Hawker Hurricane

[Mossie]

Hawker Fury Monoplane with RR Goshawk engine.  Interim design step between the Fury & Hurricane.  If you delete the spats & draw a straight line from the cockpit to the base of the tail, you've nearly got the Hurricane prototype.

[PR19_Kit]

Was that a private venture or did the MoD of the time request it?

[The Wooksta!]

IIRC, it was a private venture.

[dogsbody]

Hawker Fury Monoplane with RR Goshawk engine.  Interim design step between the Fury & Hurricane.  If you delete the spats & draw a straight line from the cockpit to the base of the tail, you've nearly got the Hurricane prototype.

Kinda looks like the Estonian PN-3.

http://www.airwar.ru/enc/spyww2/pn3.html

[ysi_maniac]

Bubble Hurricane

[rickshaw]

Did they ever try a Griffin in the Hurricane?

[Martin H]

Ive seen drawings for a Griffin Huricane, but I dont think it ever got any ware near metal work.

[NARSES2]

There were plans for a Hurricane with a hood and cut down rear fusalage rather like a Spitfire for intruder ops, but not a true bubble as far as I know. Ysi's profile shows just how preaty that would have looked  If a warplane can ever be preaty

As for Griffon engined, as Martin says there was a plan in 41/42 but it wasn't built. Likewise there were plans for Hercules and Dagger (one I intend to build) engined examples if the supply of Merlins was restricted

[PR19_Kit]

A Hercules engined Hurricane sounds almost obscene to me, but such a thinking produced the Fw-190 and that didn't look too bad I guess.

[Martin H]

Omega resins did a number of odd Hurricane kits. Ive got two of the Hercules Hurricane in my stash, and the Yugoslav one with the Daimler-Benz.

[The Wooksta!]

There's an engineering reason why the Griffon Hurricane was a none starter, something structural, but I can't remember what it is. Something to do with wing spars, I think.

[perttime]

A quick search found a plausible explanation why they didn't put a bigger and heavier engine on the Hurricane:

"To accomodate the Griffon would have meant a massive redesign, including bringing the wings forward by raking forward the stub spars. Camm had the drawings ready, but was told that there was more potential in the Tornado/Typhoon series"
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/griffon-powered-hurricane-29321.html

My interpretation is that this refers to CG issues.

Also:
"Sydney Camm - - - said he might have made the Hurricane faster by tweaking the wing, but he knew that war was coming and he didn't have time for much fine-tuning of the design. The very fastest Hurricanes ever built, some PR (photo-reconnaissance) versions, had a speed of 350 m.p.h., there was only so much that could be done with a plane with such a thick wing - - -"

[ysi_maniac]

Would it be worth to install Typhoon wings in Hurricane? Were they thinner?

[PR19_Kit]

Tempest wings would be better as they were a LOT thinner, but a Temptest already was a 'later Mark' of Hurricane.

Hawker didn't follow the same 'develop it till its eyes pop out' path that Vickers-Supermarine did with the Spitfire. Hawker built an almost new aircraft each time, thus the Tornado, the Typhoon, the Tempest and the Sea Fury in turn.

[ysi_maniac]

^^^^
The option I was thinking about is kind of a retrofit: To install canopy and wings taken from Typhoon production lines to upgrade Hurricanes.
For export perhaps.