Hawker Tornado

what is it?

The Hawker Tornado was a British single-seat fighter aircraft design of the Second World War for the Royal Air Force as a replacement for the Hawker Hurricane. The planned production of Tornados was cancelled after the engine it was designed to use, the Rolls-Royce Vulture, proved unreliable in service. A parallel airframe that used the Napier Sabre engine continued into production as the Hawker Typhoon.

🔎How to recognise it: 1 piston engine with propeller · 12.8 m wingspan

base stats

• speed 640 km/htop speed
• size 4,839 kgmax take-off weight
• built 6made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

• 🎂First flew 87 years ago, in 1939.
• 🏎️Top speed is 4.9× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• 🚗Wingspan of 12.8 m: about 3 cars parked nose to tail.
• 🏔️Can fly 1.2× higher than Mount Everest (8,849 m).

piston: A car-like piston engine turning a propeller: simple and cheap, the classic small plane.

spec sheet

first flight

1939-11-06

number built

6

role

single-seat fighter

makers

Hawker Aircraft

engines

1× Rolls-Royce Vulture II

crew

1

length

10 m

wingspan

12.8 m

height

4.5 m

max take-off weight

4,839 kg

top speed

640 km/h

range

—

ceiling

10,638 m

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.