This Date in Aviation History: November 6 - November 8

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
11/08/2019 at 12:35 • Filed to: wingspan, Planelopnik, TDIAH

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Welcome to This Date in Aviation History , getting of you caught up on milestones, important historical events and people in aviation from November6 through November 8.

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Hurricane IIC BE500 flown by Sqn Ldr Denis Smallwood of 87 Sqn. This Hurricane is painted in the RDM2 “Special Night” livery. (UK Government)

November 6, 1935 – The first flight of the Hawker Hurricane. There is an undeniable glamour in being a fighter pilot, wheeling above the clouds high over the battlefield in one-on-one combat with the enemy. For that reason, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! tended to receive all the glory for the high-flying exploits of its dashing pilots during the Second World War. But much of the yeoman’s work of air combat was done at lower altitudes, down on the deck, or slugging it out with waves of incoming bombers. That mission was the bailiwick of the Hawker Hurricane. It wasn’t the most glamorous fighter in the RAF, and its design hearkened back to an earlier era of aviation, but it was a hard hitting workman of an airplane whose pilots ultimately downed more enemy aircraft during the war than all other British aircraft types combined.

K5083, the prototype Hawker Hurricane at Brooklands prior to its maiden flight. Note the two-bladed wooden propeller. Later production models received a variable-pitch metal propeller. (UK Government)

Development of the Hurricane traces back to the earlier !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , both biplanes with fixed-pitch wooden propellers. Famed Hawker designer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! began an in-house project to develop a new fighter by creating a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! monoplane with fixed landing gear, before further refining the design to include retractable gear. He also replaced the underpowered !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engine with the more powerful PV-12, which would later be developed into the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and became one of the greatest piston engines ever produced. Hawker progressed so far on the fighter that the Air Ministry simply wrote Specification F.36/34 specifically to match the new fighter, and the Hurricane was born.

Royal Canadian Air Force pilots scramble to their waiting Hurricanes to intercept incoming Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain (RCAF)

When the “Hurry” entered service in 1937, it was the first monoplane fighter to serve the RAF. During the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Spitfire got much of the press for its high speed and high altitude performance against German escort fighters, while the Hurricane, which was 30-40 mph slower than the “Spit,” tangled with the German bombers. In the Mediterranean theater, the Hurricane was outclassed with the arrival of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but still remained a potent ground attack aircraft, and was instrumental in the pivotal British victory at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in North Africa. Hurricanes also played a vital role in the Allied victory in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and nearly 3,000 were delivered to the Soviet Union. However, in the face of superior Axis fighters, its use solely as a day fighter was over by 1943. Interestingly, for all that the Spitfire was a famous dogfighter, the Hurry was actually more agile than the Spit at altitudes below 20,000 feet, having a tighter turning radius and a superior roll rate.

A Hurricane Mk. 1 in flight over Egypt in 1940 (Imperial War Museum)

The prototype Hurricane came with a stressed fabric skin and a two-bladed wooden propeller, but with the addition of a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , metal wings, and armor plating, the aircraft that was known as the “Mk 1 (revised)” became the primary production model and formed the backbone of the RAF throughout the war and served in every theater of the conflict. To address the high altitude performance issues in the original Hurricane, Hawker developed the Hurricane II which had a two-stage supercharger, a strengthened wing and additional attachment points for external stores. Other variants followed, including the Sea Hurricane, which was modified for carrier operations. Although more than 14,000 Hurricanes were produced, only 12 remain airworthy today.

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Short Takeoff

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(Author unknown)

November 6, 1957 – The first flight of the Fairey Rotodyne. Though resembling a helicopter, the Rotodyne was actually a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a class of rotorcraft where forward propulsion is provided through conventional engines while lift is provided by short wings and a large powered rotor. The Rotodyne’s rotor was turned by jets on the rotor tips which were powered for takeoff, landing and hovering, but were unpowered during flight. In this way, the Rotodyne acted as an !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Intended for civilian or military transport, the Rotodyne was canceled after the construction of just one prototype as no customers were found, and also due to concerns over the noise produced by the rotor’s tip-jets.

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(US Navy)

November 6, 1945 – The first jet-powered airplane lands on a US Navy aircraft carrier. The rather unfortunately named !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was a mixed-power aircraft, having both a radial engine and a turbojet engine, as early jet engines were still untrusted. The first aircraft to enter US Navy service to include a jet engine, the Fireball made the first jet-powered carrier landing unintentionally when US Marine Corps pilot J.C. West landed aboard the escort carrier USS Wake Island (CVE-65) under jet power alone after his radial engine failed. The Fireball proved fragile and unsuited to carrier operations, often breaking apart on landing. Only 71 were built, and the type was retired in 1947 in favor of pure jet fighters.

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(San Diego Air and Space Museum)

November 6, 1942 – The first flight of the Heinkel He 219. A very advanced aircraft for its day, the He 219 Uhu (Eagle Owl) was used by the Luftwaffe primarily as a night fighter in the closing stages of WWII. The 219 was fitted with a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! VHF radar and was the first operational Luftwaffe warplane to use a tricycle landing gear and the first operational aircraft to have an ejection seat. Coming late in the war, the He 219 fought well, claiming five RAF bombers shot down on its first night of operation. However, with less than 300 produced, there were not enough of them to make a significant impact on the outcome of the war.

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November 7, 2001 – The Concorde resumes passenger flights. On July 25, 2000, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (F-BTSC) crashed shortly after takeoff from Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport. The official cause of the crash was cited as debris on the runway that damaged a tire and lead to a ruptured fuel tank and catastrophic fire. Though it was the only crash in the history of Concorde, all of the supersonic transports were grounded during the investigation. Remaining aircraft were updated with Kevlar-lined fuel tanks and burst-resistant tires before retuning to service. Despite its return to revenue service, the Concorde could not overcome a downturn in air travel following the Flight 4590 crash and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . High maintenance and fuel costs added to the Concorde’s woes, and all of the Concordes were retired in 2003.

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(Australian Government)

November 8, 1935 – The death of Charles Kingsford Smith. Kingsford Smith, known by his nickname “Smithy,” served as a motorcycle dispatch rider during the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in WWI before joining the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1917. Following the war, he worked as a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in the US and flew airmail in Australia, and initially became famous for completing the first crossing of the Pacific Ocean in 1928 when he flew from California to Australia with copilot !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! named !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Kingsford Smith followed that with the first flight across Australia and the first flight across the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from Australia to New Zealand in the same year, and a westward crossing of the Atlantic Ocean from Ireland to Newfoundland in 1930. He also made the first eastward crossing of the Pacific in 1934 in a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! named !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . During an attempt to break the record for flying from England to Australia, Kingsford Smith and copilot John Pethybridge, flying the Lady Southern Cross , disappeared over the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! near Burma, and their bodies were never found.

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Connecting Flights

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If you enjoy these Aviation History posts, please let me know in the comments. And if you missed any of the past articles, you can find them all at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . You can also find more stories about aviation, aviators and airplane oddities at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

DISCUSSION (5)

WilliamsSW > ttyymmnn
11/08/2019 at 13:14

Sooo, the Fairey Rotodyne couldn’t hover then?

user314 > ttyymmnn
11/08/2019 at 13:27

Development and production of the He 219 was protracted and tortuous, due to political rivalries between Josef Kammhuber , commander of the German night fighter forces, Ernst Heinkel , the manufacturer and Erhard Milch , responsible for aircraft construction in the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM — the German Aviation Ministry). The aircraft was also complicated and expensive to build; these factors further limited the number of aircraft produced.

Hurry for infighting and bureaucracy !

ttyymmnn > WilliamsSW
11/08/2019 at 13:38

It could hover. Did I say you couldn’t?

Dakotahound > WilliamsSW
11/08/2019 at 14:47

I had never heard of the Fairey Rotodyne, so I did a little research. The tips of the rotors had jets (as stated in the article) and , because the rotor was not powered by the shaft, no ant-torque correction was required (it didn’t need a tail rotor like a helicopter). When the jets were turned off in flight mode, the autogyro effect provided about half of the lift. It seems that the only re al downside of the design was the noise.

WilliamsSW > ttyymmnn
11/08/2019 at 15:58

I was thinking about it as an auto gyro which can’t hover and didn’t read too closely. With the jet tips running I guess it could