The Hawker Tempest was designed by Sydney Camm from the Hawker Typhoon to fix the disappointing issues realised with the earlier fighter. There were relatively few changes, but the result was a new, more powerful aircraft capable of more than the Typhoon. The main issue was the thick wing which produced too much drag with increased speed in the Typhoon. The wing was redesigned to be 5 inches thinner at the root and a more elliptical shape making the aircraft faster. However, the thinner wing meant little room for fuel tanks, so it had to be fitted with an internal fuel tank in the fuselage, pushing the engine forward, elongating the fuselage and increasing the elevator and rudder surfaces in the tail. The undercarriage was also rebuilt therefore making it a totally different aircraft. Hence the renaming to Tempest, following Hawker’s theme of naming fighters after winds.
The Hawker Tempest is a low cantilever wing monoplane single engine single-seat fighter-bomber. It had a teardrop canopy and was powered initially by the Napier Sabre Mk.IV engine. After a series of prototypes using different engines, it was decided that production would commence with the Sabre II engine. This culminated in a production line being established to mass produce the Tempest Mk.V at Hawkers Langley plant. The first rolled off the line on 21st June 1943 and was introduced in January 1944.
It was armed with four Hispano cannon, two in each wing, and could carry 2 x underwing 500lb bombs or eight RP-3 rockets on underwing racks. It was powered by the Napier Sabre Mk.II engine pushing a four blade 4.2m propeller. It was similar to the Typhoon in appearance with the chin radiator but proved to be much better performance wise, especially on ground attack missions or low-level interception. 1,702 were produced in total of all variants. The first 100 Tempest F Mk.V’s (F denoting Fighter) were fitted with Mk.II Hispano cannon protruding from the wing, but subsequent Tempest F Mk.V’s had the shorter Mk.IV cannon which were flush with the wing edge, named the Series 2 with 701 being built. There was an F Mk.VI with the more powerful Napier Sabre 5 giving 2,340hp but was identical to the Mk.V with 142 being built. The Tempest II was the other main production aircraft. We’ll cover that in a later close-up.
Tempests were the star of RAF Fighter Command during the last two years of the war. They were operationally successful in many aspects of air combat being able to match the new German jet fighters late in the conflict, mainly the Messerschmidt 262, although the ‘Rat Scramble’, shooting them down when they were landing, approach worked initially the Germans responded by installing 150 anti-aircraft guns around the Me262 base. In one raid nine Tempests were lost, therefore, ground attacks were prohibited. Generally, the air combat success ratio was 8:1 scoring 239 victories and with over 40 V-1’s destroyed.
The Tempest was an exceptional aircraft and was retained for service after the war until its retirement in 1949. There are two surviving aircraft, one in America under restoration, and one in the UK, JN768 owned by the Hawker Typhoon Preservation Group.
