The Hawker Heron was the first
fighter aircraft
Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...
designed at
Hawker Aircraft
Hawker Aircraft Limited was a British aircraft manufacturer that was responsible for some of the most famous products in British aviation history.
History
Hawker had its roots in the aftermath of the First World War, which resulted in the bank ...
with a basically metal structure.
Sydney Camm was the chief designer that introduced what became the typical structure for all Hawker aircraft until the introduction of the jet-powered
Hawker P.1040. This structure consisted of metal tubes (steel or aluminium) with their ends
swage
Swaging () is a forging process in which the dimensions of an item are altered using dies into which the item is forced. Swaging is usually a cold working process, but also may be hot worked.
The term swage may apply to the process (verb) or ...
d so that they could be connected to each other by means of "
fishplate
A fishplate joins two lengths of track
A fishplate, splice bar or joint bar is a metal connecting plate used to bolt the ends of two rails into a continuous track. The name is derived from ''fish'', a wooden reinforcement of a "built-up" ship's ...
s" and
bolts (sometimes with
ferrule
A ferrule (a corruption of Latin ' "small bracelet", under the influence of ' "iron") is any of a number of types of objects, generally used for fastening, joining, sealing, or reinforcement. They are often narrow circular rings made from me ...
s to protect the tubes).
Design
The design was produced in 1924 as a private venture version of the
Hawker Woodcock
The Hawker Woodcock was a British single-seat fighter built by the Hawker Engineering Company as the first fighter to be produced by Hawker Engineering (the successor to Sopwith Aviation). It was used by the RAF as a night fighter in the 1920 ...
fighter with the wooden structure of the Woodcock replaced by a mainly metal structure, but as the design developed, the use of a metal structure resulted in an entirely new aircraft.
The Heron was a single bay
biplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...
with a metal structure as described above and fabric covered. It was powered by a 455 hp (339 kW)
Bristol Jupiter
The Bristol Jupiter was a British nine-cylinder single-row piston radial engine built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Originally designed late in World War I and known as the Cosmos Jupiter, a lengthy series of upgrades and developments turn ...
VI engine driving a two-bladed wooden propeller. (A metal propeller was also flown but showed no improvement of performance). There was provision for two .303 in (7.7 mm)
Vickers machine gun
The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a Water cooling, water-cooled .303 British (7.7 mm) machine gun produced by Vickers Limited, originally for the British Army. The gun was operated by a three-man crew but typically required more me ...
s.
The Air Ministry issued
Specification 25/24 to Hawker for a single-seat high-speed fighter landplane and a prototype was ordered for evaluation.
The first flight of the prototype,
serial number
A serial number is a unique identifier assigned incrementally or sequentially to an item, to ''uniquely'' identify it.
Serial numbers need not be strictly numerical. They may contain letters and other typographical symbols, or may consist enti ...
''J6989'', flown by
P.S.W. Bulman was made in 1925. Despite being heavier than the similar powered Woodcock, it was faster and was praised by the pilots that flew it for its excellent handling properties.
Due to little interest from the
Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...
, only one aircraft was built and it was returned to Hawker after testing.
Specifications
See also
References
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External links
A photograph of a Hawker Heron
{{Hawker Aircraft aircraft
1920s British fighter aircraft
Heron
The herons are long-legged, long-necked, freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 72 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genera ''Botaurus'' and ''Ixobrychus ...
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Biplanes
Aircraft first flown in 1925