Battle of Britain veteran Hurricane P3717 (G-HITT), flown by Stu Goldspink during the Shuttleworth Flying Festival of Britain Airshow 2021.
This Hurricane was built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd in 1940 as a Mk. I Hurricane. It was handed to the RAF in June and went to 253 Squadron at Kirton-in-Lindsey on 13th July. They then transferred to RAF Kenley, on the 29th August 1940.
After landing and refuelling at Kenley on the 29th P3717, flown by Pilot Officer Bell-Salter, and the other aircraft of 253 Squadron were scrambled at 16.00 for an uneventful standing patrol. At 10.50 the following day 14 of the squadrons Hurricanes scrambled to intercept 3 incoming waves of Albert Kesselring’s Luftflotte 2. 23 year old Polish Pilot Officer Wlodzimierz Michal Czech Samolinski was flying P3717 as 'Blue 2'. They were ordered to patrol Maidstone, but the flights got seperated and were ordered back to orbit Kenley, where they were joined by another 5 of the squadron's Hurricanes. They were vectored south, where, at 18'000ft near Redhill, they saw 3 formations of 9 bombers escorted by 30 fighters, M.E.110's and M.E.109's. 'B Flight' attacked the bombers which included H.E.111, D.O.215 and possibly J.U.88's, with one bomber being claimed as shot down. 'A Flight' followed up and shot down a Heinkel 111 which force landed. A series of individual fights took place, mainly with M.E.110'S and M.E.109's that had come to rescue the bombers. 'Blue 1' Flight Lieutenant Cambridge shot down an M.E.110. Samolinksi AS 'Blue 2' in P3717 attacked an M.E.110 from above and astern, silenced the rear gunner and saw his bullets entering wings and fuselage, sending it down in a spiral dive. He made a similar attack on a second M.E.110 silencing the rear gunner. P3717 was badly damaged and had to be returned to Hawkers for significant repairs. P3717 was then reissued to 257 Squadron but was later returned to Hawker for major works a second time and modified to mark 2a standard before being sent to Russia. It was from here that she was recovered in the late 1990s. Sadly Pilot Officer Samolinski was presumed killed in action having failed to return to RAF Kenley following combat over the English Channel on 26th September 1940. No trace of him or his aircraft was ever found. He is commemorated on the Polish Air Force Memorial at RAF Northolt and was awarded the Polish decoration of the Virtue Militari (5th Class) in February 1941.
Restoration of P3717 to flight was completed in March 2017.
The Hawker Hurricane entered RAF service in December 1937 and outnumbered Spitfires two to one at the outbreak of WW2. Created as a derivative of the Hawker Fury, the Hurricane was primarily a single seat fighter, although fighter bombers (the Hurribomber) and naval versions (the Sea Hurricane) were also produced.
The Hawker Hurricane changed the course of history. Piloted by a few brave young men, including legends such as Gp Capt Douglas Bader DSO DFC and Wg Cdr Eric Nicolson VC DFC, it was the mainstay of RAF Fighter Command in the Battle of Britain, comprising two thirds of the force that fought the Luftwaffe in the summer of 1940. Although it has been overshadowed by the somewhat more glamorous Supermarine Spitfire, the Hurricane undoubtedly has greater historical significance.
Royal Navy test pilot Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown, who flew more aircraft types than anyone else in the world, said of the Hurricane that “it literally saved the country.” Indeed given the circumstances of 1940, when Britain stood alone against Hitler, one could legitimately claim that the Hurricane saved the world.
One reason for the Hurricane’s relatively low profile is perhaps the scarcity of airworthy examples. Of 14,583 originally built there are now only 15 flying in the world, of which 11 were restored by Hawker Restorations. Ironically for an aircraft known for its supposedly ‘old-fashioned’ construction – having wood and fabric elements that allowed it to absorb greater damage in service than the all-alloy monocoque of the Spitfire – the Hurricane is actually the more complex of the two. Exceedingly tight engineering tolerances, complex tube-squaring techniques and the use of relatively exotic materials requiring heat treatment and metallurgy mean that compared to a Spitfire, a Hurricane takes twice as much time and significantly greater engineering skill to restore.
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