Quote:
Originally Posted by FOZ_1983
If it wasnt great then they would of ceased production. It carried on until wars end, why? because it was a useful aircraft to have.
Operation torch, i guess you never met the hurricane MkII armed with four 20MM cannons and 500lb bomb? the hurri bomber as they were known, did a excellent job. During and following the five-day El Alamein artillery barrage that commenced on the night of 23 October 1942, six squadrons of Hurricanes claimed to have destroyed 39 tanks, 212 lorries and armoured troop-carriers, 26 bowsers, 42 guns, 200 various other vehicles and four small fuel and ammunition dumps, flying 842 sorties with the loss of 11 pilots. Whilst performing in a ground support role, Hurricanes based at RAF Castel Benito, Tripoli, knocked out six tanks, 13 armoured vehicles, ten lorries, five half-tracks, a gun and trailer, and a wireless van on 10 March 1943, with no losses to themselves.
only the rear fuselage was mostly fabric, you mention the down side but what about the good points? the armour plating behind the pilot to protect him?
Hurricane night intruder missions were extremly successful!! ever heard of Karel Kuttelwascher?? a czech pilot who flew night intruder missions in the hurricane over france.
Could the de havilland mosquito land and take off from a carrier? nope (though a model was designed for this but never mass produced due to wars end i believe). The mossie was superb, and was even a great dogfighter, but the hurricane was far more versatile, helped of course by its thick sturdy wings.
out dated at the start of the war?? hardly. It was obsolete as a fighter by 1941 but not out dated at all.
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Read everything the RAF had to say about it, then try and debate it. Considering that the RAF and the pilots that flew it said it was outdated at the start of the war, I am taking their word over yours, naturally. And it was cheap. They were able to crank them out at such a rapid pace that there was no way the Luftwaffe could win. But, that's the catch. The RAF had plenty of planes, it was pilots they were running out of. I gave you every piece of factual information on the planes I know from doing a doctoral thesis on the fall of the Luftwaffe, and research done before I went on to comment about the situation. The ONLY reason I won't continue to debate this, despite providing more than adequate information, is that as a veteran, after much though about this, for any of us to debate the planes this far is to do a great disservice to the men who flew them. An airplane is a collection of metal pieces (or burning fabric in the case of the Hurricane), that's all it is and will ever be. The British planes did not win the Battle of Britain, the pilots did. There are many real-life tales of British pilots that were shot down, then made it back to the airfield and flew another mission in the same day. The Spitfire was a great plane, no doubt about that, but you need to take a moment to stop and think about the men behind it and what they were facing. The fact that more P-40s ran ground-support in North Africa than Hurricanes is meaningless. Flying an airplane is a highly technical skill even without someone shooting at you. Otherwise, everybody would do it.
These men took and impossible situation and won by sheer willpower, the plane is totally irrelevant. There were quite a few battles on the Eastern Front where Russian pilots went up against the most modern air force in the world in planes that were more outdated than the Hurricane, yet they were able to win through sheer determination. I don't care if you're in a Me-262 with twin jet engines and 4 x 30mm cannons, 2 Russians in biplanes with enough determination will annihilate you, even if it's with their last breath. Simple point, it;s not the plane that makes the pilot, it's the pilot that makes the plane. A little research goes a long way.
09-01-2009, 05:55 PM
We should keep to Soviet Aircraft 
There are some interesting ones in Birds of Prey and I have this strange feeling they will all have cockpits
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