Which aircraft won the Battle of England? Detailed answer

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Which aircraft won the Battle of England? Detailed answer

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Which aircraft won the Battle of England?

"Hawker Hurricane".

The Spitfire certainly had a more advanced design, was faster, easier to control and could fight at altitudes up to 9000 meters. And yet archival documents make it clear that it was the Hurricanes who took the heaviest blow during the Battle of England.

Well, for starters, there were more. In 1940, the ratio between Hurricanes and Spitfire squadrons was three to two. 1715 Hurricanes participated in the battle - more than all other aircraft of the RAF combined.

Secondly, they shot down more enemy planes. In his comprehensive military history study entitled The Battle of Britain (1969), Francis K. Mason notes that in 11 officially recorded air battles, 400% of all enemy aircraft shot down were on account of the Hurricanes and 55% were accounted for " Spitfires."

In general, the Hurricanes specialized in bomber attacks, while the main target of the Spitfires were fighters. However, Sergeant Josef Frantisek (Czech by nationality), the RAF pilot who shot down the most enemy aircraft during the battle, flew exclusively on Hurricanes and nevertheless managed to shoot down nine Messerschmitt Me-109s - the fastest and best armed fighters Luftwaffe. In total, Frantisek accounted for seventeen enemy aircraft in that battle.

The first Hawker Hurricane took to the skies in 1935. In fact, it was a monoplane based on the Fury biplane, one of the most reliable biplane models created for the Hawker company by aircraft designer Sydney Camm during the period between the two world wars. "Hurricane" was produced from 1937 to 1944 and had a steel fuselage frame with linen covering. The Spitfires were all metal.

The production of "Hurricanes" was inexpensive, repairs did not require special expenses. And since the lining was linen, the bullets simply pierced it through and through. There were cases when the Hurricane returned to base with a practically "naked" wing.

The Hurricane went into a combat turn faster, the Spitfire was much better at damping the vibration from eight machine guns, and, since its cockpit was more spacious, the pilots were able to bundle up warmer. The cabins were not heated in either aircraft.

The Spitfires broke ground in September 1939 when they accidentally shot down several of their own Hurricanes.

In total, the Royal Air Force lost 1173 aircraft and 510 pilots and gunners in the Battle of England, including 538 Hurricanes and 342 Spitfires. The Luftwaffe lost 1733 aircraft, 3368 German pilots died or were captured.

Author: John Lloyd, John Mitchinson

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

What is absolute zero temperature?

Absolute zero temperature - the beginning of the absolute temperature reading on the thermodynamic temperature scale (Kelvin scale).

Absolute zero is located 273,16 degrees Celsius below the triple point temperature of water, which is assumed to be 0,01 degrees Celsius. As the temperature of the system tends to absolute zero, its entropy, heat capacity, thermal expansion coefficient also tend to zero, and the chaotic motion of the particles that make up the system stops.

The absolute zero of temperature is fundamentally unattainable, and obtaining temperatures approaching it as close as possible is a complex experimental problem, but temperatures have already been obtained that are only millionths of a degree away from absolute zero.

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