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Aviation History
1943
1943 - 0829.PDF
APRIL IST, 1943 heir Characteristics TROPICAL LONG-RANGE HURRICANE He \: FLAT, THICK CENTRE SECTION DIHEORAl fUEL TANKS Span .. Length Height Wing area 40ft. Oin 32ft. 3in 13ft. I in 257.5 sq. ft IT would be difficult to name an aircraft which has provedmore adaptable and versatile than the Hawker Hurri-cane, nor one which has "kept its youth" to such good effect for so long a time. For the Hurricane is still a modern aircraft in spite of the fact that it first appeared more than seven years ago. The variety of forms in which it has seen service at least equals that of the Spitfire in number, and certainly exceeds it in divergence, for it fulfils with admirable effi- ciency the roles of day and night fighter variously armed with machine guns, cannon, or a mixture of both, as a catapulted fighter from merchant ships, as a carrier-borne 'fighter with the Fleet Air Arm, and as a fighter-bomber. Furthermore it can be hung with auxiliary fuel tanks to increase its range and, like any other machine, be equipped with '' tropical kit'' externally manifested in the bulge of an air-cleaner for protection against desert dust. - It is in the last-named guise, namely the long-rafige, tropicalised version of the Hurricane IIC, that this R.A.F. maid-of-all-work is reviewed and illustrated on this page. Some idea of the steadily mounting burdens placed uponthe uncomplaining Hurricane may be gauged from the fact that its all-up weight has increased from less than 6,000 lb.to approximately 8,250 lb. for this latest version, yet the wing loading is still by no means excessive at 32 1b. /sq. ft.As a result, its manoeuvrability remains excellent. Naturally one cannot pile on drag in the way eloquentlyillustrated above without some sacrifice in sheer speed, but even so, the tropicalised IIC with its two auxiliarylong-range fuel tanks slung below the roots of the wing outer-panels, is still capable of a top speed of 312 m.p.h.,which its 1,280 h.p. Rolls-Royce Merlin XX engine achieves at i8,oooft. Maximum cruising range is about 1,500 milesso equipped. Without the external fuel tanks and the tropical air-cleaner, its top speed is 340 m.p.h. at 21,500ft. Apart from the special features already enumerated andshown in the photograph and drawings above, the basic Hurricane characteristics remain unchanged.
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