Hi Folks,
First post. Bit of a Fury fan, so I've stopped lurking...
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Is the wing the same as the Tempest?
This muddle is what prompted the post. Yes and no! The Tempest wing was what the Sea Fury's wing was based upon, so the plan, airfoil and broad strcture is the same. Hawker invented a 'lightweight' version of the Tempest, called the Fury. The Tempest's wing had the centre section removed, and the outer wings brought in to make the Fury's. It's easy to see as the Tempest has a gap between the inner undercarriage doors, and the Sea Fury doesn't. The RAF didn't want the Fury, but the Royal Navy thought it would be a good idea, so Hawker's incorporated a wing fold halfway - just outboard of the cannons. So the 'centre section' referred to in the books is the narrow three foot or so strip that was under the fuselage of the Tempest, not as BDK (logically) suggests, the bit between the folds.
If you had Tempest or Sea Fury wings, and changed the panel lines, you could fake up the other type, in apearance easily. But I woulnd't want to fly in one with those wings! At a glance the Tempest undercarriage and the Sea Fury's are the same. They aren't; the Sea Fury's being designed for deck landing vertical accellerations. The Sea Fury T-20 has a different undercarriage again, and bigger horizontal tailplanes (but I digress).
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Does it have a steel frame under the skin like the Tempest?
Again, the history gives you the clues. The Hurricane was a fabric over frame construction; the Typhoon and Tempest still had frame cockpit to engine areas, though metal covered, but semi-monocoque rear fuselages. In the Sea Fury, the fuselage was 'humped' to raise the pilot's position so he can see over the nose. Hawker's took this opportunity to make the whole fuselage stressed skin semi-monococque
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What's the max speed at sea level, books say 460 mph at 20,000 ft?
Dunno. I'll see if I can find out.
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What are some issues operators have with the Centaurus Engine?
It's a sleeve valve engine (if you don't know, google - I can't explain it as well as some sites already do!) Also, it was the top end of high performance piston power, driving a five blade prop, at the end of a major war - It's right out on the edge of the technology envelope. So:
1. It's the difference between a very simple machine and a very complex one. When something goes wrong, it's often catastrophic, rather than a partial failure.
2. It's 'different' by being a sleeve valve. Causes ignorance, mistakes and avoidance. Other bits to go wrong instead of the more familiar pushrods etc.
3. When something major goes wrong, stopping the prop, you have a five blade airbrake. Several people have found that it has the glide angle of the proverbial brick in this mode. Prop still going isn't so bad.
4. Currently,I think there's one Sea Fury in the USA with a Centarus - Elsworth Getchell, who rebuilds his own engine. There's two in Australia. The Royal Navy Historic Flight have lost one a/c due to an engine failure, and currently have thier machine working OK, but as someone's already said, the rebuild had issues with IIRC bore chroming etc. They also have special fuel for it to help prevent some of the detonation issues. It's not a simple setup!
And, as folks have said, there's not a lot of people to turn wrenches on them.
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Other than the Baghdad Fury, was there a Fury not used by the Navy?
Lots of Navy and ex-Navy machines, the Pakistani examples, as mentioned, but no, that's it, I think!
Hope this helps.
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