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All the Hurricane questions you want to ask here


Sean_M

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Thanks Jack, a bit of further reading suggests foil tape not about till some time in the 60s, there fore either doped cloth or thin sheet. In that photo with the P-40 overhead, its easy to imagine tape or somesuch top & bottom of the gunport covering. :unsure:

Steve.

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On 2017-02-07 at 1:34 AM, Magpie22 said:

 

Might not be the close ups you are looking for but these two may be of some help. Both taken in the desert.

Peter M 

 

Thanks Peter, those photos are great! The clearest photos I've seen yet of the TAC-R camera installation.

 

thanks for posting them.

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On 2017-02-13 at 8:47 AM, Magpie22 said:

Silver  doped fabric in my opinion. Later shots of the A/C on the dump clearly show the cannon ports - unlikely if they had been sheeted over with metal.

Peter M

 

Nice photo Peter, thanks.

 

Ive seen it somewhere before, maybe in one of the Auz warbird magazines?

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29 minutes ago, StevSmar said:

 

Nice photo Peter, thanks.

 

Ive seen it somewhere before, maybe in one of the Auz warbird magazines?

Stev,

 

Photos of V7476 are not hard to come by. I've got about 20 or so I've collected over the years. Glad you liked the PR Hurri shots. Hope they are of some use. I will keep my eyes open for more. I'm sure I've got some others floating around here somewhere - but where?

 

Peter M

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  • 1 month later...

 For a start, the aircraft is a Mk.I not a Mk.IIA, with a DH prop.   The text suggests it lacks machine guns, but in that case why have they left the openings uncovered?  It further suggests that the fighter was modified to carry cannon to attack tanks, for which 20mm seems a little small but would suffice for most of the light italian armour. of the time (whatever that is - late 1940 seem likeliest.    A date would be useful.  The mid-1940 (post-April) fin flash is a hint but the aircraft appears to lack roundels.  Any which way, that’s a rather draggy installation, and I wonder how they have modified it to improve the feed: I suspect that mounted as it is shown it will jam as regularly as the unmodified Hispanos did in the UK.  (Partially because of the lack of rigidity, the original being designed to be mounted in the engine.)

 

 

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Someone had posted the link on Hyperscale a few days ago. It's looked interesting as I had never seen it before, in all my decades of looking at aircraft, so I posted it here.

 

 

Chris

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The French text doesn't reveal a lot and is of dubious accuracy. Basically, it says that the photos were taken by an RAF photographer in Egypt; as early Mk IIs - IIA  and IIB (sic) - only mounted eight machine guns in each wing, it's understandable why "the mechanics" would have tried to mount a heavier armament in the form of Hispano-Suiza HS 404 20mm cannon; we don't know what the results of the trials were, but later Hurricanes (IIC) were armed with two cannon in each wing, and that it's likely the trials were carried out in an attempt to make the Hurricane more effective when attacking tanks. It's possible that there were several aircraft fitted out in this fashion and, "during the same period" (actually, considerably later, I should think), some aircraft were equipped with 40mm cannon "and/or" rockets - which is accurate if it means that the Hurricane IIE/IV could be fitted with either but not if it's intended to suggest that it could carry both at the same time.

 

My French is O-level standard (regrettably, the syllabus didn't cover anything as interesting as aircraft armament) and dates back 40 years but I'm not sure that, as Grahame suggests, the text indicates that the machine guns were removed. My dictionary gives "sur place" as meaning "on the spot" rather than "in place of"; I think it may be emphasising that it was a local modification. The cannon seem to be mounted inboard of the existing gun bays and of course there's no space  being taken up within the wing by the cannons' ammunition drums, so there would probably still be room for the Brownings. The weight, on the other hand.......

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My French is also O-level standard from over 50 years ago - although I'm sure I passed the oral by twisting the conversation round to St Exupery - but with recent tops-ups from Fanatique, Air Fan, Air Magazine etc.  You may well be right that "sur place" does not mean "in place of" - there are a lot of words in French that look as though they mean the same as in English but don't (known as false friends/faux amis - at least, "false friends" in English, not sure about the French!).  An interesting question is where they got two Hispanos from?  Could this be after the Syrian campaign in 1941?  Or perhaps from defecting Moranes that otherwise used up all their spares?  If it was 1941 then they had German armour to think about, and the 20mm cannon would have been considerably less effective.  Did the British ammo (assuming they had any) even fit the French guns?  Some later Blenheims had a 20mm mounted in the nose - was this also French-sourced?

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The same question struck me. The Morane theory sounds plausible, it's hard to see where else the guns would have come from. Mason says that 46 Sqn had been intended to take the first IIcs to the Middle East in May 1941 but "at the last moment this plan was dropped" and IIcs only arrived with 229 Sqn that September - which could give a context for one or more local conversions to cannon armament after the Syrian campaign in June.  Warner's Blenheim book, at least in its first edition, gives no clue where those Hispanos were sourced from (in late 1941). The anti-tank theory may be a red herring, M Moulin only says that it's "probable", so it seems to be speculation on his part.

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I don't know if anyone has tried a 'search by image' on the photograph but I have and it only appears on the blog dogsbody linked to and another blog, in which the writer discusses the photograph, so no help whatsoever.

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4 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

Some later Blenheims had a 20mm mounted in the nose - was this also French-sourced?

 

No.  See this thread:

 

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235003532-blenheim-mki-internal-colours/&page=2

 

If it helps anyone, here is a full, though rough and ready, translation of all the French (which itself includes typos and fractured sentences):

 

"Here is a series of photos taken in Egypt by an RAF photographer.  It shows a tropicalised Hurricane IIa.  As the first Mark IIs (a and b )  had only 8 Browning 0.303" machine guns, one could understand that local mechanics tried to mount a heavier armament by fitting 20mm Hispano Suiza HS404 cannon on the wings.  We don't know the result of the trials but, since later aircraft in the series (Mark II c) were fitted with 2 cannon in each wing, it is probable that these trials were to enable the Hurricane to attack tanks a little more effectively.  In the same period some of these aircraft (ie, I assume, Hurricanes in general) were fitted with 40mm cannon and/or rockets.

 

NB1: Photos of RAF origin.

NB2: It is also possible that there were several aircraft thus fitted."

 

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I presume that the Lysander cannon would have come from "regular sources", since- amazing as it sounds now- Lysanders were considered a high-priority type for the limited supply of cannons for a period in 1940!  How many ever actually WERE supplied is another question...

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On 2017-04-08 at 11:59 AM, dogsbody said:

Has anyone have more info on this cannon-armed Hurricane?

....

Chris

They're interesting photos for sure.

 

FlyPast's 2008 Hurricane Salute has an article on Hurricane armament on pages 42 & 43, it has two additional photos of the installation, without the fairings over the ammunition canister. Unfortunately the short commentary on page 43 is a request for more information on the mystery install, and adds no information to how it came about.

 

Flypasts photos are dated May 1941.

Edited by StevSmar
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Sorry Graham I'm new to this Pinterest thing and am not sure how to copy a copy of a copy photograph, so here is a screen grab based on the premise that there is no copyright. If there is, then I will of course remove the photo.

 

3503DFC1-0355-41F7-93F3-7C33AA4D3908_zps

Trevor

 

 

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6c352a0d7cb19efb85076e3928464113.jpg

 

lots of interesting detail, like the sky spinner and wavy leading edge, and the way the Jablo prop blades shatter

the flaking off paint is seen in a few shots, I think these are early Gloster built planes 

Block 1/G, First Gloster Produced Block
Serial Range P2535 - P2584 (50), P2614 - P2653 (40), P2672 - P2701 (30), P2713 - P2732 (20), P2751 - P2770 (20), P2792 - P2836 (45), P2854 - P2888 (35), P2900 - P2924 (25), P2946 - P2995 (50), P3020 - P3069(50), P3080 - P3124 (45), P3140 - P3179 (40), P3200 - P3234 (35), P3250 - P3264 (15) - Total 500

 

And I've seen a few with badly flaked paint, 

the 501 Sq in France shot

501-rotolhurri-france.jpg

 

and Sammy Allard's VY-K from the Castle Camps 85 Sq Life photoshoot

2a9591af778b51186e9fc637e9cdde59.jpg

 

note also the infield 'sky' repaint (non standard pattern and not flaking) and the variety of non black spinners, 85 was noted for using flight coloured spinners, the one behind to the left yellow, Allard's red (compare to fin flash) and the one on the right maybe blue?

Townsend's VY-Q has a white spinner in this series,

b47a7cd560ddd65e1500763f1611cd53.jpg

and pre war 111 Sq used the same flight colours on the top of the '111' numerals, with the C/O in all white, 4th plane with the Sq Ldr pennant

111-sq.jpg

 

Sorry, bit of a ramble, but hope of interest in Hurricane thread

 

Trevor

if you can google image find the shot, right click to 'view image' and you should just get the image, and it avoids pinterest

(which I have not signed up too)

6a2d852139014de9d22254dd122af586.jpg

 

can anyone read, or know the serial of YB-C ?

I'e seen the shot before, but not noticed the unusual 'C'  

 

cheers

T

 

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Great find. It is interesting how the gun openings look on this picture.

6c352a0d7cb19efb85076e3928464113.jpg

It looks like six openings have no red cover in place. Could it be that when firing the guns, the hole patch got ripped off and that the two outer guns on the port side didn't fire?

 

Would make a great model with the sky overspray and flaked off paint.

 

Cheers, Peter

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Hi Troy thanks for the tip. I've only seen it on Pinterest hence the screen grab.

 

It appears that the aircraft had only fired its inner guns as the outer patches are intact? Didn't know you could select the guns to fire. I thought it was all or nothing, assuming of course the outer guns were armed?

 

Trevor

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5 hours ago, Max Headroom said:

Hi Troy thanks for the tip. I've only seen it on Pinterest hence the screen grab.

 

It appears that the aircraft had only fired its inner guns as the outer patches are intact? Didn't know you could select the guns to fire. I thought it was all or nothing, assuming of course the outer guns were armed?

 

Trevor

 

AFAIK, it was all or nothing,  the outers may have jammed, or, it could be blocked with debris from the belly landing, a closer look at the D/L pic,(stuck it into paint and enlarged it) I think it's the two middle guns, look like there are still patches on 1 and 4.

cheers

T

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