History of the Hawker Fury

[Music] right then here we are once again in War Thunder where today we're taking a little look at everyone's favorite British biplane the Hawker Fury specifically the Hawkers Fury Mark 1 and Mark II now as per usual this particular video will be going over the history of the Hawker Fury if you're more interested in the technical details or seeing it in battle I'm afraid you'll have to wait for parts two and three but for those of us intelligent folk who care about history let us strap on our leather flying helmets put on our frankly rather dashing Pilots uniforms and hold up our hands to our faces in a manner that might suggest we are wearing flying goggles as we scramble scramble scramble into the history of the Hawker Fury [Music] foreign biplanes we must go back to before the first world war and the dawn of British Aviation during the 19th century flights like many other fields of science at the time was pursued with some considerable interest in Britain to the extent that a dedicated scientific organization the aeronautical Society of Great Britain later called The Royal aeronautical Society was created in 1866 this Society facilitated several key breakthroughs in the field of early Aviation from the development of gliders to the scientific study of cambered wings being the key for generating lift Victorian Britain for a time was the world leader in pursuing powered heavier than air flight going as far as to enable Matthew peers what Bolton to pattern the world's first aileron system in 1868 so close was Britain to achieving powered flight it seemed that France greatly expanded its own aeronautical research efforts which eventually led to French aeronautical development surpassing that of Britain the main obstacle to achieving powered flight remained however that of creating an engine that was both light enough to be able to be mounted on an aerial vehicle but also powerful enough to allow said vehicle to achieve speeds sufficient for it to become airborne although the steam engine was the obvious candidate 8 it was the most powerful source of kinetic energy available at the time and formed the backbone of the Industrial Revolution by Nature it was far too heavy to be utilized as an aeronautical power plant despite John's Stringfellow winning a 100 pound prize at the 1868 Crystal Palace exhibition for developing an incredibly light yet reasonably powerful steam engine one which was utilized previously for a series of unmanned powered flights in Somerset the fact that all steam engines required water coal and a pressurized reinforced boiler made them simply too heavy to produce the power needed to make themselves airborne for this reason it was not until the development of the internal combustion engine fueled by petroleum at a suitable power plant for Aviation was found one reason for Britain's reduced rate of progress in the field of Aviation during the later years of the 19th century was the lack of interest from the British Army and Royal Navy aside from observation balloons for reconnaissance in artillery spotting the British army saw no need in pursuing what was clearly a fad which was power to flight obviously these winged mechanical Contraptions would never be useful on the modern Battlefield it was for this reason that it was 1907 four years after the right Flyer's first flight by the time that Samuel Franklin Cody was able to persuade the British army to let him create an airplane at the balloon factory in farnborough the resulting Contraption the British army airplane number one first flew officially on the 16th of October 1908 piloted by Samuel Cody himself the British army airplane number one made several flights in 1908 and 1909 undergoing several design modifications and revisions has its flight characteristics were studied and damage occurred due to crashes until February 1909 Government funding was canceled in favor of developing dirigibles despite this Cody was allowed to keep the airplane number one and continue to develop and improve it until it made its crowning flight of over 40 miles or 64 kilometers in September 1909. Samuel Franklin Cody went on to create more aircraft such as the Kodi Michelin cup biplane having been officially made a British citizen for indeed when he developed the British army aircraft number one Samuel Cody was an American British military Aviation focused entirely on lighter than air vehicles until 1911. the Army balloon factory was explicitly forbidden from designing or constructing airplanes however one aspiring aeronautical engineer won Jeffrey de Havilland found a loophole in this rule in that the Army balloon factory was technically allowed to repair airplanes therefore when a French blerio 12 crashed in Lake Hill Wiltshire de Havilland was granted permission to try and repair it what he did was to completely dismantle the blerio monoplane and build an entirely new aircraft to his own design using the components the resulting aircraft named The Royal aircraft Factory se1 first flew on the 11th of June 1911 piloted by De Havilland himself the se-1 proved invaluable in further progressing British aviation technology and several modifications were made to improve its flying characteristics until tragically it crashed on the 18th of August 1911 killing its pilot Theodore J Ridge despite this de Havilland was able to pull a similar trick to get around the war office's restrictions on constructing airplanes when he completely redesigned a damaged voison donated to the war office by The Duke of Westminster this aircraft named The Royal aircraft Factory be1 shared almost nothing in common with the preceding poison save for its woolsly engine it first flew on the 4th of December 1911 Again piloted by De Havilland the three months to haveland flew and modified the be1 until the 11th of March 1912. aircraft was handed over to the newly formed air Battalion of the royal Engineers thereby making it the first official airplane used by the British army although the be-1 was never itself used in combat its successor the Royal aircraft Factory be2 again designed by De Havilland using a crashed Brigitte as a basis was accepted into production for the Royal Engineers air Battalion as a general purpose airplane and would later be used by the Royal flying Corps during the early months of the first World War however the be2 suffered heavy losses at the hands of Germany's focker Fighters and so was withdrawn from service in 1915. and this is where we shall leave Jeffrey de Havilland and the Royal aircraft Factory for now and instead turn our attention to perhaps the most famous Aviation company of the first world war the Sopwith Aviation company shopwith Aviation was established in 1912 by a rich Playboy type party dude named Thomas octave Murdoch's suckwith who liked fast cars big yachts and cruising various rivieras and such naturally his early aircraft were designed to be just the thing for young jet-setting entrepreneurs such as himself small luxury float planes that would cause a stir at the party such as the SOP with fat boat his first major success came in the form of the SOP with Schneider a racing float plane which won the 1914 Schneider trophy flown by Howard pixton the Royal Naval Air Service and Royal flying Corps were both very interested in this vehicle and both placed orders of the shop with Schneider which was now known as the SOP with tabloid because of the sensation it caused with the press the use as a military aircraft the Tabloid was used to some success during the first world war as a scout aircraft and light bomber with its most famous operation being the attack against the German Zeppelin sheds in Dusseldorf in October 1914 where sucked with tabloids managed to destroy the Zeppelin z9 with two 20-pound bombs now you might be wondering why we're talking about sop with Aviation and a video that's supposed to be about the Hawker Fury to those I say you might be interested to know that the chief test pilot at the subwith aviation company was none other than one Harry George Hawker Harry Hawker was born on the 22nd of January 1889 in a small town in Victoria Australia called mulraben the son of a blacksmith he started working at a garage from the age of 11. in 1910 at the age of 21 Hawker went to diggers rest in Melbourne to witness the first public demonstration of powered flight in Australia Harry immediately knew that he wanted to be part of the burgeoning aviation industry and by May the next year he had made the long and arduous voyage to England to become involved although he initially found work in the car industry working for coma Mercedes and nostro Daimler Harry Hawker spent much of his time in Brooklyn's which at the time was the aviation capital of the British Empire hoping for an inn into one of the aircraft companies operating there he met with Tom supwith who offered him a job as a mechanic after getting Tom to teach him to fly in Harry quickly demonstrated its Talent at piloting and was made Chief test pilot at the shop with Aviation company just four years later among hawker's early Aviation Feats were altitude records the Michelin cup endurance award and the establishment of one of the first techniques for recovering an aircraft from an uncontrolled spin a situation that had killed many Pilots before then add two turns recovery really affected by centralizing the controls and again I'm going to use my duct tape references to know where aileron elevator and Rudder neutral will be ours coming back to idle ailerons are neutral for now decelerating for spin entry left rotary and stick back and holding one pass two controls are now centralized and Recovery is affected and return to level flight throughout the first world war Harry Hawker continued to be Chief test pilot for some of the most famous British aircraft developed during that conflict such as the one and a half Stratton the sockwave pup the sock with triplane and of course the legendary shop with camel after the war Hawker continued to work for software as well as continuing to pursue feat in aviation including in 1919 an attempt to win the 10 000 pound prize which in 1919 years was certainly nothing to sneeze at from The Daily Mail which should absolutely be sneezed at for the first transatlantic flight in less than 72 hours however 14 hours after taking off from Newfoundland the experimental sock with Atlantic he was flying began to overheat and despite making several attempts to remedy the situation Hawker and his Navigator Kenneth grieve were forced to ditch in the North Atlantic next to a Danish ship called the SS Mary which thankfully rescued them unfortunately because the Mary did not have a radio for almost a week it was believed that Hawker and grieve had been killed on this perilous flight until the SS Mary finally arrived in Scotland on the 25th of May although the Daily Mail prize was of course won by John Alcock and Arthur Brown flowing their modified Vickers Vimy bomber Hawker was nevertheless awarded a 5 000 pound prize for being the first pilot to fly more than 1 000 miles over an ocean in September 1920 the shop with Aviation company was closed down in order to avoid a retrospective tax being claimed on sopwith's wartime production Tom supwith took Harry Hawker as well as Fred sygrist and Bill ear to establish a new Aviation company which Tom sup with named H.G Hawker engineering stating that he Hawker was largely responsible for our grave during the war sadly Harry Hawker never got to see his new company flourish for less than a year later on the 12th of July 1921 he took off from Hendon Aerodrome in his new polar goshawk but a few moments later crashed into the ground the post-mortem examination found that Hawker had suffered a hemorrhage making it impossible for him to land the plane Harry Hawker was buried in Hook sarri leaving behind a wife and two daughters the first aircraft created by H.G Hawker engineering was the unsuccessful Hawker duker which was rejected by the newly created Royal Air Force as a reconnaissance aircraft due to stability issues that arose during its first flight in 1923. hawker's first successful design was the Hawker Woodcock designed as a night fighter however although it first flew in 1923 the Prototype suffered from Wing flatter and structural issues meaning that it was not accepted into service until 1925 when these problems had been ironed out [Music] before Hawker woodcocks were built in total plus an additional 15 modified examples that were sold to the Danish Air Force known as the Hawker Dane 12 more were license built by the Danish Royal Naval dockyards as the allogs that lb 2 Dan right that's enough about woodcocks and Dane Cox and Cox in general so you can all get your minds out of the gutter because now it's time for a quick rundown of Hawker aircraft from 1923 to 1928. in 1924 Hawker built two very small civil biplanes called the Hawker Signet next came the Hawker Hedgehog later that year designed as a naval reconnaissance aircraft however the project was canceled due to the Prototype displaying rather lackluster performance in 1925 Hawker developed a new single-engined bomber that could also carry a torpedo known as the Hawker Horsley named after Tom sup with his house Horsley Towers the Horsley was accepted into service with the RAF and 124 were built including six which was sent to Greece to be used by the Hellenic Naval Air Service and two modified with floats to be sent to Denmark renamed as the Hawker Dan torque hb3 one interesting fact about the Hawker Horsley is that although one modified example ran out of fuel during an attempted non-stop flight from Britain to India the Horsley set a new world distance record for an aircraft flown by Roderick Carr and Lem Gilman however this record was broken a few hours later by Charles Lindbergh in his Spirit of Saint Louis next came the Hawker Heron fighter aircraft of which one example was built however the air Ministry was not interested in a new fighter at the time after the Heron came the Hawker hornbill another fighter again only one prototype was built which suffered from a cramped cockpit and problems with overheating orca's next design was the Hawker Harrier intended to replace the Hawker hoarsely as the raf's coastal torpedo bomber yet again only one prototype was built the air Ministry contract going to the Vickers wildebeest after the Hawker aircraft was found to be underpowered following the Harrier in 1927 came the hawkeyfinch which was another bid for that lucrative RAF fighter contract again only one prototype was built due to the Bristol Bulldog being found to be superior and finally we come to the Hawker Aviation company's first major success the Hawker heart answering a 1928 government request for a new light bomber to replace the Hawker Horsley and fairy Fox the Hawker heart prototype beat the competition the Avro Antelope which was more expensive and the de Havilland Hound which suffered from stability problems during landing and entered service in 1930. in service the Hawker Hut proved to be one of the most capable bomber aircraft of its time with a top speed of 184 miles per hour or 296 kilometers per hour which was faster than many contemporary Fighters including the raf's primary Frontline Fighter the Bristol Bulldog the heart's maneuverability also made it quite capable of Defending itself from attacking Fighters naturally this very capable quite inexpensive light bomber proved very popular not only with the RAF but with several Air Forces around the world including Sweden who obtained a license to produce them domestically and ended up manufacturing 42 by asja yothervelkin and CVM under the name B4 the Royal Egyptian Air Force the Royal Indian Air Force the South African Air Force the Estonian Air Force the air force of Southern Rhodesia and the Royal rugoslavian Air Force in total some 962 Hawker Hearts were built in Britain by Hawker themselves Armstrong Whitworth Gloucester and Vickers several variants were also built including the heart India which featured larger radiators the heart trainer with dual controls the Swedish heart which replaced the Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine with a radial Bristol Pegasus the Hawker audax Army cooperation aircraft of which more than 700 examples were built the Hawker Hut Beast light bomber designed for operation by the South African Air Force the Hawker demon which was essentially a fighter variant of the basic heart the whole kahadi which was a tropicalized variant designed to replace the Westland Wapiti the Hawker hind which featured a more powerful version of the Rolls-Royce Kestrel and the Hawker Hector which was similar to the hind but designed to replace the audax of these last two Afghanistan bought eight Latvia bought three with Bristol Mercury radial engines Persia bought 35 to a similar specification Portugal bought four Switzerland obtained one Yugoslavia bought another three and many more went to several other countries lastly came the Hawker Osprey which was essentially a heart modified for operating onboard aircraft carriers the Hark and its derivatives were used by Britain mostly for policing duties and suppressing unruliness within the British Empire however by the outbreak of the second world war most British Hearts had been relegated to training duties four Swedish Hearts also saw service in Finland during the winter War where Swedish volunteers utilized them very effectively as dive bombers despite the fact that the heart had never been intended for this role one month after the first flight of the Prototype Hawker heart in June 1928 H.G Hawker engineering rolled another prototype aircraft out onto RAF musclesham Heath Airfield for its inaugural flight this prototype designated the Hawker f-20-27 was a response to the air ministry's call for a new Interceptor fighter and was a simple biplane of conventional fabric covering a metal frame with a heavily staggered sesquiplane Wing configuration it was powered by a single Bristol Mercury six nine-cylinder radial engine developing 520 horsepower the f20-27 entered the air ministry's competition alongside several competitors including the Armstrong Whitworth Starling 2 the Bristol Bullpup the de Havilland dh-77 fairy Firefly 2 Saunders A-10 Vickers jockey and the Westland interceptor despite performing well in these trials the f20-27 and indeed all of the participants were not granted a government contract and the project was canceled Hawker however retained the f20-27 Prototype and after realizing the success of the Hawker heart with its speed making it outstanding not only as a bomber but even as a fighter the Hawker company decided to see what would happen if they installed the 420 horsepower V12 inline Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine from the heart into the f-20-27 instead of the more powerful but less aerodynamic Bristol radial engine a resulting aircraft named the Hawker Hornet first flew in March 1929 and was praised for its speed and maneuverability becoming the first RAF fighter aircraft to fly faster than 200 miles per hour in level flight after being evaluated against the fairy Firefly 2 which was heavier and slower due to its wooden construction The Hornet was ordered into production in 1930 with 21 aircraft being ordered following some minor improvements and being renamed Hawker Fury Following air Ministry concerns that Hornet didn't sound ferocious enough Fury entered into production following its March 1931 initial test flight officially entering service in May of that year despite its Superior performance to most RAF aircraft at the time especially its predecessor the Bristol Bulldog only a small number of Hawker Fury Mark 1 Fighters were ordered due to budget cuts to the air Ministry being imposed as a result of the Great Depression ultimately equipping only two squadrons the Hawker Fury Mark II entering service in 1936 equipped a further four squadrons bringing the total number of RAF fighter squadrons to fly the hawk of Fury up to six which considering that no fewer than 10 squadrons were equipped with the inferior Bristol Bulldog demonstrates that although it was perhaps one of the best fighter aircraft of the early 1930s the Hawker Fury was not given much of a chance to prove itself at least not in RAF service by the outbreak of war in September 1939 the Hawker Fury had been withdrawn from Frontline service being replaced with the Gloucester Gladiator Hawker hurricane and supermarine spitfire and would be utilized throughout the war as a training aircraft although the Hulk of Fury never saw combat with the Royal Air Force it was exported to several other countries many of which did use its operationally three Hawker Furies were ordered by Spain in 1935 with the intention of license producing a variant powered by a more powerful Hispano swayza 12 XBR engine and although these three initial aircraft were delivered in July 1936 the Spanish Civil War broke out less than a week later the three Furies were taken by the Spanish Republican Air Force fitted with machine guns salvaged from a crashed nationalist aircraft and used against the fascists during the siege of Madrid however it seems they were all lost due to crashing for one reason or another in 1936 10 Hawker Fury Mark II's were ordered by the Royal Yugoslav air force modified with the newer more powerful Rolls-Royce Kestrel 16 engine cantilever undercarriage and an additional pair of machine guns under the lower wings Yugoslavian companies Icarus and zmag obtained licenses to build a further 40 Yugoslav furies these were still in service with the Royal Yugoslav Air Force by the time of Germany's invasion in April 1941. despite fighting heroically against the invading Nazis with one Yugoslavian Fury managing to destroy meshersmith bf-109 by literally ramming it in mid-air these old obsolete Fighters were completely outnumbered and outclassed by the far more advanced luftwaffe forces meaning that by the 15th of April when Yugoslavia signed its Armistice most had been either shot down or destroyed on the ground with the remainder being destroyed by the yugoslavians upon their surrender the South African Air Force also used the Hulk of Fury in North Africa having been given 30 by the RAF which was replacing them with hurricanes at the time the South Africans used them to some success against the Italian Air Force using them to strafe airfields primarily although on one occasion South African Furies successfully shot down two Italian caproni CA 310 light bombers Persia also bought 16 Hawker Furies modified with Pratt and Whitney Hornet engines in 1933 with an additional six with Bristol Mercury Engines ordered in 1934. these were used against the RAF during the anglo-soviet invasion in August 1941. however they were easily swept aside by the much more modern hurricanes used by the British a single Hawker Fury Mark 1 fitted with an Armstrong sitaly Panther radial engine was built for the Norwegian Army Air Service as a trial aircraft however Norway did not adopt the model for service the last operator was the Portuguese aeronautica militar who purchased three Hawker Fury Mark ones however these were soon retired in favor of the more modern Gloucester Gladiator in 1940. in total around 262 Hawker Furies were built mostly in Britain despite being completely obsolete at the outbreak of the second world war at the time of its introduction in 1931 the Hawker Fury was one of the most capable fighter aircraft in the world however it was never able to properly prove itself in combat always being either much older far fewer in number or both when compared to their opposition and so suffered accordingly for this reason and perhaps because it was never used in combat by the RAF itself the hook of Furies typically forgotten by most with his bigger brother the Hawker Hut usually being the first British interwar aircraft to come to mind if at all nevertheless this Sleek little biplane does hold one very important place in the history of Aviation in 1933 the chief designer of H.G Hawker engineering which had just been renamed Hawker aircraft limited that year proposed a new aircraft design to meet a government requirement for a new fighter aircraft his idea was to take a hawk of Fury and remove the upper wing and make it a monoplane this was the start of a journey which would one day result in one of the finest aircraft in British aviation history the Workhorse of the royal air force during the Battle of Britain the Hawker hurricane that story however we'll have to wait for another video for it is time now to say goodbye but fear not dear viewer for we shall return to the Hulk of Fury in the next video where we shall be examining its technical details in the meantime however All That Remains to be said is thank you very much for watching and if you liked the video hey why not like And subscribe bring a big old smile to an old man's face also why not consider joining me Discord where you can speak to me directly talk to other like-minded individuals get together for War Thunder sessions all that stuff isn't that fun anywho that's all from me thank you again for watching and hopefully see you next time goodbye [Music]

Channel: SirKittalot

Views: 2,458

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Id: 6AmeJxRcXqY

Length: 30min 26sec (1826 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 19 2022