Here are some images of Airfix's 1/24 scale Hawker Typhoon Mk.1B "Car Door'. With many of its panels removed.
From Wikipedia"
The Hawker Typhoon (Tiffy in RAF slang), was a British single-seat fighter-bomber, produced by Hawker Aircraft. It was intended to be a medium–high altitude interceptor, as a replacement for the Hawker Hurricane but several design problems were encountered and it never completely satisfied this requirement.
The Typhoon was originally designed to mount twelve .303 inch (7.7 mm) Browning machine guns
and be powered by the latest 2000 hp engines. Its service introduction
in mid-1941 was plagued with problems and for several months the
aircraft faced a doubtful future. When the Luftwaffe brought the formidable Focke-Wulf Fw 190
into service in 1941, the Typhoon was the only RAF fighter capable of
catching it at low altitudes; as a result it secured a new role as a
low-altitude interceptor.
Through the support of pilots such as Roland Beamont it became established in roles such as night-time intruder and long-range fighter. From late 1942 the Typhoon was equipped with bombs and from late 1943 RP-3 ground attack rockets were added to its armoury. With those weapons and its four 20mm Hispano cannon, the Typhoon became one of the Second World War's most successful ground-attack aircraft.
The Typhoon was first produced with forward-opening "car door" style
cockpit doors (complete with wind-down windows), with a transparent
"roof" hinged to open to the left. The first 162 Typhoons featured a
built-up metal-skinned dorsal fairing behind the pilot's armoured
headrest; the mast for the radio aerial protruded through the fairing.
From mid- to late 1941 the solid metal aft dorsal fairing was replaced
with a transparent structure (later nicknamed "The Coffin Hood"),
the pilot's head armour plate was modified to a triangular shape and
the side cut-outs were fitted with armoured glass; the first production
Typhoon to be fitted with this new structure was R7803. All
earlier aircraft were quickly withdrawn and modified. From early 1942 a
rear-view mirror was mounted in a perspex blister moulded into the later
"car-door" canopy roofs. This modification was not very successful,
because the mirror was subject to vibration.
Despite the new canopy structure, the pilot's visibility was still
restricted by the heavy frames and the clutter of equipment under the
rear canopy; from August 1943, as an interim measure, pending the
introduction of the new "bubble" canopy
and cut-down dorsal fairing, the aerial mast and its associated bracing
was removed and replaced with a whip aerial further back on the rear
fuselage.
Starting in January 1943, R8809 was used to test a new, clear,
one piece sliding "bubble" canopy and its associated new windscreen
structure which had slimmer frames which, together with the "cut-down"
rear dorsal fairing, provided a far superior all-around field of view to
the car-door type. From November 1943 all production aircraft, starting
with JR333, were to be so fitted.
However, the complex modifications required to the fuselage and a long
lead time for new components to reach the production line meant that it
took some time before the new canopy became standard. In order to have
as many Typhoons of 2nd TAF fitted before "Operation Overlord"
conversion kits were produced and Gloster, Hawker and Cunliffe-Owen
modified older Typhoons still fitted with the car-door canopy.
2 comments:
Nice shhare
Thanks Myla! It was a fun build.
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