Quote:
Originally Posted by dflion
Thanks Sutts and Avimimus for clearing up my query, though I don't think the prop is right. I have attached some photo scans. One of the photos titled 'Scramble' on a French airfield clearly shows 2 prop types, on the others the prop is much more pointed.
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Just to make things really difficult, The Hurricane has 4 distinct propeller/spinners throughout its history.
- The first production Mk.I batches (early L-serials) has a Watts two-bladed, fixed propeller with a small and quite elegant pointed spinner. This is what the No 85 Squ Hurricane in the picture you posted has.
- LaterMk.I L-serials had a 3-bladed de Havilland constant-speed propeller. This required a somewhat bulkier spinner, though de Havilland tried to keep the lines by making it pointed. It is the type of spinner you will find on the Mk.I in IL2, which is correct for the pre-war export version we have in-game. Here's a Hurri with a de Haviland spinner:
- De Haviland could not deliver enough propellers, so most late Mk.I Hurricanes got Rotol propellers. These were really made for the Spitfire, and did not quite fit the somewhat slimmer Hurricane nose. This made the propeller squirt oil, so Hawker introduced an oil-collector ring behind the spinner. This was kept in later models, despite having spinners that fitted. In this picture, the closest plane has a Rotol propeller, the other de Havilands:
- The Mk.II Hurricanes had a slightly longer Merlin XX engine and an all new propeller. The spinner was noticeably longer than the earlier spinners, and semi-pointed. This is the spinner that the Mk.IIb and IIc Hurricanes in IL2 has:
All these variations could conceivably be found during the Battle of Britain (the Mk.II was introduced in autumn 1940), sometimes even in the same unit!
The Hurricane spinners shown in the development shots posted by Oleg and Luthier are all Rotol spinners, which would have been the most common spinner during the late summer/early autumn of 1940. I'd like to see a few de Haviland spinners too (simply as I find them more elegant), but the blunt Rotol spinners modelled in the screen-shots looks spot on to me.