September 12th, 1942, 12,000 feet above the English Channel, Squadron leader Roland Beamont couldn’t hide his frustration as his hawker Typhoon wallowed through another climbing turn.
The massive Napier Saber engine roaring just feet ahead of his cockpit, but refusing to deliver the performance everyone had promised.
Through the oil smeared windscreen of this 7-tonon brute, he watched a fogy wolf 190 pull away effortlessly.
Climbing toward 20,000 ft where Bamont knew his typhoon would become little more than a truck with wings.
The thick wing that engineers had been so proud of that massive 19.5% thickness to cord ratio designed to house four 20mm cannons was now his prison.
At altitude, it created drag that made the aircraft handle like a bus.
The controls felt mushy.
The vibrations were so severe that pilots joked they could shake the fillings out of your teeth.
And that was before the tail started coming apart.
What Bmont didn’t know, what none of the RF brass could have imagined that morning was that this mocked and maligned aircraft, this flying failure that the Air Ministry wanted to cancel, would transform within 18 months into the most feared ground attack weapon in the Allied arsenal.
The typhoon that pilots called a dog as a fighter would become the tank killer that German panzer crews learned to dread.
The thick wings that made it clumsy at altitude would make it the most stable rocket platform ever built.
By D-Day 1944, 26 Typhoon squadrons would pound Hitler’s armies into submission, and German soldiers would dive for cover at the first sound of that distinctive Saber engine.
This is the story of the aircraft that found greatness by accident.
The transformation began not with victory, but with near cancellation.
In the late 1930s, Sydney Cam, the brilliant designer behind the Hurricane, started work on its replacement.
The Air Ministry wanted something revolutionary.
Specification F1837 called for a fighter capable of 400 mph at 15,000 ft, a ceiling of 35,000 ft, and enough firepower to obliterate bomber formations.
CAM’s response was the Hawker Type N powered by the new Napier Saber engine.
On paper, it looked magnificent.
In reality, it would nearly destroy both Hawker and Napier.
The Napier Saber was unlike any engine the world had seen.
While the famous Rolls-Royce Merlin used 12 cylinders arranged in a V, the Saber used 24 cylinders in an H block configuration.
Two banks of horizontally opposed cylinders, one at top the other, all connected to twin crankshafts geared to a single propeller shaft.
The displacement was enormous, 37 L, and it used revolutionary sleeve valves instead of conventional puppet valves.
These sleeves, metal cylinders that slid up and down between the piston and cylinder wall, promised better volutric efficiency and higher compression ratios than any piston engine in existence.
When it worked, the Saber produced 2,200 horsepower from its first production versions in 1940.
Later marks would reach 2,400 horsepower and experimental versions pushed past 3500 horsepower.
But making it work reliably was a nightmare.
The sleeve valves required manufacturing precision measured in 10,000 of an inch.
Early production sleeves were slightly out of round, causing them to seize at high temperatures.
Engines would catch fire on startup.
Others would run for barely 10 hours before requiring complete overhauls that took skilled mechanics days to complete.
Every 40 hours of flight demanded over 1,000 individual adjustments.
The first Typhoon prototype flew on February 24th, 1940 with Hawker’s chief test pilot, Philip Lucas, at the controls.
Lucas was a careful man, methodical, and experienced.
What he discovered that day would haunt the program for years.
The aircraft was fast at low altitude.
Yes, capable of 410 mph at 20,000 ft.
But above that altitude, performance fell off a cliff.
The thick wing, that beautiful structure that housed all four cannons internally, created massive drag as the aircraft approached 500 mph in a dive.
When Lucas pushed the Typhoon to its limits, the air flow over those thick wings approached the speed of sound locally, creating shock waves that made the aircraft buffeted violently.
The trim changed unpredictably.
The controls locked up.
It was the first British aircraft to encounter compressibility problems.
Then, during a test flight, Lucas felt something crack behind him.
Through a gap that opened in the fuselage, he could see daylight.
The rear fuselage was separating from the front.
With extraordinary courage, Lucas nursed the crippled Typhoon back to the airfield and landed it safely.
For this act, he received the George Medal.
But the incident revealed a fundamental structural weakness.
By mid 1941, the Typhoon was entering squadron service with all its problems intact.
Pilots were dying and not from enemy action.
The Saber engine seized in flight, causing crashes.
The rear fuselage separated from several aircraft at high speed, killing the pilots instantly.
Carbon monoxide from the engine leaked into the cockpit, forcing pilots to fly with oxygen masks from engine start to shut down.
Even on the ground, the cockpit was noisy.
The visibility was poor through the original car doorstyle canopy, and the aircraft mistakenly resembled the Faky Wolf 190 from certain angles, leading to several typhoons being shot down by friendly fire.
Squadron leader Roland Biamont, commanding officer of 609 Squadron, found himself flying an aircraft the raft brass wanted to scrap.
In early 1942, with losses mounting and performance disappointing, the Air Ministry seriously considered cancelling the entire program.
What saved the typhoon was desperation and one critical capability.
In 1941, the Luftvafa introduced the Faka Wolf 190 and it was devastating.
At low altitude below 15,000 ft, the FD190 could outmaneuver and outrun the Spitfire Mark 5.
German pilots used the 190 for fast, low-level hit-and-run raids against British coastal targets, the so-called tip and run attacks.
They would come in low, strafe, or bomb, and race back across the channel before British fighters could intercept them.
But the Typhoon, for all its faults at altitude, was blindingly fast at sea level.
With its 2,200 horsepower saber roaring, the Typhoon could reach 417 mph in level flight at low altitude.
Bemont led his squadron in pursuit of these raiders.
And suddenly, the Typhoon had a role.
Uh, at 5,000 ft below 10,000 ft, the Typhoon could catch the FW 190.
In July 1942 at Farnboro, a speed trial pitted a Typhoon against a captured FWB-190 and a Spitfire Mark12.
The Typhoon won decisively at low altitude.
Bemont challenged the commander of 91 Squadron’s Spitfire 12s to a race and his Typhoon left them far behind.
But Cam and his team at Hawker knew the truth.
The Typhoon would never be the high altitude interceptor they had designed.
The thick wings 19.5% thickness to cord ratio at the root compared to the Spitfire’s 13.
2% created too much drag.
The neck 22 series air foil was fine at 400 mph but terrible at 500.
When Cam examined Typhoons that had experienced compressibility, he saw the problem immediately.
As the aircraft dove, local air flow over the wings upper surface approached Mach 1, creating shock waves that destroyed lift and created horrific buffeting.
His solution became the Tempest, essentially a typhoon with a new, much thinner wing.
But that would take time.
The Typhoon was here now, and it needed a new mission.
In late 1942, that mission found it.
Ground attack.
The modification was straightforward.
Engineers added hard points under the wings to carry bombs.
Initially, two 250lb or 500lb bombs.
Later, two 1,000lb bombs.
Typhoons began offensive sweeps over occupied France, attacking trains, bridges, radar stations, and shipping.
Pilots discovered something remarkable.
That thick wing that made the Typhoon terrible at high altitude made it extraordinarily stable at low altitude.
The Typhoon could dive almost vertically, release its bombs with precision, and pull out without the violent shaking that plagued other dive bombers.
Then came the RP3 rocket.
In June 1943, Hawker fitted a Typhoon with eight rocket rails, four under each wing.
The RP3 rocket projectile 3-in carried a 60lb warhead, the same explosive power as a naval 6-in shell.
Trials at the aeroplane and armament experimental establishment showed the combination was devastating.
The stable platform of the Typhoon combined with the concentrated firepower of eight rockets plus four 20mm cannons created a weapon that could destroy any target on the battlefield.
The rockets reduced top speed by 38 mph, but handling remained good.
By D-Day, the RAF’s second tactical air force could field 11 rocket equipped Typhoon squadrons nicknamed Rockoons and seven bomb equipped squadrons nicknamed Bomboons.
Together, they would transform the ground war.
June 6th, 1944, D-Day.
26 Typhoon squadrons were operational, the largest singlet type force in fighter command.
In the weeks before the invasion, typhoons destroyed German radar stations along the Normandy coast, including the crucial station at Joberg that covered the invasion beaches.
On D-Day itself, Typhoons flew continuous cabank patrols circling above the battlefield, waiting for Ford air controllers on the ground to call them down on targets.
The cab rank system was brilliantly simple.
Typhoons would orbit at 8,000 to 10,000 feet.
When ground forces encountered resistance, a German tank, a machine gun nest, a fortified building, the controller would mark the target with colored smoke and call down the typhoons.
Within minutes, eight rockets would streak toward the target, each with enough explosive to penetrate armor or collapse buildings.
Then came the four 20mm Hispano cannons, each firing 600 rounds per minute, creating a hail of explosive shells that shredded anything they touched.
Flight Lieutenant Jack Hilton of 438 438 Squadron, one of many Canadian pilots flying Typhoons, described the experience.
We flew low-level 100 to 200 feet off the ground, attacking tanks, convoys, trains.
The Typhoon did the job.
The RP3 rockets with 60 lb warheads could blow a tank apart.
Flying that low, sometimes the spray from the channel would hit the windscreen.
Imagine the pressure taking off and landing multiple times a day.
My log book showed 28 operations in 30 days.
Flight Lieutenant Harry Hardy of 440 Squadron added perspective.
The Typhoon was a good aircraft, but a real tank of a plane to fly because it was very heavy.
It was supposed to replace the Hurricane as a mid to high altitude interceptor, but it didn’t fill that role.
Its performance fell off quickly above 20,000 ft, and the Napier Saber engine continued to prove unreliable.
Our job was to go low-level, armed with four 20mm cannons and either two 1,000lb bombs or rockets.
A devastating package.
The Typhoon was wellarmored and could take a lot of punishment.
I went through four typhoons.
Had any been a Spitfire, I would have been dead.
The Battle of the File’s Pocket in August 1944 became the Typhoon’s defining moment.
As Allied forces surrounded retreating German armies in a shrinking pocket near the French town of Filets, Typhoons hammered them without mercy.
Wing Commander Desmond Scott of 46 Squadron gave a vivid report.
The road was crammed with enemy vehicles, tanks, trucks, halftracks, even horsedrawn wagons and ambulances, nose totail, all in a frantic bid to reach cover.
As I sped to the head of this mileong column, hundreds of German troops began spilling out into the road to sprint for the open fields and hedge.
There was no escape.
Typhoons were already attacking in deadly swoops at the other end of the column.
And within seconds, the whole stre whole stretch of road was bursting and blazing under streams of rocket and cannon fire.
Ammunition wagons exploded like multicolored volcanoes.
Flight Lieutenant H.
Ambrose of 175 Squadron was more blunt.
Uh, some of the German army did escape, of course, but the typhoons made mincemeat of the German army at fillets.
They just blocked roads, stopped them moving, and just clobbered them.
You could smell filelets from 6,000 ft in the cockpit.
The decomposing corpses of horses and flesh, burning flesh.
The carnage was terrible.
Filelets was the first heyday of the typhoon.
During the 10 days of the Filelet’s battle, the second tactical air force flew an average of 1,200 attacks per day.
Typhoon pilots claimed hundreds of tanks destroyed.
Post battle analysis revealed the truth was more complex.
While Typhoon rockets could destroy tanks, the accuracy was far lower than pilots believed in the heat of combat.
British Operational Research Section 2 analysts found that only 10 out of 456 knocked out German tanks in the area were definitively attributable to Typhoon rockets.
At Morta, pilots claimed 252 tanks destroyed.
Only 46 tanks were actually lost, of which nine were confirmed destroyed by typhoons.
But these numbers missed the larger truth.
The psychological impact of typhoon attacks was devastating.
German troops learned to recognize the sound of the Napier Saber, that distinctive roar of 24 cylinders at full power.
When they heard it, they abandoned their vehicles and ran.
Columns froze, supply lines broke, commanders lost control of their units.
The Typhoon’s mere presence paralyzed German movement in daylight.
Moreover, while rockets might not have destroyed tanks as effectively as pilots believed, they were extraordinarily effective against soft-skinned vehicles, buildings, and infantry positions.
The 60 lb warhead of an RP3 created a blast that could overturn trucks, destroy buildings, and kill anyone within 50 ft of the impact.
And the four 20 millimeter cannons were deadly against anything unarmored.
Each cannon fired explosive shells that could penetrate light armor, destroy engines, and shred human bodies with terrible efficiency.
Squadron leader Johnny Baldwin, the highest scoring Typhoon Ace with 16 confirmed aerial victories, described the aircraft’s dual nature.
Against fighters, you had to be careful.
The Typhoon was heavy and not particularly maneuverable, but at low altitude with speed, it was deadly.
And against ground targets, nothing else came close.
When we attacked with rockets and cannons together, the destruction was unbelievable.
The technical evolution of the Typhoon continued throughout the war.
The troublesome rear fuselage was finally fixed with strengthened fish plates, riveted metal reinforcements that prevented the structure from separating.
The original car door canopy was replaced with a bubble canopy that gave much better visibility.
The Saber engine, after years of development and the intervention of English Electric Company engineers, who focused on production quality rather than performance upgrades, finally became reliable.
By 1944, the Saber Mark 5 was delivering 2,400 horsepower consistently.
Ground crews learned to maintain the complex engine, though it remained demanding.
The sleeve valve still required careful attention, but experienced mechanics could now keep typhoons flying with high availability rates.
During the Normandy campaign, ground crews performed miracles, using scrap metal to patch holes, working through the night to get damaged aircraft back into the air.
The Typhoon’s thick wing, the feature that had nearly doomed it as a fighter, proved perfect for ground attack.
At low altitude, below 5,000 ft, where compressibility wasn’t an issue, that thick wing created tremendous lift.
The Typhoon could carry heavy loads, two 1,000lb bombs, or eight rockets plus a full load of cannon ammunition, and still maneuver effectively.
The wings thickness also provided structural strength.
Typhoons regularly returned to base with battle damage that would have destroyed thinner winged aircraft.
The Napier Saber engine, despite its complexity and early unreliability, gave the Typhoon unmatched lowaltitude performance.
At sea level, with 2200 horsepower, driving a four-bladed propeller, the Typhoon could accelerate like a rocket.
This gave pilots the crucial ability to dive on a target, attack, and then use raw power to climb back to safety before ground fire could catch them.
The Saber’s poor high altitude performance caused by inadequate supercharging didn’t matter for ground attack.
Below 10,000 ft, it was the most powerful fighter engine in the world.
By war’s end, typhoons had destroyed thousands of ground targets.
They specialized in what pilots called train busting, attacking locomotives and rolling stock across occupied Europe.
Typhoons destroyed an estimated 150 locomotives per month during 1943.
They attacked V1 and V2 sites, radar stations, bridges, headquarters buildings, and fortified positions.
They escorted bombers, protected convoys, and hunted German fighters at low altitude.
The aircraft that pilots had called a dog as a fighter had proven itself deadly as a ground attack weapon.
The thick wings that created drag at altitude created stability at low level.
The heavy weight that made it unmaneuverable in dog fights made it a stable gun platform.
The powerful engine that couldn’t deliver performance at 30,000 ft made it the fastest fighter at sea level.
Every weakness as a fighter became a strength for ground attack.
Sydney Cam recognized this early and developed the Tempest, fixing the Typhoon’s high altitude problems with a thin laminer flow wing.
The Tempest entered service in 1944 and proved to be one of the finest fighters of the war.
Fast at all altitudes, maneuverable and capable.
But the Tempest’s success shouldn’t diminish the Typhoon’s achievement.
The Typhoon found its calling through accident and necessity.
It became great not by doing what it was designed for, but by doing what the war demanded.
Production totaled 3,317 Typhoons, almost all built by Gloucester aircraft.
They equipped 26 squadrons at peak strength.
During the Normandy campaign alone, 151 Typhoon pilots were killed, including 51 Canadians.
The casualty rate for ground attack pilots was horrific.
Flying at 200 feet at 300 mph, attacking heavily defended targets, pilots had no margin for error.
Ground fire, flack, small arms, even rifles could bring down a typhoon at such low altitude.
But the pilots kept flying because the typhoon worked.
It destroyed targets.
It supported ground troops.
It saved lives by breaking up German counterattacks before they could reach Allied lines.
The soldiers on the ground loved the typhoon.
They called it the tiffy with affection, knowing that when they were in trouble, when German tanks appeared or machine guns pinned them down, they could call for typhoons and help would arrive within minutes.
In Holland, France, and Belgium, the Typhoon remains remembered and respected.
Monuments honor the pilots who flew them.
The Dutch presented high decorations to typhoon pilots like Johnny Baldwin.
French civilians who lived through the liberation remember the distinctive sound of the saber engine.
Remember watching typhoons attack German positions that had oppressed them for years.
After the war, the typhoon disappeared quickly.
By October 1945, it was withdrawn from operational service.
Jets were arriving and there was no place for complex, highmaintenance piston fighters.
Most typhoons were scrapped.
Today, only one complete typhoon survives.
Serial number MN235, preserved at the RF Museum in Henden.
A restoration project is underway to return Typhoon RB396 to flying condition, funded by families of pilots who flew them and aviation enthusiasts who recognize the type significance.
Roland Beam, the pilot who helped save the typhoon from cancellation, who proved its worth in combat, went on to become one of Britain’s greatest test pilots.
He flew the first jet bombers, the Canberra.
He flew the Lightning Supersonic fighter.
He flew the TSR2 before that program was cancelled.
He became the director of flight operations for the Tornado program.
But he always spoke with special affection about the Typhoon, the aircraft that taught him ground attack, the aircraft he fought to keep in service when others wanted it scrapped.
In his memoir, Fighter Test Pilot, Biamont reflected on the Typhoon’s journey.
It was the wrong aircraft for its intended role.
The thick wing, the troublesome engine, the structural problems, all should have doomed it.
But war doesn’t care about design intentions.
War demands results.
And the typhoon delivered results where they mattered.
At low altitude against ground targets, it was without equal.
And that’s what the war needed in 1944.
Not another high altitude interceptor, but a weapon that could reach down and destroy German tanks and troops.
The story of the Hawker Typhoon is the story of redemption through adaptation.
It’s the story of engineers, pilots, and ground crews who refuse to accept failure.
It’s the story of an aircraft that succeeded by abandoning its original mission and embracing a role it was never designed for.
The dog of a fighter became the king of ground attack, and in doing so, it helped win the war.
Thank you for watching.
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