typhoon in performance; in February 1943 the pilots from the Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down reported that they were impressed by "a manoeuvrable and pleasant aircraft to fly with no major handling faults". On 24 February 1943,
16800-410: The Typhoon, but it was not long before the rear fuselage was strengthened and, with the fishplates no longer being needed, the rear fuselage became detachable. The first series of Tempest Vs used a built-up rear spar pick-up/bulkhead assembly (just behind the cockpit) which was adapted from the Typhoon. Small blisters on the upper rear wing root fairing covered the securing bolts. This was later changed to
17000-483: The Typhoon, it was renamed Tempest . The Tempest emerged as one of the most powerful fighters of World War II and at low altitude was the fastest single-engine propeller-driven aircraft of the war. Upon entering service in 1944, the Tempest performed low-level interception, particularly against the V-1 flying bomb threat, and ground attack supporting major invasions like Operation Market Garden . Later, it successfully targeted
17200-594: The US for pursuit (e.g. Curtiss P-40 Warhawk ), a translation of the French "C" ( Dewoitine D.520 C.1 ) for Chasseur while in Russia "I" was used for Istrebitel , or exterminator ( Polikarpov I-16 ). As fighter types have proliferated, the air superiority fighter emerged as a specific role at the pinnacle of speed, maneuverability, and air-to-air weapon systems – able to hold its own against all other fighters and establish its dominance in
17400-529: The United States, Russia, India and China. The first step was to find ways to reduce the aircraft's reflectivity to radar waves by burying the engines, eliminating sharp corners and diverting any reflections away from the radar sets of opposing forces. Various materials were found to absorb the energy from radar waves, and were incorporated into special finishes that have since found widespread application. Composite structures have become widespread, including major structural components, and have helped to counterbalance
17600-498: The United States, which was later used in the North American P-51 Mustang . A laminar flow wing adopted for the Tempest series had a maximum thickness-to-chord ratio of 14.5 per cent at the root, tapering to 10 per cent at the tip. The maximum thickness of the Tempest wing was set further back at 37.5 per cent of the chord versus 30 per cent for the Typhoon's wing, reducing the thickness of the wing root by five inches on
17800-465: The V-1 threat, although a labour strike in Hawker's assembly shop adversely affected this rate; by September 1944, five frontline Tempest squadrons with a total of 114 aircraft were in operation. In June 1944, the first of the V-1s were launched against London; the excellent low-altitude performance of the Tempest made it one of the preferred tools for handling the small fast-flying unmanned missiles. 150 Wing
18000-412: The World War II period used this solution. However, pressurized systems were also more complex, and far more susceptible to damage - as the cooling fluid was under pressure, even minor damage in the cooling system like a single rifle-calibre bullet hole, would cause the liquid to rapidly spray out of the hole. Failures of the cooling systems were, by far, the leading cause of engine failures. Although it
18200-492: The ability to gather information by reconnaissance over the battlefield. Early fighters were very small and lightly armed by later standards, and most were biplanes built with a wooden frame covered with fabric, and a maximum airspeed of about 100 mph (160 km/h). A successful German biplane, the Albatross, however, was built with a plywood shell, rather than fabric, which created a stronger, faster airplane. As control of
18400-413: The adoption of glycol or water-glycol mixtures. These led to the adoption of glycols for their antifreeze properties. Since the development of aluminium alloy or mixed-metal engines, corrosion inhibition has become even more important than antifreeze, and in all regions and seasons. An overflow tank that runs dry may result in the coolant vaporizing, which can cause localized or general overheating of
18600-408: The adoption of several other engines was proposed, some of which were tested upon multiple prototypes. The wing of the Tempest was one of its more significant design features, having been developed from the Typhoon to use a thinner laminar flow design approach. The wing planform was of a near- elliptical shape; the aircraft's armament of four 20 mm Hispano cannons with 800 rounds of ammunition
18800-509: The advantages of fighting above Britain's home territory allowed the RAF to deny Germany air superiority, saving the UK from possible German invasion and dealing the Axis a major defeat early in the Second World War. On the Eastern Front , Soviet fighter forces were overwhelmed during the opening phases of Operation Barbarossa . This was a result of the tactical surprise at the outset of the campaign,
19000-549: The aircraft wings, fuselage and even the rudder. Several aircraft were built using their design and set numerous performance records, notably the Heinkel He 119 and Heinkel He 100 . However, these systems required numerous pumps to return the liquid from the spread-out radiators and proved to be extremely difficult to keep running properly, and were much more susceptible to battle damage. Efforts to develop this system had generally been abandoned by 1940. The need for evaporative cooling
19200-534: The airspace over armies became increasingly important, all of the major powers developed fighters to support their military operations. Between the wars, wood was largely replaced in part or whole by metal tubing, and finally aluminum stressed skin structures (monocoque) began to predominate. By World War II , most fighters were all-metal monoplanes armed with batteries of machine guns or cannons and some were capable of speeds approaching 400 mph (640 km/h). Most fighters up to this point had one engine, but
19400-494: The basis for an effective "fighter" in the modern sense of the word. It was based on small fast aircraft developed before the war for air racing such with the Gordon Bennett Cup and Schneider Trophy . The military scout airplane was not expected to carry serious armament, but rather to rely on speed to "scout" a location, and return quickly to report, making it a flying horse. British scout aircraft, in this sense, included
19600-468: The bomb racks and had 38 rounds each. Surviving photographs suggests that the 20 mm wing guns were removed for this installation. Testing of the guns revealed that the weapon had potential, but no production was undertaken. As a result of the termination of the Tornado project, Sydney Camm and his design team transferred the alternative engine proposals for the Tornado to the more advanced Tempest. Thus, it
19800-414: The bombers and enemy attackers as a protective shield. The primary requirement was for long range, with several heavy fighters given the role. However they too proved unwieldy and vulnerable, so as the war progressed techniques such as drop tanks were developed to extend the range of more nimble conventional fighters. The penetration fighter is typically also fitted for the ground-attack role, and so
20000-698: The brunt of low- to medium-altitude fighter operations for the Second Tactical Air Force , which had fortuitously evaded the extensive Bodenplatte raid, and had contributed to efforts to intercept the raiders. During this time, Spitfire XIVs of 125 and 126 Wings often provided medium- to high-altitude cover for the Tempests, which came under intense pressure, the wing losing 47 pilots in January. In February 1945, 33 and 222 Sqns. of 135 Wing converted from Spitfire Mk IXs and, in March, were joined by 274 Sqn. 135 Wing
20200-458: The car-door framed canopy, and it used wing radiators instead of the "chin" radiator. Due to development difficulties with the Sabre IV engine and its wing radiators, the completion of the Mk.I prototype, HM599 , was delayed, and thus it was the Mk.V prototype, HM595 , that would fly first. On 2 September 1942, the Tempest Mk.V prototype, HM595 , conducted its maiden flight , flown by Philip Lucas from Langley, Berkshire , England. HM595 , which
20400-430: The centre section and, starting with late model Tempest Vs, a 30 Igal (136 L) tank was carried in the leading edge of the port wingroot, giving the Tempest a total internal fuel capacity of 162 Igal (736 L). Another important feature of the new wing was Camm's proposal that the radiators for cooling the engine be fitted into the leading edge of the wing inboard of the undercarriage . This eliminated
20600-472: The coolant temperature as the engine warms up. Engine coolant is directed by the thermostat to the inlet of the circulating pump and is returned directly to the engine, bypassing the radiator. Directing water to circulate only through the engine allows the engine to reach optimum operating temperature as quickly as possible whilst avoiding localized "hot spots." Once the coolant reaches the thermostat's activation temperature, it opens, allowing water to flow through
20800-437: The correct clearances. Another side effect of over-cooling is reduced performance of the cabin heater, though in typical cases it still blows air at a considerably higher temperature than ambient. The thermostat is therefore constantly moving throughout its range, responding to changes in vehicle operating load, speed, and external temperature, to keep the engine at its optimum operating temperature. On vintage cars you may find
21000-601: The defense budgets of modern armed forces. The global combat aircraft market was worth $ 45.75 billion in 2017 and is projected by Frost & Sullivan at $ 47.2 billion in 2026: 35% modernization programs and 65% aircraft purchases, dominated by the Lockheed Martin F-35 with 3,000 deliveries over 20 years. A fighter aircraft is primarily designed for air-to-air combat . A given type may be designed for specific combat conditions, and in some cases for additional roles such as air-to-ground fighting. Historically
21200-656: The design approach of the Italians and Japanese made their fighters ill-suited as interceptors or attack aircraft. During the invasion of Poland and the Battle of France , Luftwaffe fighters—primarily the Messerschmitt Bf 109 —held air superiority, and the Luftwaffe played a major role in German victories in these campaigns. During the Battle of Britain , however, British Hurricanes and Spitfires proved roughly equal to Luftwaffe fighters. Additionally Britain's radar-based Dowding system directing fighters onto German attacks and
21400-431: The difficulties with the Sabre IV and the wing radiators led to this version never reaching production, the corresponding order was switched to 300 Tempest V "Series 2"s instead. During early 1943, a production line for the Tempest Mk.V was established in Hawker's Langley facility, alongside the existing manufacturing line for the Hawker Hurricane . Production was initially slow, claimed to be due to issues encountered with
21600-430: The distinctive " chin " radiator of the Typhoon and improved aerodynamics . A further improvement of the Tempest wing over that of the Typhoon was the exceptional, flush-riveted surface finish, essential on a high-performance laminar flow airfoil . The new wing and airfoil, and the use of a four-bladed propeller, acted to eliminate the high frequency vibrations that had plagued the Typhoon. The design team also chose to use
21800-516: The early 1960s since both were believed unusable at the speeds being attained, however the Vietnam War showed that guns still had a role to play, and most fighters built since then are fitted with cannon (typically between 20 and 30 mm (0.79 and 1.18 in) in caliber) in addition to missiles. Most modern combat aircraft can carry at least a pair of air-to-air missiles. In the 1970s, turbofans replaced turbojets, improving fuel economy enough that
22000-491: The empty tanks would explode if hit by flak, the threat never eventuated and, due to the tanks being often difficult to jettison, they were routinely carried throughout an operation with little effect on performance, reducing maximum speed by 5 to 10 mph and range by 2 per cent. Between October and December 1944, the Tempest was practically withdrawn from combat operations for overhaul work, as well as to allow operational pilots to train newcomers. The overhaul process involved
22200-481: The end of April 1944, these units were based at RAF Newchurch in Kent a new " Advanced Landing Ground " (ALG), where they formed 150 Wing , commanded by Wing Commander Roland Beamont . The new Wing was part of the Second Tactical Air Force (2nd TAF). Most of the operations carried out by 150 Wing comprised high-altitude fighter sweeps, offensive operations known as "Rangers", as well as reconnaissance missions. Prior to
22400-472: The engine coolant because natural circulation has very low flow rates. A system of valves or baffles, or both, is usually incorporated to simultaneously operate a small radiator inside the vehicle. This small radiator, and the associated blower fan, is called the heater core , and serves to warm the cabin interior. Like the radiator, the heater core acts by removing heat from the engine. For this reason, automotive technicians often advise operators to turn on
22600-491: The engine cowling, and the replacement of the L-shaped pitot head under the outer port wing by a straight rod projecting from the port outer wing leading edge. All production aircraft were powered by a (2,590 hp (1,930 kW) Centaurus V driving a 12 ft 9 in (3.89 m) diameter Rotol propeller. Tempest IIs produced during the war were intended for combat against Japan and would have formed part of Tiger Force ,
22800-459: The engine is producing. Allowing too much flow of coolant to the radiator would result in the engine being over-cooled and operating at lower than optimum temperature, resulting in decreased fuel efficiency and increased exhaust emissions. Furthermore, engine durability, reliability, and longevity are sometimes compromised, if any components (such as the crankshaft bearings) are engineered to take thermal expansion into account to fit together with
23000-410: The engine. Severe damage may result if the vehicle is allowed to run over temperature. Failures such as blown head gaskets, and warped or cracked cylinder heads or cylinder blocks may be the result. Sometimes there will be no warning, because the temperature sensor that provides data for the temperature gauge (either mechanical or electrical) is exposed to water vapor, not the liquid coolant, providing
23200-451: The engine: to the rear were air outlets with automatic sliding "gills". The carburettor air intakes were in the inner leading edges of both wings, an oil cooler and air intake were present in the inner starboard wing. The engine installation owed much to examinations of a captured Focke-Wulf Fw 190 , and was clean and effective. On 28 June 1943, the first Tempest II, LA602 , flew powered by a Centaurus IV (2,520 hp/1,879 kW) driving
23400-405: The enormous amount of heat energy soaked up during the generation of steam, equivalent to 500 °C. In effect, the evaporative version is operating between 80 °C and 560 °C, a 480 °C effective temperature difference. Such a system can be effective even with much smaller amounts of water. The downside to the evaporative cooling system is the area of the condensers required to cool
23600-494: The fan unnecessarily. On modern vehicles, further regulation of cooling rate is provided by either variable speed or cycling radiator fans. Electric fans are controlled by a thermostatic switch or the engine control unit . Electric fans also have the advantage of giving good airflow and cooling at low engine revs or when stationary, such as in slow-moving traffic. Before the development of viscous-drive and electric fans, engines were fitted with simple fixed fans that drew air through
23800-513: The fighter. Rifle-caliber .30 and .303 in (7.62 and 7.70 mm) calibre guns remained the norm, with larger weapons either being too heavy and cumbersome or deemed unnecessary against such lightly built aircraft. It was not considered unreasonable to use World War I-style armament to counter enemy fighters as there was insufficient air-to-air combat during most of the period to disprove this notion. The rotary engine , popular during World War I, quickly disappeared, its development having reached
24000-512: The first Allied combat encounter with a Dornier 335 in April 1945. In his book The Big Show, he describes leading a flight of Hawker Tempests from No. 3 Squadron RAF over northern Germany, when they saw a lone unusual looking aircraft flying at maximum speed at treetop level. Detecting the British aircraft, the German pilot reversed course to evade. Despite the Tempests' considerable low altitude speed, Clostermann decided not to attempt to follow as it
24200-493: The frame structure, blind spots being reduced to an absolute minimum. It had a bullet-resistant centre panel made up of two layers, the outer 1.5 in (38 mm) thick and the inner 0.25 in (6.4 mm). The majority of production Tempests were powered by a single high-powered Napier Sabre II 24-cylinder engine. All versions of the Sabre drove either a four-bladed, 14 ft (4.3 m) diameter de Havilland Hydromatic or Rotol propeller. Starting with EJxxx series, on
24400-406: The guns were subjected). Shooting with this traditional arrangement was also easier because the guns shot directly ahead in the direction of the aircraft's flight, up to the limit of the guns range; unlike wing-mounted guns which to be effective required to be harmonised , that is, preset to shoot at an angle by ground crews so that their bullets would converge on a target area a set distance ahead of
24600-404: The heat from the engine it continues its flow to the radiator. The radiator transfers heat from the coolant to the passing air. Radiators are also used to cool automatic transmission fluids , air conditioner refrigerant , intake air , and sometimes to cool motor oil or power steering fluid . A radiator is typically mounted in a position where it receives airflow from the forward movement of
24800-407: The heater and set it to high if the engine is overheating , to assist the main radiator. The engine temperature on modern cars is primarily controlled by a wax-pellet type of thermostat , a valve that opens once the engine has reached its optimum operating temperature . When the engine is cold, the thermostat is closed except for a small bypass flow so that the thermostat experiences changes to
25000-422: The incoming air charge—not to cool the engine. Aircraft with liquid-cooled piston engines (usually inline engines rather than radial) also require radiators. As airspeed is higher than for cars, these are efficiently cooled in flight, and so do not require large areas or cooling fans. Many high-performance aircraft however suffer extreme overheating problems when idling on the ground - a mere seven minutes for
25200-497: The initial batch of 100 being Tempest V "Series I"s, powered by the 2,235 hp (1,667 kW) Sabre IIA series engine, which had the distinctive chin radiator, while the rest were to have been produced as the Tempest I, equipped with the Sabre IV and leading-edge radiators. These 300 Tempest Is were intended to replace an order for a similar quantity of Typhoons placed with the Gloster Aircraft Company . As it transpired,
25400-433: The innovations was the development of the " finger-four " formation by the German pilot Werner Mölders . Each fighter squadron (German: Staffel ) was divided into several flights ( Schwärme ) of four aircraft. Each Schwarm was divided into two Rotten , which was a pair of aircraft. Each Rotte was composed of a leader and a wingman. This flexible formation allowed the pilots to maintain greater situational awareness, and
25600-504: The interceptor. The equipment necessary for daytime flight is inadequate when flying at night or in poor visibility. The night fighter was developed during World War I with additional equipment to aid the pilot in flying straight, navigating and finding the target. From modified variants of the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2c in 1915, the night fighter has evolved into the highly capable all-weather fighter. The strategic fighter
25800-420: The last piston engine support aircraft could be replaced with jets, making multi-role combat aircraft possible. Honeycomb structures began to replace milled structures, and the first composite components began to appear on components subjected to little stress. With the steady improvements in computers, defensive systems have become increasingly efficient. To counter this, stealth technologies have been pursued by
26000-564: The leadership vacuum within the Soviet military left by the Great Purge , and the general inferiority of Soviet designs at the time, such as the obsolescent Polikarpov I-15 biplane and the I-16 . More modern Soviet designs, including the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 , LaGG-3 and Yakolev Yak-1 , had not yet arrived in numbers and in any case were still inferior to the Messerschmitt Bf 109 . As
26200-616: The leading edges. Early Tempest Vs used Typhoon-style 34 by 11 in (86 by 28 cm) five-spoke wheels, but most had smaller 30 by 9 in (76 by 23 cm) four-spoke wheels. The new spar structure of the Tempest V also allowed up to 2,000 lb (910 kg) of external stores to be carried underneath the wings. As a result, several early production Tempest V aircraft underwent extensive service trials at Boscombe Down for clearance to be fitted with external stores, such as one 250–1,000 lb (110–450 kg) bomb or eight "60lb" air-to-ground RP-3 rockets under each wing. On 8 April 1944,
26400-616: The liquid form. Additional gains may be had by allowing the steam to become superheated. Such systems, known as evaporative coolers , were the topic of considerable research in the 1930s. Consider two cooling systems that are otherwise similar, operating at an ambient air temperature of 20 °C. An all-liquid design might operate between 30 °C and 90 °C, offering 60 °C of temperature difference to carry away heat. An evaporative cooling system might operate between 80 °C and 110 °C. At first glance this appears to be much less temperature difference, but this analysis overlooks
26600-501: The maintenance of air supremacy within the North German theatre, searching for and destroying any high-performance fighter or bomber aircraft of the Luftwaffe , whether in the air or on the ground. In December 1944, a total of 52 German fighters were downed, 89 trains and countless military vehicles were destroyed, for the loss of 20 Tempests. Following the Luftwaffe ' s Unternehmen Bodenplatte of 1 January 1945, 122 Wing bore
26800-410: The mid-1930s, the majority of fighters in the US, the UK, Italy and Russia remained fabric-covered biplanes. Fighter armament eventually began to be mounted inside the wings, outside the arc of the propeller, though most designs retained two synchronized machine guns directly ahead of the pilot, where they were more accurate (that being the strongest part of the structure, reducing the vibration to which
27000-495: The most modern weapons, against an enemy in complete command of the air, fights like a savage…" Throughout the war, fighters performed their conventional role in establishing air superiority through combat with other fighters and through bomber interception, and also often performed roles such as tactical air support and reconnaissance . Fighter design varied widely among combatants. The Japanese and Italians favored lightly armed and armored but highly maneuverable designs such as
27200-433: The need to handle gas in the flow greatly complicates design. For a water cooled system, this means that the maximum amount of heat transfer is limited by the specific heat capacity of water and the difference in temperature between ambient and 100 °C. This provides more effective cooling in the winter, or at higher altitudes where the temperatures are low. Another effect that is especially important in aircraft cooling
27400-523: The new Mark IV version of the Napier Sabre H-block 24 cylinder engine for the Tempest, drawings of which had become available to Hawker in early 1941. In February 1941, Camm commenced a series of discussions with officials within the Ministry of Aircraft Production on the topic of the P.1012. In March 1941 of that year, clearance to proceed with development of the design, referred to at this point as
27600-507: The new Mk.IIC gyroscopic gunsight (as fitted in RAF Spitfires and Mustangs from mid-1944), which would have considerably improved the chances of shooting down opposing aircraft. Tempest pilots continued to use either the Type I Mk.III reflector gunsight , which projected the sighting graticule directly onto the windscreen, or the Mk.IIL until just after the Second World War, when the gyro gunsight
27800-424: The new design. The wingspan was originally greater than that of the Typhoon at 43 ft (13 m), but the wingtips were later "clipped" and the wing became shorter; 41 ft (12 m) versus 41 ft 7 in (12.67 m). The wing planform was changed to a near- elliptical shape to accommodate the 800 rounds of ammunition for the four 20 mm Hispano cannons , which were moved back further into
28000-607: The opposition. Subsequently, radar capabilities grew enormously and are now the primary method of target acquisition . Wings were made thinner and swept back to reduce transonic drag, which required new manufacturing methods to obtain sufficient strength. Skins were no longer sheet metal riveted to a structure, but milled from large slabs of alloy. The sound barrier was broken, and after a few false starts due to required changes in controls, speeds quickly reached Mach 2, past which aircraft cannot maneuver sufficiently to avoid attack. Air-to-air missiles largely replaced guns and rockets in
28200-512: The other section flew cover 1,000 ft (300 m) higher and down sun. After the first section had carried out several attacks, it swapped places with the second section and the attacks continued until all ammunition had been exhausted, after which the Tempests would return to base at 8,000 ft. As many of the more profitable targets were usually some 250 miles from base, the Tempests typically carried two 45-gallon drop tanks which were turned on soon after takeoff. Although there were fears that
28400-488: The outbreak of World War I , front-line aircraft were mostly unarmed and used almost exclusively for reconnaissance . On 15 August 1914, Miodrag Tomić encountered an enemy airplane while on a reconnaissance flight over Austria-Hungary which fired at his aircraft with a revolver, so Tomić fired back. It was believed to be the first exchange of fire between aircraft. Within weeks, all Serbian and Austro-Hungarian aircraft were armed. Another type of military aircraft formed
28600-451: The outset for dual roles. Other fighter designs are highly specialized while still filling the main air superiority role, and these include the interceptor and, historically, the heavy fighter and night fighter . Since World War I, achieving and maintaining air superiority has been considered essential for victory in conventional warfare . Fighters continued to be developed throughout World War I, to deny enemy aircraft and dirigibles
28800-416: The performance of its wing , which had proved to be too thick in its cross section , and thus created airflow problems which inhibited flight performance, especially at higher altitudes and speeds where it was affected by compressibility . The Typhoon's wing, which used a NACA 4 digit series wing section , had a maximum thickness-to-chord ratio of 19.5 per cent (root) to 12 per cent (tip), in comparison to
29000-479: The period of rapid re-armament in the late 1930s, were not military budgets, but civilian aircraft racing. Aircraft designed for these races introduced innovations like streamlining and more powerful engines that would find their way into the fighters of World War II. The most significant of these was the Schneider Trophy races, where competition grew so fierce, only national governments could afford to enter. At
29200-433: The period, going from a typical 180 hp (130 kW) in the 900 kg (2,000 lb) Fokker D.VII of 1918 to 900 hp (670 kW) in the 2,500 kg (5,500 lb) Curtiss P-36 of 1936. The debate between the sleek in-line engines versus the more reliable radial models continued, with naval air forces preferring the radial engines, and land-based forces often choosing inlines. Radial designs did not require
29400-403: The pilot a retractable foot stirrup under the starboard root trailing edge was linked to a pair of handholds which were covered by spring-loaded flaps. Through a system of linkages, when the canopy was open the stirrup was lowered and the flaps opened, providing easy access to the cockpit; as the canopy was closed, the stirrup was raised into the fuselage and the flaps snapped shut. By April 1944,
29600-452: The pilot's maneuvering with the gunner's aiming was difficult. This option was chiefly employed as a defensive measure on two-seater reconnaissance aircraft from 1915 on. Both the SPAD S.A and the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.9 added a second crewman ahead of the engine in a pod but this was both hazardous to the second crewman and limited performance. The Sopwith L.R.T.Tr. similarly added a pod on
29800-451: The pilots reported. Attempts were made with handheld weapons such as pistols and rifles and even light machine guns, but these were ineffective and cumbersome. The next advance came with the fixed forward-firing machine gun, so that the pilot pointed the entire aircraft at the target and fired the gun, instead of relying on a second gunner. Roland Garros bolted metal deflector plates to the propeller so that it would not shoot itself out of
30000-410: The point where rotational forces prevented more fuel and air from being delivered to the cylinders, which limited horsepower. They were replaced chiefly by the stationary radial engine though major advances led to inline engines gaining ground with several exceptional engines—including the 1,145 cu in (18,760 cm ) V-12 Curtiss D-12 . Aircraft engines increased in power several-fold over
30200-518: The propeller arc was evident even before the outbreak of war and inventors in both France and Germany devised mechanisms that could time the firing of the individual rounds to avoid hitting the propeller blades. Franz Schneider , a Swiss engineer, had patented such a device in Germany in 1913, but his original work was not followed up. French aircraft designer Raymond Saulnier patented a practical device in April 1914, but trials were unsuccessful because of
30400-461: The propeller arc. Wing guns were tried but the unreliable weapons available required frequent clearing of jammed rounds and misfires and remained impractical until after the war. Mounting the machine gun over the top wing worked well and was used long after the ideal solution was found. The Nieuport 11 of 1916 used this system with considerable success, however, this placement made aiming and reloading difficult but would continue to be used throughout
30600-406: The propeller blades were fitted with metal wedges to protect them from ricochets . Garros' modified monoplane first flew in March 1915 and he began combat operations soon after. Garros scored three victories in three weeks before he himself was downed on 18 April and his airplane, along with its synchronization gear and propeller was captured by the Germans. Meanwhile, the synchronization gear (called
30800-426: The propensity of the machine gun employed to hang fire due to unreliable ammunition. In December 1914, French aviator Roland Garros asked Saulnier to install his synchronization gear on Garros' Morane-Saulnier Type L parasol monoplane . Unfortunately the gas-operated Hotchkiss machine gun he was provided had an erratic rate of fire and it was impossible to synchronize it with the propeller. As an interim measure,
31000-493: The proposal had advanced to the point where the new design was finalised. On 18 November 1941, a contract was issued by the Air Ministry for a pair of prototypes of the "Typhoon Mark II"; the new fighter was renamed "Tempest" on 28 February 1942. Complications were added to the Tempest program by external factors in the form of engine issues: the Rolls-Royce Vulture engine and corresponding Hawker Tornado aircraft which
31200-489: The proposal into technical schematics from which to commence manufacture. In March 1941, the Air Ministry issued specification F.10/41 that had been written to fit the aircraft. The performance estimate given to MAP was 455 mph at 26,000 ft. In September Camm was told that the Air Ministry's Director of Technical Development that they had decided to have two Typhoons converted to the new design. By October 1941, development of
31400-450: The radiator at all times. Vehicles whose design required the installation of a large radiator to cope with heavy work at high temperatures, such as commercial vehicles and tractors would often run cool in cold weather under light loads, even with the presence of a thermostat , as the large radiator and fixed fan caused a rapid and significant drop in coolant temperature as soon as the thermostat opened. This problem can be solved by fitting
31600-431: The radiator to prevent the temperature from rising higher. Once at optimum temperature, the thermostat controls the flow of engine coolant to the radiator so that the engine continues to operate at optimum temperature. Under peak load conditions, such as driving slowly up a steep hill whilst heavily laden on a hot day, the thermostat will be approaching fully open because the engine will be producing near maximum power while
31800-611: The rail infrastructure in Germany and Luftwaffe aircraft on the ground, as well as countering similar attacks by German fighters. The Tempest was effective in the low-level interception role, including against newly developed jet-propelled aircraft like the Messerschmitt Me 262 . The further-developed Tempest II did not enter service until after the end of hostilities. It had several improvements, including being tropicalised for combat against Japan in South-East Asia as part of
32000-574: The rear spar. On 21 June 1943, the first production Tempest V, JN729 , rolled off the production line and its maiden flight was conducted by test pilot Bill Humble . During production of the first batch of 100 Tempest V "Series Is", distinguishable by their serial number prefix JN , several improvements were progressively introduced and were used from the outset on all succeeding Tempest V "Series 2s", with serial number prefixes EJ, NV and SN. The fuselage / empennage joint originally featured 20 external reinforcing "fishplates", similar to those fitted to
32200-431: The replacement or major servicing of their engines and the withdrawal of the limited number of aircraft which were equipped with spring-tabs; these increased manoeuvrability so much that there was a risk of damaging the airframe. In December 1944, upon the Tempest's reentry into service, the type had the twin tasks of the systematic destruction of the North German rail network along with all related targets of opportunity, and
32400-421: The role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace . Domination of the airspace above a battlefield permits bombers and attack aircraft to engage in tactical and strategic bombing of enemy targets, and helps prevent the enemy from doing the same. The key performance features of a fighter include not only its firepower but also its high speed and maneuverability relative to
32600-456: The second prototype HM599 first flew, representing the "Tempest Mk.I" equipped with the Napier Sabre IV engine; this flight had been principally delayed by protracted problems and slippages encountered in the development of the new Sabre IV engine. Construction had been on hold (so parts could be used for possible repairs to the first prototype) until HM595 was converted to Sabre II. HM599
32800-405: The service histories of the aircraft show such conversions and no supporting photographic evidence has been found. The Tempest VI was the last piston-engined fighter in operational service with the RAF, having been superseded by jet propelled aircraft. In 1943, Camm initiated work on a new design for fighter equipped with the at that point unbuilt Rolls-Royce R.46 engine. The project designated as
33000-532: The skies above the battlefield. The interceptor is a fighter designed specifically to intercept and engage approaching enemy aircraft. There are two general classes of interceptor: relatively lightweight aircraft in the point-defence role, built for fast reaction, high performance and with a short range, and heavier aircraft with more comprehensive avionics and designed to fly at night or in all weathers and to operate over longer ranges . Originating during World War I, by 1929 this class of fighters had become known as
33200-417: The sky and a number of Morane-Saulnier Ns were modified. The technique proved effective, however the deflected bullets were still highly dangerous. Soon after the commencement of the war, pilots armed themselves with pistols, carbines , grenades , and an assortment of improvised weapons. Many of these proved ineffective as the pilot had to fly his airplane while attempting to aim a handheld weapon and make
33400-408: The steady increases in aircraft weight—most modern fighters are larger and heavier than World War II medium bombers. Because of the importance of air superiority, since the early days of aerial combat armed forces have constantly competed to develop technologically superior fighters and to deploy these fighters in greater numbers, and fielding a viable fighter fleet consumes a substantial proportion of
33600-505: The steam back below the boiling point. As steam is much less dense than water, a correspondingly larger surface area is needed to provide enough airflow to cool the steam back down. The Rolls-Royce Goshawk design of 1933 used conventional radiator-like condensers and this design proved to be a serious problem for drag. In Germany, the Günter brothers developed an alternative design combining evaporative cooling and surface radiators spread all over
33800-504: The strengthening of the rear spar and the inclusion of spring tabs, which granted the variant superior handling performance. The original Tempest V prototype, HM595 , was extensively modified to serve as the Tempest VI prototype. On 9 May 1944, HM595 made its first flight after its rebuild, flown by Bill Humble. In December 1944, HM595 was dispatched to Khartoum , Sudan to conduct a series of tropical trials. During 1945, two more Tempest V aircraft, EJ841 and JN750 , were converted to
34000-420: The target aircraft. The success or failure of a combatant's efforts to gain air superiority hinges on several factors including the skill of its pilots, the tactical soundness of its doctrine for deploying its fighters, and the numbers and performance of those fighters. Many modern fighter aircraft also have secondary capabilities such as ground attack and some types, such as fighter-bombers , are designed from
34200-480: The top wing with no better luck. An alternative was to build a "pusher" scout such as the Airco DH.2 , with the propeller mounted behind the pilot. The main drawback was that the high drag of a pusher type's tail structure made it slower than a similar "tractor" aircraft. A better solution for a single seat scout was to mount the machine gun (rifles and pistols having been dispensed with) to fire forwards but outside
34400-460: The two Rotten could split up at any time and attack on their own. The finger-four would be widely adopted as the fundamental tactical formation during World War Two, including by the British and later the Americans. World War II featured fighter combat on a larger scale than any other conflict to date. German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel noted the effect of airpower: "Anyone who has to fight, even with
34600-527: The vehicle, such as behind a front grill. Where engines are mid- or rear-mounted, it is common to mount the radiator behind a front grill to achieve sufficient airflow, even though this requires long coolant pipes. Alternatively, the radiator may draw air from the flow over the top of the vehicle or from a side-mounted grill. For long vehicles, such as buses, side airflow is most common for engine and transmission cooling and top airflow most common for air conditioner cooling. Automobile radiators are constructed of
34800-407: The velocity of airflow across the radiator is low. (Being a heat exchanger, the velocity of air flow across the radiator has a major effect on its ability to dissipate heat.) Conversely, when cruising fast downhill on a motorway on a cold night on a light throttle, the thermostat will be nearly closed because the engine is producing little power, and the radiator is able to dissipate much more heat than
35000-530: The very end of the inter-war period in Europe came the Spanish Civil War . This was just the opportunity the German Luftwaffe , Italian Regia Aeronautica , and the Soviet Union's Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily needed to test their latest aircraft. Each party sent numerous aircraft types to support their sides in the conflict. In the dogfights over Spain, the latest Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters did well, as did
35200-473: The war as the weapons used were lighter and had a higher rate of fire than synchronized weapons. The British Foster mounting and several French mountings were specifically designed for this kind of application, fitted with either the Hotchkiss or Lewis Machine gun , which due to their design were unsuitable for synchronizing. The need to arm a tractor scout with a forward-firing gun whose bullets passed through
35400-443: The war. Fighter development stagnated between the wars, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom, where budgets were small. In France, Italy and Russia, where large budgets continued to allow major development, both monoplanes and all metal structures were common. By the end of the 1920s, however, those countries overspent themselves and were overtaken in the 1930s by those powers that hadn't been spending heavily, namely
35600-447: The water is hotter than the ambient air, its higher thermal conductivity offers comparable cooling (within limits) from a less complex and thus cheaper and more reliable oil cooler. Less commonly, power steering fluid, brake fluid, and other hydraulic fluids may be cooled by an auxiliary radiator on a vehicle. Turbo charged or supercharged engines may have an intercooler , which is an air-to-air or air-to-water radiator used to cool
35800-418: The wing. The new wing had greater area than the Typhoon's, but the new wing design sacrificed the leading edge fuel tanks of the Typhoon. To make up for this loss in capacity, Hawker engineers added a new 21 in (53 cm) fuel bay in front of the cockpit , with a 76 I gal (345 L) fuel tank. In addition, two inter-spar wing tanks, each of 28 Igal (127 L), were fitted on either side of
36000-458: Was a streamlined 45 gal (205 L) "drop tank" to extend the operational radius by 500 mi (800 km) and carrier fairing; the redesigned wing incorporated the plumbing for these tanks, one to each wing. The main undercarriage was redesigned from the Typhoon, featuring lengthened legs and a wider track (16 ft; 4.9 m) to improve stability at the high landing speed of 110 mph (180 km/h), and to allow tip clearance for
36200-606: Was abandoned by the MAP. On 27 November 1944, the Tempest Mk.III prototype, LA610 , conducted its first flight; it was decided to discontinue development work on the Mk.III, this was due to priority for the Griffon engine having been assigned to the Supermarine Spitfire instead. The Air Ministry had seen the Mk III as a replacement for the Hurricane in ground attack, with the narrower engine giving
36400-418: Was also embedded into the wing. The ailerons were fitted with spring-loaded tabs which lightened the aerodynamic loads, making them easier for the pilot to use and dramatically improving the roll rate above 250 mph (400 km/h). The spar structure of the Tempest V also allowed the wings to carry up to 2,000 pounds (910 kg) of external stores. Also developed specifically for the Tempest by Hawker
36600-402: Was at first equipped with the older Typhoon cockpit structure and vertical tailplane. The elimination of the "chin" radiator did much to improve overall performance, leading to the Tempest Mk.I quickly becoming the fastest aircraft that Hawker had built at that time, having attained a speed of 466 mph (750 km/h) during test flights. The Sabre IV was failing testing and so the Mk I Tempest
36800-554: Was based at ALG B.77 ( Gilze-Rijen airfield ) in the Netherlands. The intensity of operations persisted throughout the remainder of the war. Piloting a Tempest on 19 April 1945, Flying Officer Geoffrey Walkington was the first to shoot down a Heinkel He 162 , the Luftwaffe ' s then-latest jet fighter, which had just entered service with the I./JG 1 (1st Group of Jagdgeschwader 1 Oesau — "1st Fighter Wing Oesau "). Tempest pilots, including French ace Pierre Clostermann , made
37000-486: Was being developed in parallel to the Typhoon were both terminated. This measure turned out to be prudent, as engine development was not trouble-free on some of the variants of the Tempest. The Bristol Centaurus radial engine was now also considered for equipping the Typhoon and Camm was forewarned in October 1941 to expect a request for a Centaurus to be fitted. This was confirmed in February as an order for six prototypes with
37200-490: Was designed from the outset to use the Bristol Centaurus 18 cylinder radial engine as an alternative to the liquid cooled engines which were also proposed. A pair of Centaurus-powered Tempest II prototypes were completed. Apart from the new engine and cowling, the Tempest II prototypes were similar to early series Tempest Vs. The Centaurus engine was closely cowled and the exhaust stacks grouped behind and to either side of
37400-410: Was fitted, with the associated aerial appearing under the portside centre section. A small, elongated oval static port appeared on the rear starboard fuselage, just above the red centre spot of the RAF roundel . This was apparently used to measure the aircraft's altitude more accurately. Unusually, in spite of the Tempest V being the RAF's best low- to medium-altitude fighter, it was not equipped with
37600-405: Was improved; maximum speed was 442 mph (711 km/h) at 15,200 ft (4,600 m) and climb rate to the same altitude took four and a half minutes compared with five minutes for the Tempest Mk.V; the service ceiling was also increased to 37,500 ft (11,400 m). Tropicalising measures included the installation of an air filter and intake in the upper forward fuselage, just behind
37800-460: Was introduced in Tempest IIs. Two Tempest Vs, EJ518 and NV768 , were fitted with Napier Sabre Vs and experimented with several different Napier-made annular radiators , with which they resembled Tempest IIs. This configuration proved to generate less drag than the standard "chin" radiator, contributing to an improvement in the maximum speed of some 11 to 14 mph. NV768 was later fitted with
38000-420: Was no longer a handicap and one or two were used, depending on requirements. This in turn required the development of ejection seats so the pilot could escape, and G-suits to counter the much greater forces being applied to the pilot during maneuvers. In the 1950s, radar was fitted to day fighters, since due to ever increasing air-to-air weapon ranges, pilots could no longer see far enough ahead to prepare for
38200-697: Was obviously much quicker though one of the other two Tempests did pursue it briefly. During 1945, Tempests scored of a number of kills against the new German jets, including the Messerschmitt Me 262 . Hubert Lange, a Me 262 pilot, said: "the Messerschmitt Me 262's most dangerous opponent was the British Hawker Tempest — extremely fast at low altitudes, highly manoeuvrable and heavily armed." Fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft (early on also pursuit aircraft ) are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat . In military conflict,
38400-472: Was originally intended for a fighter role with the U.S. Navy , but it was canceled. This blurring follows the use of fighters from their earliest days for "attack" or "strike" operations against ground targets by means of strafing or dropping small bombs and incendiaries. Versatile multi role fighter-bombers such as the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet are a less expensive option than having
38600-421: Was particularly well suited to the role because of its high speed at low to medium altitudes, its long range when equipped with two 45-gallon drop tanks, the good firepower of the four 20mm cannon and the good pilot visibility. The three-piece windscreen and side windows of the Tempest had directly benefited from examination of captured Focke-Wulf Fw 190s , improvements included the careful design and positioning of
38800-501: Was pioneered before World War I by Breguet but would find its biggest proponent in Anthony Fokker, who used chrome-molybdenum steel tubing for the fuselage structure of all his fighter designs, while the innovative German engineer Hugo Junkers developed two all-metal, single-seat fighter monoplane designs with cantilever wings: the strictly experimental Junkers J 2 private-venture aircraft, made with steel, and some forty examples of
39000-419: Was powered by a Sabre II engine, retained the Typhoon's framed canopy and car-style door, and was fitted with the "chin" radiator, similar to that of the Typhoon. It was quickly fitted with the same bubble canopy fitted to Typhoons, and a modified fin that almost doubled the vertical tail surface area, made necessary because the directional stability with the original Typhoon fin had been reduced over that of
39200-433: Was projected to be more than 42,000 ft (13,000 m). Work on both was ultimately dropped when Camm decided to focus design efforts upon the more promising jet engine designs he was working on instead. The Tempest was a single engine fighter aircraft that excelled at low-level flight. In service, its primary role soon developed into performing "armed reconnaissance" operations, often deep behind enemy lines. The Tempest
39400-636: Was rolled off the line; the first six production aircraft soon joined the two prototypes for extensive trials and tests. With the end of the Second World War in sight, orders for the Tempest II were trimmed or cancelled; after 50 Tempest IIs had been built by the Bristol shadow factory near Banwell , production was stopped and shifted back to Hawker, which built a total of 402, in two production batches: 100 were built as fighters, and 302 were built as fighter-bombers (FB II) with reinforced wings and wing racks capable of carrying bombs of up to 1,000 lb. Physically,
39600-462: Was soon to be negated by the widespread availability of ethylene glycol based coolants, which had a lower specific heat , but a much higher boiling point than water. An aircraft radiator contained in a duct heats the air passing through, causing the air to expand and gain velocity. This is called the Meredith effect , and high-performance piston aircraft with well-designed low-drag radiators (notably
39800-533: Was transferred back to the RAF Fighter Command ; the Tempest squadrons soon racked up a considerable percentage of the total RAF kills of the flying bombs (638 of a total of 1,846 destroyed by aircraft). Using external drop tanks, the Tempest was able to maintain standing patrols of four and half hours off the south coast of England in the approach paths of the V-1s. Guided by close instructions from coastal radar installation, Tempests would be positioned ready for
40000-417: Was usually plain water. Antifreeze was used solely to control freezing, and this was often only done in cold weather. If plain water is left to freeze in the block of an engine the water can expand as it freezes. This effect can cause severe internal engine damage due to the expanding of the ice. Development in high-performance aircraft engines required improved coolants with higher boiling points, leading to
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