UK Defence Forum

arfah wrote:
Restoration will also include a Rolls Royce Napier engine.

I’m curious about this Rolls-Royce Napier engine

I’m not sure D. Napier & Sons would like their Sabre engine being associated with their principal commercial rivals!

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arfah wrote:If they are successful, it will be the only airworthy example... in the world.

The Typhoon, wonderful as it was, presented its pilots with so many ways to kill themselves that I'm not sure having an airworthy example is such a great idea.

One of the "big five" of the RAF's aircraft during the war, and the only one that still needs to be flying again.

Absolutely delighted to see this do its thing. Get a shot alongside the Spitfire, Hurricane, Lancaster and Mosquito for certain.

RetroSicotte wrote:One of the "big five" of the RAF's aircraft during the war

Other than for Stuka "tank killers" and Hurricanes with 30 mm cannons under the wing (plus Mosquitos with something bigger "in the nose" to kill ships), they did not know what TACAIR was before then
- well... the term came later; CAS being a different beast

40mm on the Hurricane IID and the gun used on one squadron of Mosquitoes was the 57mm Molins. The Typhoon was a great CAS platform and actually was one of the fastest and most agile single engine platforms at low level though having an inline engine was a big disadvantage. As a tank killer the 60lB rockets were effective if they hit but very few actually did. They were most accurate in a steep dive but the pilots preferred to attack in a shallow dive at low level. But the affect if multiple aircraft, each firing the equivalent of the broadside form a 6" Cruiser on lightly armoured and soft skinned vehicles was devastating, let lone the soldiers on the receiving end. I would be great to see one flying again.

There's no replacement for displacement... sing along!

"by June 1940, when the Sabre passed the Air Ministry's 100-hour test, the first production versions were delivering 2,200 hp (1,640 kW) from their 2,238 cubic inch (37 litre) displacements.[2] [...] The contemporary 1940 Rolls-Royce Merlin II was generating just over 1,000 hp (750 kW) from a 1,647 cubic inch (27 litre) displacement. " wiki says

Yes it ended up a great engine down low but crap up top.