Tempest max speed

[Zorin]

Pierre Clostermann (Free French) wrote of the Tempest:

Nothing was left undone to give the Tempest a maximum performance at medium and low altitudes. Special auxiliary tanks were designed even, with perspex connecting pipes, to fit under the wings. Quite extraordinary attention was paid to the rivetting, the joints and the surface polish. The result was a superb combat machine.

It had a thoroughbred look and, in spite of the big radiator which gave it an angry and wilful appearance, it was astonishingly slender. It was very heavy, all of seven tons. Thanks to its 2,400 h.p. engine it had a considerable margin of excess power and its acceleration was phenomenal. It was pretty tricky to fly, but its performance more than made up for it: at 3,000 feet, at economical cruising on one third power (950 h.p.) with two 45-gallon auxiliary tanks, 310 m.p.h. on the clock, i.e. a true air speed of 320 m.p.h.; at fast cruising speed, at half power (1,425 h.p.) without auxiliary tanks, 350 m.p.h. on the clock, i.e. a true air speed of nearly 400 m.p.h.; Maximum speed straight and level with + 13 boost and 3,850 revs.: 430 m.p.h. on the clock, i.e. a true airspeed of 440 m.p.h.

In emergencies you could over-boost it up to nearly 3,000 h.p. and 4,000 revs., and the speed went up to 460 m.p.h. In a dive the Tempest was the only aircraft to reach, without interfering with its handling qualities to any marked extent, subsonic speeds, i.e. 550-600 m.p.h.

Tempest V. Messerschmitts: I kept on reminding my pilots to keep their speed above 300 m.p.h., for "109's" could turn better than we could at low speed, and you had to watch out for the 30 mm. cannon in their propeller - it didn't give you a second chance. The best technique was to do a spiral dive, work up to a speed of 450 m.p.h., do a straight climb and then start all over again. The "109's" on the other hand, knowing that we dived faster than they did, tried to get us up to 16,000 feet, where our Tempests were heavy and our engines sluggish.

Our Tempest:

Second production batch of 300 aircraft built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd, Langley, Buckinghamshire. EJ504, EJ518-EJ560, EJ577-EJ611, EJ626-EJ672, EJ685-EJ723, EJ739-EJ788, EJ800-EJ846, EJ859-EJ896. Series 2 aircraft, Sabre IIA engines, short-barrel cannon, spring tab ailerons. Deliveries commenced 5-44, completed 9-44; average rate of production approximately 18 aircraft per week.