Nickodell
Donation Time
In answer to several PMs, here is a picture of the Hawker Typhoon:
Quite unlike the slim, sexy Spitfire, the "Tiffie" was all war machine; big, heavy and brutal. It packed the amazing Napier Sabre H-16 engine (two banks of four pairs of horizontally-opposed cylinders - think of the Porsche Boxter - geared together) that started at 2,000hp and went up to over 3,000, 4X20mm cannon and 8X6" rockets (about the same punch as the broadside of a light cruiser).
The Typhoon was rushed into service a year ahead of its normal development (as was the Sabre) as a tank-buster and to counter the V1 "Flying Bomb." Anyone wanting a first-hand account of flying the Typhoon for the first time should read Pierre Closterman's book Flames in the Sky. The Sabre was too big to start with a conventional starter motor, so it used the Coffman cartridge system (as shown, badly, in the original movie Flight of the Phoenix), where exploding cartridges blew down a piston that engaged the crankshaft. As Clostermann (one of the Free French pilots in the RAF) says, you had to set the throttle exactly right, work a pump in the c*ckpit [sorry, guys, the full word is censored, don't ask me why] that sent a mixture of ether and petrol to the cylinders and carburetor, and then engage the Coffman. If the engine didn't start it often caught fire.
The Typhoon was developed into the Tempest, an exceptional fighter, and finally the Fury and Sea Fury, which still races at Reno.
One last anecdote about Bob Stanford Tuck. After he had been in continuous action for 2 years and with his score at two dozen, he was sent to the USA (before Pearl Harbor) to lecture to USAAF cadets on fighter tactics at their school in the midwest. They had a Spitfire at the field, and he was persuaded to put on a flying display, which he did. One of the tricks was an upward roll from inverted flying just a few feet off the deck, which had some of the cadets shaking their heads and muttering about his being "Messerchmitt Happy."
Anyhow, he was due to leave the academy and give another lecture at an advanced fighter school farther west, and they lent him a P47 Thunderbolt for the trip. Soon after taking off he spotted little dots in the mirror, which were of course some of the cadets trying to "bounce" him. There followed an intense simulated dogfight where he, in an unfamiliar plane, succeeded in keeping them off his tail for half an hour, although using a lot of fuel. After they departed he continued his trip, to discover that he was totally lost, and that flying over endless flat, rolling wheatfields gave him absolutely no landmarks.
The thirsty radial of the P47 happily continued purring, and the fuel gauge continued dropping. "What a joke," he thought. "The great Battle of Britain fighter ace gets lost and has to bale out of their brand new plane!" Time after time he descended over tiny villages, trying to get some idea of where the hell he was, until he finally decided to land on the highway beneath him while he still had power. But every time he lined up to land, a car maddeningly appeared from nowhere and he had to pull up again. Four times this happened; the last time he tried to intimidate the driver into stopping by coming down almost to the deck, getting some satisfaction in seeing in his mirror the car skidding into a ditch. He even had an insane urge to blow the next car off the road with the Thunderbolt's guns.
In the end he spotted a long, poplar-lined driveway, and put the Thunderbolt's gear and flaps down. The heavy 'bolt needed hundreds of yards to stop, and he just managed to bring it to a skidding halt at the end of the drive, at the gates to a cemetery, in a cloud of dust and smoke from the tires and brakes. Thankfully, he opened the canopy; and there, like the first and second gravediggers from Hamlet, stood two lugubrious men leaning on shovels. He then heard this conversation:
"Well dang me if they ain't an airyplane."
"Well dang me if they ain't."
In the end an Air Force recovery team arrived and dismantled the P47 so that it could be trucked away. After being feted in Hollywood, and dancing with several film stars (and who knows, possibly horizontal dancing too) this brief excursion was over and he returned to Britain and the war.
Quite unlike the slim, sexy Spitfire, the "Tiffie" was all war machine; big, heavy and brutal. It packed the amazing Napier Sabre H-16 engine (two banks of four pairs of horizontally-opposed cylinders - think of the Porsche Boxter - geared together) that started at 2,000hp and went up to over 3,000, 4X20mm cannon and 8X6" rockets (about the same punch as the broadside of a light cruiser).
The Typhoon was rushed into service a year ahead of its normal development (as was the Sabre) as a tank-buster and to counter the V1 "Flying Bomb." Anyone wanting a first-hand account of flying the Typhoon for the first time should read Pierre Closterman's book Flames in the Sky. The Sabre was too big to start with a conventional starter motor, so it used the Coffman cartridge system (as shown, badly, in the original movie Flight of the Phoenix), where exploding cartridges blew down a piston that engaged the crankshaft. As Clostermann (one of the Free French pilots in the RAF) says, you had to set the throttle exactly right, work a pump in the c*ckpit [sorry, guys, the full word is censored, don't ask me why] that sent a mixture of ether and petrol to the cylinders and carburetor, and then engage the Coffman. If the engine didn't start it often caught fire.
The Typhoon was developed into the Tempest, an exceptional fighter, and finally the Fury and Sea Fury, which still races at Reno.
One last anecdote about Bob Stanford Tuck. After he had been in continuous action for 2 years and with his score at two dozen, he was sent to the USA (before Pearl Harbor) to lecture to USAAF cadets on fighter tactics at their school in the midwest. They had a Spitfire at the field, and he was persuaded to put on a flying display, which he did. One of the tricks was an upward roll from inverted flying just a few feet off the deck, which had some of the cadets shaking their heads and muttering about his being "Messerchmitt Happy."
Anyhow, he was due to leave the academy and give another lecture at an advanced fighter school farther west, and they lent him a P47 Thunderbolt for the trip. Soon after taking off he spotted little dots in the mirror, which were of course some of the cadets trying to "bounce" him. There followed an intense simulated dogfight where he, in an unfamiliar plane, succeeded in keeping them off his tail for half an hour, although using a lot of fuel. After they departed he continued his trip, to discover that he was totally lost, and that flying over endless flat, rolling wheatfields gave him absolutely no landmarks.
The thirsty radial of the P47 happily continued purring, and the fuel gauge continued dropping. "What a joke," he thought. "The great Battle of Britain fighter ace gets lost and has to bale out of their brand new plane!" Time after time he descended over tiny villages, trying to get some idea of where the hell he was, until he finally decided to land on the highway beneath him while he still had power. But every time he lined up to land, a car maddeningly appeared from nowhere and he had to pull up again. Four times this happened; the last time he tried to intimidate the driver into stopping by coming down almost to the deck, getting some satisfaction in seeing in his mirror the car skidding into a ditch. He even had an insane urge to blow the next car off the road with the Thunderbolt's guns.
In the end he spotted a long, poplar-lined driveway, and put the Thunderbolt's gear and flaps down. The heavy 'bolt needed hundreds of yards to stop, and he just managed to bring it to a skidding halt at the end of the drive, at the gates to a cemetery, in a cloud of dust and smoke from the tires and brakes. Thankfully, he opened the canopy; and there, like the first and second gravediggers from Hamlet, stood two lugubrious men leaning on shovels. He then heard this conversation:
"Well dang me if they ain't an airyplane."
"Well dang me if they ain't."
In the end an Air Force recovery team arrived and dismantled the P47 so that it could be trucked away. After being feted in Hollywood, and dancing with several film stars (and who knows, possibly horizontal dancing too) this brief excursion was over and he returned to Britain and the war.