Talk:Hawker Typhoon

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[edit] bubble canopy?

I came to the Hawker Typhoon page by following a link from the P-51 Mustang page. I was interested there to learn that the Mustang had corrected a major problem by taking its "teardrop-shaped bubble canopies derived from the British Hawker Typhoon". However, the Typhoon page has a picture which does not at all show the canopy, and the article barely mentions the canopy, so I was left wondering about its origins, whether it was innovative or crucial, etc. Since the Mustang had such a storied career and because it outlived WWII, the Typhoon page could perhaps provide more of this story? if anybody knows it... ok, now I see more discussion of this in the P-47 Thunderbolt article, and it mentions that the Hawker Tempest also included this canopy. [[217.132.5.41]]

This type of canopy is better shown on the Hawker Tempest page as the picture here does not show the bubble canopy in any detail - the bubble canopies on the later Typhoon and on the Tempest were identical.
The poor rearward view that most fighters possessed at the beginning of World War II was caused by an attempt at better streamlining on the designers part and due to a misconception, (in the RAF's case at least, but it also applied to most other air forces), that fighter aircraft were now so fast that dog fighting had become obsolete, and that aircraft would simply make high-speed attacking passes at each other, the pilots only needing to see straight-ahead and to the sides. This fallacy was disproved for the RAF during the Battle of Britain when it was discovered that a number of its pilots who had been shot down had been hit from behind and had not even been aware that they were being attacked until they were hit - presumably this also applied to Luftwaffe pilots, however, being over 'enemy' territory, fewer returned to complain about it.
It was therefore concluded by the RAF that a good rearward view was still essential and the first aircraft with a proper all-round vision canopy (i.e. a moulded bubble one that slid backwards, sometimes also known as a 'teardrop' canopy) was actually the Miles M.20, designed at around this time (1940) - the Focke-Wulf 190 had a similar 'clear view' canopy design but it wasn't a true 'bubble' canopy as-such, having flat side panels, at least initially.
This bubble design of canopy came after the Typhoon and Tornado - which were basically the same aircraft but using different engines - were designed and so the early examples of these aircraft had canopies designed to the earlier, 'straight ahead', philosophy (these are sometimes referred-to as 'car-door' type canopies - the P-39 Airacobra and later P-63 Kingcobra had similar ones, in which entry is through a door hinged at the front in a similar manner to those on a car). This lack of rearward vision also applied to the P-47 Thunderbolt and the P-51 Mustang which were both designed at around the same time as the Miles M.20, i.e., 1940, but without the benefit of experience gained during the Battle of Britain, so they were designed to the earlier 'straight ahead' concept.
As a result of these conclusions as soon as it was practicable the Typhoon was given a new bubble canopy based on the one introduced in the M.20 (which possibly would not have been widely known in the US as it did not enter production) and it was the Typhoon's new canopy that attracted the attention of the US designers and which was adopted for their designs.
A canopy of this type was also designed for the Spitfire, however due to pressures on production (i.e., the down-time for re-tooling for the new, cut-down, rear fuselage being unacceptable) the introduction for the Spitfire was severely delayed. The Tempest was designed from the start with the new canopy, (however the prototype was a modified Typhoon and had the earlier car-door type!), as was the subsequent Fury and Sea Fury. Ian Dunster 10:27, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
The first bubble canopies appeared in response to the 1937 United States Army Air Corps Circular Proposal X-608 request for a high-altitude interceptor aircraft having "the tactical mission of interception and attack of hostile aircraft at high altitude". The Bell P-39 Airacobra and the Lockheed P-38 Lightning were designed to this requirement. Both designs featured bubble canopies but delays in the Lockheed experimental program allowed Bell to fly their prototype first April 6, 1938. Binksternet (talk) 11:42, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
There's an official USAAF 1943 test report for the Hawker Tempest here which contrasts its 'bubble' (or "bulb" 'canopy' with the P-39 Airacobra's 'side door plus a hinged overhead section': (Section B - 'Factual Data', Para 3 'Flight Characteristics' - Sub-section a - 'Cockpit Layout'): U.S report on Tempest V Ian Dunster (talk) 21:12, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fine Arts Collectors Club

A web site called "The Fine Arts Collectors Club" has a web site with text very similar to that on the Wikipedia Hawker Typhoon article Hawker Typhoon print the page does not credit Wikipedia but checking the history of this article shows that the Wikipedia article has a history previous to the text which appears on the FSCC website, so they ought to provide copyleft ("a direct link back to the article satisfies our author credit requirement"), it is not a Wikipedia copyright violation. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:04, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:MILHIST Assessment

Much much longer than many of its sister articles on other aircraft. Great work. LordAmeth 08:43, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hard to find credible images

For an aircraft as well known as the Hawker Typhoon, it's hard to find any good images of this aircraft. -Signaleer 08:28, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you, and i'm a great fan of the Typhoon, but there's a lot of Typhoon images on Wikipedia Commons. Eisenhower 21:21, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Listing of serial numbers

This is an exhaustive list but goes against the norm for aircraft/aviation articles. Wikipedia is not intended to be a listing source and if you check any other article, there is no attempt to identify every aircraft built. I would recommend that this section and the Tempest article's similar section be placed in a sub-article. FWIW Bzuk (talk) 08:09, 17 November 2007 (UTC).

Ditto my comments on the Tempest page. I do note that there's no mention against listing serial numbers, although I'm still looking. I can understand the objections to listing, for example Spitfire serial numbers, which would take up an entire page. Do others find this information in a Wikipedia article useful/interesting? Minorhistorian (talk) 00:25, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
It's not that the information is not useful or of value, it's that Wikipedia is not intended to be a listing of all information related to a topic. As you can appreciate, it would be difficult to provide a comprehensive serial number record for many aircraft types due to their large production totals. If you check any of the more "popular" Wiki aircraft articles such as the Hawker Hurricane, F-4 Phantom II, Boeing 747 and Mitsubishi Zero, you will note that there is an encyclopedic style that is followed but no attempt to completely document every aspect of the aircraft's history. For now, there is no reason to exclude or change the information presented, but bear in mind, another editor may have a different interpretation and remove the data or establish a sub-article. FWIW, read your talk page, I have left you a note there. Bzuk (talk) 01:46, 18 November 2007 (UTC).