Hawker Tempest Mk V
Type: British fighter bomber.
History: The Hawker Typhoon was noted for its thick wing - occasional
erratic flight behaviour at high speeds was traced to compressibility (local airflow exceeding the speed of sound), which had never before been encountered. In 1940 Hawker schemed a new laminar-flow wing with a root thickness five inches less and an elliptic planform rather like a Supermarine Spitfire. This was used on the Typhoon II, ordered in November 1941 to Specification
F.10/41, but there were so many changes the fighter was renamed Hawker Tempest.
Test-flying of a production Hawker Tempest Mk V from the Hawker factory at Langley in 1944.
Fuel had to be moved from the thinner wing to the fuselage, making the latter longer, and a dorsal fin was added. The short-barrel Mk V guns were buried in the wing. Though the new airframe could take the promising Centaurus engine it was the Sabre-engined Hawker Tempest Mk V that was produced first, reaching the Newchurch Wing in time to destroy 638 out of the RAF's total
of 1,771 flying bombs shot down in the summer of 1944.
A fine color air to air picture from a Hawker Tempest Mk VI.
After building
800 Mk Vs Hawker turned out 142 of the more powerful Hawker Tempest Mk VI type with
bigger radiator and oil coolers in the leading edge. After much delay, with production assigned first to Gloster and then to Bristol, the Centauruspowered Mk II - much quieter and nicer to fly - entered service in November
1945, and thus missed the war. A few Mks 5 and 6 (post-war designations)
were converted as target tugs.
|
Hawker Tempest Mk V |
| Type |
fighter bomber |
| Power plant |
1 x 2,180 hp Napier Sabre II 24-cylinder flat-H sleeve-valve liquid cooled engine
|
| Accommodation |
1 |
| Wing span |
41 ft |
| Length overall |
33 ft 8 in |
| Height overall |
16 ft 1 in |
| Weight empty |
9,100 lb |
| Weight loaded |
13,500 lb |
| Maximum speed |
427 mph |
| Initial climb |
3,000 ft / min. |
| Service ceiling |
37,000 ft |
| Range |
740 miles |
| Armament |
Four 20 mm Hispano guns in outer wings |
| underwing racks for eight rockets or up to 2,000 lb bombs
|
| First flight |
2 September 1942 |
| Production delivery |
21 June 1943 |
| Total production figure |
800 |
3d model Hawker Tempest Mk V
|
