The Hawker Hotspur was a

Hawker Henley The Hawker Henley was a British two-seat target tug derived from the Hawker Hurricane that was operated by the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. Design and development In 1934 Air Ministry Specification P.4/34 was issued which calle ...

redesigned to take a

Boulton-Paul Boulton & Paul Ltd was a British general manufacturer from Norwich, England that became involved in aircraft manufacture. Jeld Wen Inc. bought Boulton & Paul (along with another joinery company John Carr) from the Rugby Group plc in 1999 to ...

semi-powered four

gun turret A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechani ...

. It was designed in response to

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 ...

Specification F.9/35, which required a powered turret as the main armament to replace the

Hawker Demon The Hawker Hart is a British two-seater biplane light bomber aircraft that saw service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was designed during the 1920s by Sydney Camm and manufactured by Hawker Aircraft. The Hart was a prominent British aircra ...

Design and development

In the same fashion as the Henley, the Hotspur used standard

Hawker Hurricane The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by ...

outer wing panels. One prototype aircraft, ''K8309'', was built in 1937, fitted with armament of four 0.303 in (7.7 mm) Browning machine guns in a

Boulton Paul Boulton Paul Aircraft Ltd was a British aircraft manufacturer that was incorporated in 1934, although its origins in aircraft manufacturing began earlier in 1914, and lasted until 1961. The company mainly built and modified aircraft under co ...

dorsal turret plus one .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 ...

mounted in the front fuselage. The completion of the prototype was delayed until 1938, by which time the rival

Boulton Paul Defiant The Boulton Paul Defiant is a British interceptor aircraft that served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II. The Defiant was designed and built by Boulton Paul Aircraft as a "turret fighter", without any fixed forward-firing guns ...

had already flown. The Hotspur first flew on 14 June 1938 with only a wooden mock-up of the turret and with ballast equivalent to the weight of armament.

Testing and evaluation

As Hawker was committed to the production of

Hurricanes A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...

and Gloster to Henley production, there was insufficient capacity to introduce another type and production was abandoned.Buttler, ''British Secret Projects: Fighters and Bombers 1935–1950'' Midland Publishing The mock-up turret was removed and a cockpit fairing installed. Planned production by

Avro AVRO, short for Algemene Vereniging Radio Omroep ("General Association of Radio Broadcasting"), was a Dutch public broadcasting association operating within the framework of the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep system. It was the first public broad ...

to Specification 17/36 was abandoned and the prototype, less turret, was used at the

RAE Farnborough The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), before finally losing its identity in mer ...

to test flap and

dive brake Dive brakes or dive flaps are deployed to slow down an aircraft when in a dive. They often consist of a metal flap that is lowered against the air flow, thus creating drag and reducing dive speed.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, ...

configurations until 1942.

Specifications (Hotspur)

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Brew, Alex. ''The Turret Fighters – Defiant and Roc''. Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, UK: Crowood Press, 2002. . * Hannah, Donald. ''Hawker FlyPast Reference Library''. Stamford, Lincolnshire, UK: Key Publishing Ltd., 1982. . * James, Derek N. ''Hawker, an Aircraft Album No. 5''. New York: Arco Publishing Company, 1973. . (First published in the UK by Ian Allan in 1972.) * Mason, Francis K. ''The British Fighter since 1912''. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 1992. . * Mason, Francis K. ''Hawker Aircraft since 1920''. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 1991. . (3rd US edition, originally published in the UK by Putnam Aeronautical Books in 1961 and 1971)

External links

Hawker Hotspur
– British Aircraft of World War II {{Hawker Aircraft aircraft 1930s British experimental aircraft Hotspur 1930s British fighter aircraft Cancelled military aircraft projects of the United Kingdom Turret fighters Single-engined tractor aircraft Low-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1938