Hawker Typhoon
The Hawker Typhoon was a British single-seat fighter-bomber of the Second World War. Designed to succeed the Hurricane and built around the powerful Napier Sabre engine, it disappointed as a high-altitude interceptor but excelled at low level, first against tip-and-run raiders and then, armed with bombs and rockets, as the RAF's principal ground-attack aircraft in north-west Europe in 1944-45. Of 3,317 built, almost all by Gloster, only one complete example survives.
Why It Mattered
Hawker designed the Typhoon to succeed the Hurricane as the RAF's standard fighter. It disappointed in that role, but at low level its speed, heavy cannon armament and strength made it one of the most effective ground-attack aircraft of the war. From 1943 it worked over the battlefields of north-west Europe in close support of the Allied armies, and by the Normandy campaign it was central to how the RAF supported troops on the ground. Its reputation rests less on air combat than on that partnership with the army in 1944 and 1945.
Design Notes
The Typhoon was designed by Sydney Camm's team around the new Napier Sabre, a 24-cylinder engine meant to give a big, heavily built airframe the speed of a much lighter fighter. The specification asked for twelve machine guns; later production aircraft carried four 20 mm cannon instead. Development was troubled on two fronts: the Sabre was slow to mature, and a series of structural failures cost some aircraft their entire tail units before the rear fuselage was strengthened. Early aircraft also had poor upward visibility from a framed, car-door cockpit, replaced from late 1943 by a sliding bubble canopy. Most Typhoons were built not by Hawker but by Gloster.
Operational History
The Typhoon entered service in 1941 as the RAF's first 400 mph fighter, and its first real success came at low level, where it could catch the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter-bombers making tip-and-run raids on the south coast. From August 1942 it flew offensive sweeps over occupied Europe against airfields and transport. Bomb racks followed, and from October 1943 production aircraft carried eight RP-3 rockets under the wings, settling the type into the ground-attack role. By D-Day, twenty-six squadrons flew the Typhoon in the 2nd Tactical Air Force. Over Normandy it flew standing 'cab rank' patrols, called down by controllers with the army against targets in the troops' path. At Mortain in August 1944, Typhoons helped break up the German counter-attack; pilots claimed large numbers of tanks destroyed, though post-battle analysis verified far fewer, and the type's clearest effect there was on morale, with crews abandoning vehicles under attack. It served through the advance into Germany, including support for the Rhine crossing in March 1945.
Afterlife
The Typhoon's specialised work ended with the war in Europe, and it left operational service by October 1945; 3,317 had been built. Its intended successor, developed from it, entered service as the Hawker Tempest. Only one complete Typhoon is believed to survive: MN235, presented by the Smithsonian to the RAF Museum, where it is on display in London. No Typhoon flies today, but the Hawker Typhoon Preservation Group, founded in 2016, is rebuilding RB396 — a combat veteran brought back to the UK from the Netherlands in 2012 — with the aim of returning it to the air.