Hawker P.1081
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Hawker P.1081, also known as the "Australian Fighter" was a prototype British jet aircraft from the mid-twentieth century. The single example built was destroyed in a crash in 1951.


Design and development

In 1949, the
Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...
(RAAF) began assessing replacements for two fighters built in Australia: the Mustangs built by
Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation The Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) was an Australian aircraft manufacturer. The CAC was established in 1936, to provide Australia with the capability to produce military aircraft and engines. History In 1935 the Chief General Manager ...
(CAC) and Vampires of De Havilland Australia (DHA). A series of designs were considered, including the Grumman F9F Panther and the
CAC CA-23 The CAC CA-23 was a planned supersonic, twinjet, two-seat, Night fighter, all-weather fighter aircraft designed by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation of Australia. Design and development In 1949, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) began as ...
– an unconventional, twin-jet all-weather design by CAC. Hawker Aircraft also submitted a proposal, for a swept-wing, swept-tail fighter based on the
Hawker P.1052 The Hawker P.1052 was a British experimental aircraft built by Hawker Aircraft, Hawker Aircraft Limited for trials with swept wings. Design and development The origins of the P.1052 were in a 1945 design study by the Hawker design team for a ...
, but using a Rolls-Royce Tay engine. Work began to modify the second prototype of the P.1052 (''VX279'') along these lines, although the Rolls-Royce Nene engine already fitted was initially retained. To allow an afterburner, the bifurcated tail-pipes of the P.1052 was replaced by a single tail-exit pipe. ''VX279'', which was now the prototype P.1081, took to the air on 19 June 1950. CAC, evidently planning to build any design accepted by the Australian government, assigned the serial number CA-24 to the P.1081. By mid-1950, however, the RAAF urgently required a replacement for its Mustangs, some of which were in action in Korea and faced the possibility of clashes with MiG-15s. The P.1081 could not realistically become operational for at least a few years, so a ready-made fighter was required. While the North American F-86 Sabre was operational with the US Air Force in Korea, the USAF had complete priority and the F-86 could not be delivered to the RAAF for at least a few years. (After the war, CAC in Australia built a more powerful, Rolls-Royce Avon-engined variant of the F-86, known as the
CAC Sabre The CAC Sabre, sometimes known as the Avon Sabre or CA-27, is an Australian variant of the North American Aviation F-86F Sabre fighter aircraft. The F-86F was redesigned and built by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC). Equipping five ...
.) To replace its Mustangs in Korea, the Australian government ordered the F.8 variant of the Gloster Meteor, which was already in service with the RAF. In November 1950, evidently anticipating that orders for the P.1081 would not eventuate, Hawker decided to cease development. The prototype, which had remained in the UK, was handed over by Hawker to the
Royal Aircraft Establishment 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 Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...
(RAE). Its swept tail increased the
Mach number Mach number (M or Ma) (; ) is a dimensionless quantity in fluid dynamics representing the ratio of flow velocity past a boundary to the local speed of sound. It is named after the Moravian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach. : \mathrm = \frac ...
above that of the P.1052 into the Mach 0.9-0.95 region, providing valuable data that contributed to the design of the axially-powered
Hawker Hunter The Hawker Hunter is a transonic British jet-powered fighter aircraft that was developed by Hawker Aircraft for the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It was designed to take advantage of the newly developed Rolls-R ...
. On 3 April 1951, the P.1081 prototype was lost with its pilot, Squadron Leader T. S. "Wimpy" Wade.Jacques Trempe Collection
/ref>


Operators

; *
Royal Aircraft Establishment 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 Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...


Specifications


See also


References

;Notes ;Bibliography * 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. ''Hawker Aircraft since 1920.'' London: Putnam, 1991. {{ADF aircraft designations 1950s British fighter aircraft P1081 Cancelled military aircraft projects of the United Kingdom Single-engined jet aircraft Mid-wing aircraft Cruciform tail aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1950