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Author: Martin Derry Publisher: Air World ISBN: 1526786214 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 108
Book Description
When the First World War ended the then recently established Royal Air Force was awash with aircraft of all descriptions. More surprising, perhaps, was the fact that despite an ongoing cull of obsolescing types, on the last day of 1919, the RAF still possessed 9,122 non-obsolete aircraft , with a further 1,100 more assigned to the Fleet Air Arm. while the famous SE.5A and Sopwith Camel had by this time largely been consigned to history, the RAF possessed no less than 1,860 Sopwith Snipes which, from 1920, would become the RAF’s standard single-seat fighter for years to come. Other core types on charge on 31 December 1919 included some 1,650 Bristol F.2B fighters and 1,250 de Havilland DH.9As, which, together with the Snipe, accounted for over fifty per cent of the RAF’s inventory at that time. Avro 504 training aircraft accounted for a further 2,700 airframes. In this Flight Craft Special, the authors provide a detailed and informative pictorial history of those scout/fighter aircraft that served in an operational capacity with the RAF from January 1920 until the last day of 1939 – a period in which Britain once again moved from an era of peace to war with an old enemy, albeit this time Hitler’s totalitarian National Socialist Germany as opposed to the Imperial Germany of old. As well as covering each of the fighter types used during the inter-war period, and featuring most of the squadrons, the photographs themselves convey the sense of the technical advances that rapidly took root within Britain’s aero industries from the mid-1930s onwards, moving from the brightly-marked overall silver wood and linen biplanes to the dull camouflaged metal-skinned monoplanes. The progression of machine-gun development – from the Lewis and Vickers of the First World War to the later Browning – is covered, spanning the days of the biplanes’ two fixed synchronised Lewis or Vickers .303-inch machine-guns mounted in the forward fuselage to eight wing-mounted .303-inch Browning machine-guns in the ‘new’ monoplane fighters. There is also a small, but fascinating, section on the monoplane ‘also rans’ – the monoplane fighters that were designed and had prototypes built but failed to reach the finishing post!
Author: Martin Derry Publisher: Air World ISBN: 1526786214 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 108
Book Description
When the First World War ended the then recently established Royal Air Force was awash with aircraft of all descriptions. More surprising, perhaps, was the fact that despite an ongoing cull of obsolescing types, on the last day of 1919, the RAF still possessed 9,122 non-obsolete aircraft , with a further 1,100 more assigned to the Fleet Air Arm. while the famous SE.5A and Sopwith Camel had by this time largely been consigned to history, the RAF possessed no less than 1,860 Sopwith Snipes which, from 1920, would become the RAF’s standard single-seat fighter for years to come. Other core types on charge on 31 December 1919 included some 1,650 Bristol F.2B fighters and 1,250 de Havilland DH.9As, which, together with the Snipe, accounted for over fifty per cent of the RAF’s inventory at that time. Avro 504 training aircraft accounted for a further 2,700 airframes. In this Flight Craft Special, the authors provide a detailed and informative pictorial history of those scout/fighter aircraft that served in an operational capacity with the RAF from January 1920 until the last day of 1939 – a period in which Britain once again moved from an era of peace to war with an old enemy, albeit this time Hitler’s totalitarian National Socialist Germany as opposed to the Imperial Germany of old. As well as covering each of the fighter types used during the inter-war period, and featuring most of the squadrons, the photographs themselves convey the sense of the technical advances that rapidly took root within Britain’s aero industries from the mid-1930s onwards, moving from the brightly-marked overall silver wood and linen biplanes to the dull camouflaged metal-skinned monoplanes. The progression of machine-gun development – from the Lewis and Vickers of the First World War to the later Browning – is covered, spanning the days of the biplanes’ two fixed synchronised Lewis or Vickers .303-inch machine-guns mounted in the forward fuselage to eight wing-mounted .303-inch Browning machine-guns in the ‘new’ monoplane fighters. There is also a small, but fascinating, section on the monoplane ‘also rans’ – the monoplane fighters that were designed and had prototypes built but failed to reach the finishing post!
Author: Publisher: ISBN: 9781840370492 Category : Airplanes, Military Languages : en Pages : 64
Book Description
Designed before the onset of World War II, this fast and manoeuvrable fighter became the backbone of the Royal Air Force's Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain. This work includes photographs of living historians in accurate uniforms and flying kit from the 1940s.
Author: Mantelli - Brown - Kittel - Graf Publisher: Edizioni R.E.I. ISBN: 2372973312 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 146
Book Description
The Hawker Hurricane was the first modern British fighter before the outbreak of World War II. Until 1941 the Hurricane was the most widely used combat aircraft from the Royal Air Force and the one that bore the brunt of the first clashes with aircraft of the Luftwaffe in the skies of France and Britain. Almost 3,000 aircraft of this type were delivered to the USSR, for the law Rentals & Loans, but the Soviet pilots were generally very critical of the fighter Hawker, considered inferior, not only to the German fighters, but also its. First fighter monoplane of the RAF, the first aircraft equipped with eight machine guns, was the plane means available in greater numbers to counter the waves of attack by the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. Available in twenty-six departments in the early summer of 1940, to August, there were thirty-two against nineteen Spitfire. Piloted by aces like Douglas Bader that made him a legend, the Hawker Hurricane Mk I, although less than the Bf 109-E, however, he proved to be a horse race, and especially at high altitudes could be more maneuverable and thus, to this, more suitable bomber hunter. "His majesty the Spitfire". This airplane is an air legend, a real brand, and his image is inextricably linked to the British victory in the Battle of Britain. It is one of the few, perhaps the only one, whose name evokes some images even in a profane things of historical aviation. Excellent defensive machine, heavily armed, very agile, climbing fast, but the lack of range and of sufficient load capacity has not helped in the war below. The Spitfire name was suggested by Sir Robert MacLean, director of Vickers-Armstrongs at the time, who called his daughter Ann "a little spitfire," a saying Elizabethan to indicate a person impetuous.
Author: Tony O'Toole Publisher: Pen and Sword ISBN: 1473851017 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 271
Book Description
This fully illustrated volume examines the legendary RAF fighter with full details on its WWII service and design modifications. The Hawker Hurricane was aeronautical engineer Sidney Camm's masterpiece. The fighter entered Royal Air Force service in 1937 and quickly became one of the most important aircraft in Britain's military arsenal—especially in the first three years of the Second World War. It served in every wartime theatre, from Norway and France, to the Battle of Britain, the defense of Malta, the campaigns in the Western Desert, the Russian Front, and in the Far East where it saw service until the end of hostilities. Martin Derry offers a concise yet informative history of the Hurricane's development, operational career and design improvements, including many contemporary photographs with detailed captions; a 16-page color illustration section offering profiles and 2-views of 48 separate aircraft; and finally a section prepared by master maker Tony O'Toole, listing and illustrating the plastic model kits of the Hurricane available in all scales.
Author: Jacky Hyams Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books ISBN: 1789294908 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 323
Book Description
Britain's first-ever wartime fighter plane, the Hawker Hurricane, shot down more enemy planes than any other fighter. It was the true aviation hero of the Battle of Britain. Often eclipsed by the legend and aerial heroics of the Spitfire, the Hurricane was the authentic warhorse of aviation history. Stable, rugged, less expensive to build - and far more easily repaired and maintained than the Spitfire - the 'Hurri' as it was affectionately known, proved to be the most fearsome fighter plane in aerial combat - at a time when Britain's survival was at stake like never before. In 1940 the Hurricane made its mark: more than half of the 1,200 German aircraft that were shot down in the war were taken down by Hurricanes. At the time, the RAF could call on 32 squadrons of Hurricanes and 19 Spitfires: the Hurricane was, in fact, the dominant British fighter plane, developing a reputation as a plane that could take more than a few hits from the enemy - and continue to fly. The Spit was the aviation thoroughbred, superb until damaged. The Hurri was much stronger. The skilled airmen came from all over the world; one of them from RAF 80 Squadron would later become a very famous author - Roald Dahl. Using documents, letters and first-hand accounts, this is the historic untold story of the Hawker Hurricane and the lives of the men and women who flew, helped design and construct, fit and worked behind the scenes of the 'Hurri', all contributing in ways big and small, to its outstanding success as a legend of the Second World War.
Author: Dilip Sarkar Publisher: Air World ISBN: 139905645X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 362
Book Description
In The Breaking Storm, the first of Dilip Sarkar’s unprecedented seven-volume series exploring the Battle of Britain, the events that led up to the outbreak of war in 1939, and which set the scene for the epic aerial conflict of summer 1940, are fully explored. Continuing his examination of the events of the Spitfire Summer, in The Breaking Storm Dilip provides a day-by-day chronicle of the Battle of Britain’s first phase – the so-called Kanalkampf – which was fought over the Channel-bound convoys between 10 July and 12 August 1940. This account, though, does not simply concern RAF Fighter Command, as the author recognizes the operations and efforts of the RAF’s Bomber and Coastal commands, the Royal Navy and mercantile marine – making this book part of what he calls ‘the Big story’. Hitler’s actual policies and intentions towards the ongoing war with Britain are also explored. If the Battle of Britain was fought to deny Germany the aerial superiority required to launch a seaborne invasion of southern England, then, the author argues, the conflict could surely only have begun when the Germans committed to Operation Seelöwe – which was not, in fact, until 21 July 1940. It has previously been accepted that Hitler’s War Directive of 16 July 1940 signaled the intention to invade, but the author proves that this was no more than another example of the ‘brinkmanship’ that Hitler was renowned for, and the air attacks at that time little more than ‘Air Fleet Diplomacy’, all of which was intended to frighten Britain into accepting the Führer’s ‘last appeal to reason’ of 19 July 1940. In his broadcast of 22 July 1940, Lord Halifax made the nation’s unbowed position quite clear. He called Hitler’s bluff: previously reluctant to fight Britain, Hitler’s preferred policy in the ongoing war had been blockade and diplomacy – but now he had no choice but to unleash the Luftwaffe against Britain. All of this is investigated in detail, aligning these wider events and high decisions with action in the air. Through diligent research, combined with crucial official primary sources and personal papers, Dilip unravels many myths, often challenging the accepted narrative. This is not simply another dull record of combat losses and claims – far from it. Drawing upon unique first-hand accounts from a wide-range of combatants and eyewitnesses, along with Daily Home Intelligence Reports and numerous other primary sources, this book forms part of what is likely to be the first and last such comprehensively woven account of this epic air battle.
Author: John Dibbs Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 147282296X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 258
Book Description
2017 marks the 80th anniversary of the remarkable Hawker Hurricane formally entering service. The RAF's first monoplane fighter, it dragged the Air Force into a position where it could defend Britain in her 'hour of need'. The true workhorse of the RAF, the Hurricane came into its own in the hot summer months of 1940 valiantly defending the skies above Britain. Outnumbering Spitfires three to one, the Hurricane also downed far more enemy aircraft. Without the obvious elegance of the Me 109 or the Spitfire, the Hurricane was nonetheless beloved by its pilots for its ability to simultaneously take a battering and inflict serious damage from its remarkably stable gun platform. This stunning book reveals the Hurricane in all its glory – from fascinating first-hand accounts from the men who flew her to the truly breath-taking images from John Dibbs of the Hurricanes still in flight today. This lavish, fully illustrated edition is a must-have for all fans of aviation history.
Author: Martin Derry
Author: Martin Derry
Author: Robert Jackson
Author: Philip Birtles
Author: 
Author: Mantelli - Brown - Kittel - Graf
Author: Tony O'Toole
Author: 
Author: Jacky Hyams
Author: Dilip Sarkar
Author: John Dibbs