Does the Hurricane catch fire?

[NZtyphoon]

Originally Posted by He111

Talking of catching fire, i always thought having your main tank inFRONT of the pilot gave it some protection from damage, where as the 109 had it behind the pilot, right in harms way. You hear stores of 109's just exploding when hit, i wonder if that is the reason ?

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The big problem with the tank in front of the cockpit on the Hurricane was that it, and the pilot, were almost completely unprotected -a single stray bullet, let alone several aimed ones, piercing the unprotected half-full tank meant that there was a good chance that the fuel would burn right through the instrument panel and flare into the pilot's face and chest "with blowtorch intensity" (Stephan Bungay): as soon as Dowding found out how many Hurricane pilots were being badly burned he demanded a layer of fire-resistant "Linatex", which was wrapped over the tank, and a proper fireproof bulkhead between the tank and the instrument panel - the former was done very quickly, the latter didn't happen until the Mk IIs emerged.