USAAF Hurricane in WW2

[Liberator]

Interesting WW2 USAAF Hurricane photo - http://www.network54.com/Forum/149674/m ... und.++EDIT

[The Inspector]

I would suppose it was a CanCar built HURRICANE since the logistics of dragging one across the Atlantic would be more than offset by flying one a couple of hours South. So depending on when it was built vs it appearing to be in standard British cammo scheme pattern, the surround very well could have been very dark blue since a HURRI would be an 'oddball' in U.S. skies in the days when people reported 'ZEROS over Ottumwa' that turned out to be bright yellow PIPERs and color identification is tricky in those pan/ortho crossover days.

[RMAllnutt]

This is a KZ-series Hurricane, most of which were built as Hurricane IV's at Langley and Brooklands. These were often tropicalized, and some were converted to photo-recon birds (which might explain why this one is in US Markings, as they adopted many British designs for this ad hoc purpose). I think the markings are the two-tone brown too, although the pilot's gear, and the background suggest a colder, more western location. I am curious about the circular aperture in the center of the insignia as well... could this be a camera port? It seems a little small of course, and I believe most of the PR Hurricanes just had ventral camera positions. It's a very interesting image, none-the-less.

Cheers,
Richard

[mike furline]

Do the bumps on the upper surface of the wing indicate the 20mm installation?

[Baldeagle]

The US 350th FG had several Hurricane hacks in the MTO, some converted to two-seaters-



-