Battle of Britain Hurricane in flight!

[Aircraft Mech Paul]

Thanks for posting these GREAT photo's Mike,

Nice to see this one airborne. But, when I saw a Hurricane up close for the first time, some years ago at Oshkosh, I was really amazed that the Hurricane was as small as it was compared to the Spitfire, in terms of how much use the Hurricane had in the Battle of Britain.

[Mike]

Well, the Hurricane displayed today at Duxford, in spite of the inclement weather conditions (strong, gusting crosswinds, rain, thunder, lightning, hail and sunshine - you name it, we had it today!) which led to the cancellation of quite a number of visiting display items.















I hope that you've all enjoyed seeing these.

If anyone's interested, I can post up some more pictures of some of the other aircraft from Duxford's VE-day commemorative display this weekend in another day or two.

[N3Njeff]

OUTSTANDING!!!! thanks for the shot in the grass!!!

[CorsairFreak]

Great shots, I love the one with the two hurricanes and the P-40.

[brycheiniog]

Here are a couple more pictures of R4118 from yesterday.









Some more pictures are here:

http://www.pbase.com/brycheiniog/duxford_ve_day_2005

Cheers

Jonathan

[Mike]

We had a visit from Bob Foster, one of R4118's Battle of Britain pilots, at the weekend. Bob flew a number of sorties in this actual aeroplane during the summer of 1940, and achieved several kills in it.

A real privilege to meet him. He is seen here with the aeroplane, and, in the second picture, with Peter Vacher, the discovered it in India, recovered it to the UK and had it restored by Tony Ditheridge's team at Hawker Restorations.

[N3Njeff]

need some sound with those pics!!!!!!

[Yak 11 Fan]

No mention of who restored the engine Mike???
Hopefully I'll get a chance to take a look at the Hurricane during the season, I saw it a number of times during the rebiuld but not since completion.

[Mike]

Whoever it was did an excellent job, Chris!

I'm sure that there's a chapter in the book about the engine rebuild.

[Forgotten Field]

Thanks for posting the photos of an old favorite. Why the complete covering of the vertical stabilizer with the tri-color? I know it was used on all British aircraft, but why so large? Would I be right if I guessed for better recognition?

[Mike]

This is the early War colour scheme, as applied originally to R4118, Forgotten Field. If you notice, the red and blue are much brighter than the dull colours applied later in the war. All totally authentic for the aeroplane as it was in the summer of 1940, even down to using the original spec of cellulose paint.

The attention to detail on this restoration is absolutely staggering. It has a fully-operational radio of the original type (TR1133), guns (de-activatied, of course!) with working pneumatic trigger machanisms, gunsight, operational gun camera (with film!)............

I'll post up some detail shots of the aeroplane in due course

[dhfan]

IIRC, the article in Aeroplane Monthly said Maurice Hammond rebuilt the engine.

[Yak 11 Fan]

Must be a mighty fine engine then.....