A better Hawker Hurricane

[EAF602Whizz]

I'd like to see Camm develop the Hurricane further than it was in OTL. I know that it wasn't as advanced structurally as the Spitfire but in what ways could it have been made a much more viable fighter whilst retaining it's relatively simple method of construction compared to the spitfire so that it would remain in front line service longer.

My immediate thoughts; cut down rear fuselage and bubble canopy to improve visibility. Development of a new, thinner wing to improve aerodynamics. Improved Merlin engine (as happened OTL) as well as increased armament.

What do you think about the feasibility of this? How would the improved Hurricane cope in North Africa and Asia?

 

[amphibulous]

Merlin engines were a bottleneck for aircraft production, so it made sense to put those allocated for fighters into the higher performing Spitfire. There really isn't anything that can be changed enough so that the Hurricane will compete with the Spitfire - which itself has to be constantly upgraded as the war continues.

 

[Ian Hathaway]

Not sure I would change a thing about the Hurricane, it was a good plane ... a stable gun platform with good performance that could take punishment and served well alongside the Spitfire.

 

[hugh lupus]

Well the technology to produce bubble canopies was'nt available until the middle of the war and it made sense to use them on better aircraft You can do things like giving it full undercarriage doors ,retractible tailwheel and possibly aliminium covered flying control surfaces to cope better at high speeds but where do the resources come from ?
Remember the Hurricane had some commonality of parts with the Fury ..a biplane.
As to north Africa both Hurricane and Spitfire Used the Volkes filter which slowed them down considerably but the Original Hurricane wing structure adapted well as a tank buster, changing that structure to a thinner one would remove that advantage.

 

[EAF602Whizz]

Good points all, most of which I'd already considered tbh. Hadn't thought about the later availability of the bubble canopy though. An alternative canopy that would increase rear visibility? I think the Hurricane was a good tough fighter bomber and the development of a new wing might have been feasible, at least for the fighter versions. The reason I think it's possibly worthwhile is because the Hurricane could still be produced quicker, easier and cheaper than the spitfire. With a better wing it would have been a better fighter in theatres where the spitfire wasn't available.
A Hurricane with a universal wing of sorts that can still carry bomb shackles when needed. I concede that the 40mm guns where a tall order.

 

[hugh lupus]

Good points all, most of which I'd already considered tbh. Hadn't thought about the later availability of the bubble canopy though. An alternative canopy that would increase rear visibility? I think the Hurricane was a good tough fighter bomber and the development of a new wing might have been feasible, at least for the fighter versions. The reason I think it's possibly worthwhile is because the Hurricane could still be produced quicker, easier and cheaper than the spitfire. With a better wing it would have been a better fighter in theatres where the spitfire wasn't available.
A Hurricane with a universal wing of sorts that can still carry bomb shackles when needed. I concede that the 40mm guns where a tall order.

Easier to build ? Oh yes I've helped rebuild a spitfire wing and its a bitch of a thing so easy to get wrong your tolerences have to be spot on for each section.
What would you do to the wing? change its profile ? angle of attack or change the control surfaces?

 

[PMN1]

Bubble canopy Hurricane here

http://www.k5083.mistral.co.uk/PROJECTS.HTM

Hurricane Improved Canopy (Blister) ProjectReduced rear fuselage secondary structure. Intended to increase field of view for intruder operations. Prototype started but discontinued in March 1942. P3899 trials aircraft first flew on 26th October, 1940.

 

[Simon]

Merlin engines were a bottleneck for aircraft production, so it made sense to put those allocated for fighters into the higher performing Spitfire.

Availability of Merlin engines, and associated Meteor tank engines, seems to of been a major limiting factors in a number of projects. Whilst the government did to well with the shadow factories programme wonder how they managed to underestimate demand so much, and what might of happened if they'd built even more shadow factories.

 

[EAF602Whizz]

PMN1, that's perfect, and first flew late 1940 so available for 41 I'd imagine. As for the wing, I'm not an engineer so I can't claim to have done any repairs or rebuild work, but the wing I'd like to see would be thinner, with the accent on a more streamlined, higher performance aircraft. Hurricane wings were aluminium skinned from 1940 on. I take it that included the ailerons. Fairing over the undercarriage/retractable tailwheel and a general smoothing of the design would be desirable.
Regarding the vokes filters, I'm sure I read somewhere that these reduced top speed by around 20 mph but ground crews spent time smoothing and polishing the airframe so that all of that loss was regained.
So already we have the better visibility canopy, faired over main gear and of course things like 20mm hispanos and more powerful Merlins with multi stage superchargers were available in the near future. So just a redesigned wing then. I liked the Griffon engined Hurricane on that page. Amazing, though probably overkill.
Would a cancelled Typhoon call for a super Hurricane?

 

[Cook]

...in what ways could it have been made a much more viable fighter whilst retaining it's relatively simple method of construction...

I wouldn’t worry about prolonging the service life of the Hurricane, I’d improve the early war models. The Hurricane was one of the poorest armed fighters over Northern France in May 1940, armed only with 8 x .303in machine guns. At the same time, the German Bf 109E and all of the French fighters had a mix of machine guns and 20mm cannon that delivered a far more powerful punch. Account after account provided by British pilots of the fighting then and during the Battle of Britain describe them hammering away at the German aircraft, seeing their rounds strike, and the German aircraft keep flying. The Bf 109E had ammunition for only 9 seconds of cannon fire*, but this was almost inevitably fatal. A Hurricane Mk II with 4 x .303in machine guns and 2 x 20mm cannon would have been a far better fighter.

*They had longer for the machine guns alone, allowing them to fire, bring their guns onto target and then fire the cannons - they had a selective trigger system.

 

[Simon]

If you start putting in a better engine, thinning the wing and doing various other modifications to make it more Spitfire-like, at what point do you just decide that you might as well manufacture a Spitfire instead? Okay as Hugh Lupus says the Spitfire's manufacturing tolerance was pretty high so you might save something on a more simplified construction process but is it enough of a bonus to lose out on our timeline's Hurricane and the Typhoon which excelled at the low-level interceptor and ground attack roles.

 

[EAF602Whizz]

I agree with you on every one of those points Simon. The Typhoon hung on a shaky peg in 1941 but I'm glad we kept it. The Hurricane had to fight on though in other theatres for a couple more years. The new canopy wouldn't require much modification and fairing in the gear etc should be fairly easy. The better engines came with the Mk11s anyway, although even better Merlins were available. All of these things could have been applied to the Hurricanes from 1941. A more modern wing should've been possible without being over complicated.
I also agree about armament on the early hurricanes. Should've had 20mm from the start, one in each wing plus 4 brownings.

 

[Just Leo]

The Hurricane wing was too long and too thick. It was also not likely to be changed because the Hurricane's proposed replacements, Tornado/Typhoon both had the same wing, with the same strength and stability advantage and performance weakness. Camm's ultimate solution was the Tempest wing, refined into the shorter Fury/Sea Fury wing.

The canopy exhibited on the Miles M.20 in 1940 was the Hurricane's potential solution to a canopy too narrow and framed.

The rear fuselage was too thick and tapered too sharply to the rudder post, leaving the lower portion of the rudder with disturbed air. Camm's fix was to delete the retractable tailwheel and add a lower extention, an integral ventral strake that was to become popular on future jet aircraft. My fix would be to correct the problem and either design a better fuselage line in planform, or, in combination with a larger, heavier engine, Hercules or Griffon, extend the fuselage in a method similar to that performed on late-model P-40s, with the rudder hingeline aligning with the rear elevator line.

The radiator payed no heed to the efforts of Fredrick Meredith. Both Mitchell and Messerschmitt did pay attention, as did the North American team in designing the Mustang, using the effect with the greatest fame. To Camm's benefit, the air and oil cooler wing leading edge intakes on the Tempest II/Fury models were tour de force. A good addition to a Hercules Hurricane.

There is, on Hurricane II and later models, an oil line which surrounds the engine cowling just behind the propellor. This cools engine oil and ensures that all further airflow is disturbed.

The deletion of the maingear wheel doors was the last oversight I've got. Yakovlev solved that dilemma by having spring-loaded doors with an arm that closed the doors when the wheel moved it. Simple and effective.

 

[EAF602Whizz]

I doubt if there's much could be done to extend the Hurricane's life beyond 1943 (overseas) my point was to significantly improve the Hurricane during this time frame so that it could meet the challenges of defending Malta and mixing it with the JAAF/IJN in Asia better. Perhaps the likelihood of designing a simple, but better wing for that time frame is extremely unlikely.
So far we've got; 1940 Hurricanes with 20mm and other basic improvements. Easily done. And 1941 hurricane Mk11s with improved visibility cannon plus the OTL improvements of the Mk11. Can we get a badass hurricane fighter for the Med/CBI in 1942/43 until the spitfires arrive?

 

[Just Leo]

I wouldn’t worry about prolonging the service life of the Hurricane, I’d improve the early war models. The Hurricane was one of the poorest armed fighters over Northern France in May 1940, armed only with 8 x .303in machine guns. At the same time, the German Bf 109E and all of the French fighters had a mix of machine guns and 20mm cannon that delivered a far more powerful punch. Account after account provided by British pilots of the fighting then and during the Battle of Britain describe them hammering away at the German aircraft, seeing their rounds strike, and the German aircraft keep flying. The Bf 109E had ammunition for only 9 seconds of cannon fire*, but this was almost inevitably fatal. A Hurricane Mk II with 4 x .303in machine guns and 2 x 20mm cannon would have been a far better fighter.

*They had longer for the machine guns alone, allowing them to fire, bring their guns onto target and then fire the cannons - they had a selective trigger system.

The MG FF carried a 60 round magazine, and emptied it at a rate of 540 RPM, 9 rounds per second. I don't know Aussie math.

The problem with the cannon armament was the cannon. The MS was also fed, originally, with a 60 round magazine and it had a higher rate of fire. It was an ordnance problem. It would have been a much better fighter with 120/150 rpg on a reliable cannon. BTW, 4 cannons reduced the Hurricane II's speed by 10 mph, back to the MkI speed.

 

[Cook]

I don't know Aussie math.

I was quoting James Holland’s The Battle of Britain and doing so from memory; he actually says 7 seconds for the cannon and 55 seconds for the guns. The Hurricane meanwhile had just 15 seconds worth with the guns.

 

[MattII]

There's a lot of talk about modifying the hurricane's wing, but a big question is, do these modifications do anything to the ability of the ground crew to strip off the wings in under an hour and replace them? If that's so then you're removing one of the Hurricane's great advantages, the ability to get back into the air quickly, despite occasionally taking wing-damage that would ground other fighters.

 

[Tentrees]

Go simple Early.

Six .50 HMGs with 400 rds per to replce the anemic .303s

or

2 20mm with 120/150 rds per and four .50s with 400 rounds per with selective fire trigger

As to the airframe changes and better engines that would mean starting in 1935 with the lessons learned from the Spanish civil war being taken to heart. That and a concerted effort in airfoil windtunnel testing.
That and a radical realignment of the MAP to be able to do the job bettr than it had been doing.

 

[MattII]

Well the cannons weren't ready until 1941, so it'd have to be the HMGs.

 

[hugh lupus]

looking here
http://www.militaryspot.com/classifieds/showproduct.php?product=2263&sort=1&cat=13
The wing has two spars ending just inboard of the outer aileron hinge and begining [obviously] at the fuselage pick up points.Both are connected by braces .there is also a serious ammount of frames and what I imagine are extruded or formed longerons running lengthwise attatched to the skin.
Now we can see why the word 'rugged' is used... Camm built in so much redundancy
Now I have never worked on one but how about this
Pull the wing tips in a bit ,I wonder if the ailerons at high speed are fully supported?.
Lose a few stiffeners and braces and replace them with a mid spar.You still get an alternate load path if damage occurs and you save weight and it gives you more potential support for your heavier [literaly] weapons .
Use countersunk rivets ...everwhere. With a thin skin you can either dimple or use 120 degree countersinks .Labour intensive I know,but the extra speed is useful