Hawker Tornado
Hawker Aircraft · United Kingdom · first flew 1939 · fighter
The Hawker Tornado was a British single-seat fighter developed in parallel with the Typhoon, differing primarily in powerplant — it used the Rolls-Royce Vulture engine rather than the Napier Sabre. Persistent problems with the Vulture engine led to cancellation before significant production.
Recognition (WEFT)
| W — Wings | Mid-mounted, tapered |
|---|---|
| E — Engines | 1 × piston, nose-mounted |
| F — Fuselage | Visually very similar to the Hawker Typhoon — same basic fuselage and wing |
| T — Tail | Conventional |
WEFT is AircraftIQ's four-point recognition method — how it works.
Spot it by:
- Napier Sabre or Rolls-Royce Vulture engine in a large, powerful British fighter airframe
- Visually very similar to the Hawker Typhoon — same basic fuselage and wing
- Radiator bath under the nose similar to the Typhoon but with a slightly different chin profile
Nearly identical to the Typhoon in silhouette — a large, powerful-looking mid-wing monoplane with a prominent chin radiator — but distinguished by the Vulture engine's slightly different cooling arrangement and the absence of the Typhoon's prominent exhaust stacks.
Specifications
- The Hawker Tornado has a length of 10.01 m (33 ft).
- It has a wingspan of 12.78 m (42 ft).
- Its maximum speed is 641 km/h (398 mph).
- Typical crew: 1.
Figures are for the representative variant described above; marks differ. See how AircraftIQ sources figures.
History
Designed to the same 1937 specification as the Typhoon, the Tornado first flew in October 1939. The Rolls-Royce Vulture engine suffered persistent reliability problems and Rolls-Royce eventually abandoned it to concentrate on the Merlin and Griffon. Only five production Tornados were completed before the programme was cancelled in 1942, while the Typhoon went on to large-scale production.
Variants
No production variants entered service; the one significant development was the investigation of Bristol Centaurus and Napier Sabre engines as alternatives, ultimately leading to the separate Tempest programme.
Where you'll see it
Never entered operational service; the Tornado's story is one of the RAF's major 'what-if' scenarios of the Second World War, given the Typhoon's subsequent success as a ground-attack aircraft.
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