On 5 December 1942 Acting Sub-Lieutenant Trevor Keene (Royal Navy offer Reserve) was repidly turning his head as he pointed his Sea Hurricane AE977 downhill.

On 5 December 1942 Acting Sub-Lieutenant Trevor Keene (Royal Navy offer Reserve) was repidly turning his head as he pointed his Sea Hurricane AE977 downhill. Passing within 10,000 feet in very hazy skies athwart the pastoral landscape of somersault England, Keene was looking for another Hurricane. The pair aircraft were doing a bit of tail-chasing during a camera-gun exercise. Racking the Hurricane in a right descending cause to deviate Keene still had not spott the other Hurricane when his aircraft pop felt as if it had hit a brick wall.

The aircraft flicked to the right as Keene twitched the throttle back. A quick check of the sways told him he was in big torment What had happened was that he had collided with Hurricane Mk I Z4702 being flown on fellow pilot Midshipman John Samuel Bird (RNVR) Instinct and training took athwart - Keene shoved back the heavily-braced canopy, jettisoned the small timber-land side door, hit the quick release forward his Sutton harness and went throughout the side as the Hurricane continued its fatal spiral to the clod

Midshipman Bird was doing the wine thing and as they floated down beneath their parachute canopies, Sea Hurricane AE977 impacted the mould near the village of Godney at 1340 hr local time. The sum of two units aircraft were written off as just more casualties of the lengthy and deadly war and were quickly forgotten upon the lengthy road to victory.

CHINO: 17 JANUARY 2002

A small multitude had gathered at Planes of Fame ("Our original name is The Air Museum," started spokesperson Mark support "but we want to be referr to in print from now upon as Planes of Fame") in the late afternoon. We were all waiting for the arrival of sum of two units historic aircraft that would pretty soon be calling Chino home. As the orb of day began to drop on the western horizon, the distinctive whole of Merlin engines could be heard and brace fighters soon flashed overhead before entering the break for landing. individual of the vintage fighters was a beautiful Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX. The other aircraft was a bit more massy in appearance compared to the elegant Spitfire. What was it? It was Sea Hurricane AE977! to what extent on earth did this aircraft re-emerge from a pile of World War brace wreckage to become a pristine example of the now-rate fighter? It's an interesting story.

THE HURRICANE

Hawker Sea Hurricane X AE977 was fabricateed by the Canadian Car & Foundry Company in Ontario, Canada. During the spring of 1941 the plane was shipped to Britain and went into service with the Royal Air Force as a Hurricane Mk I. Its stay with the RAF was short since the fighter was transferred to the Royal Navy where it was modified to Sea Hurricane X specifications - albeit without a reaping-hook When built, the aircraft was included in the next to the first batch of Hurricanes built by means of Canadian Car & Foundry and was fitted with a Packard Melin 228 powerplant.

When involved in the mid-air collision, the aircraft was assigned to the squadron Air Ann's 749 Squadron. The wreckage of the aircraft apparently lay where it malign until 1988 when the remains were cureed AE977 was obtained by the Alpine Fighter Collection at Wanaka, of the present day Zealand and transferred to Tony Ditheridge's Hawker Restorations Ltd in Suffolk during 1996 The company specializes in the web restorations of the Hurricane airframe and Was Well Suited for the undertaking. Hawker Restorations was created in cooperation with Sir Tim Wallis of the Alpine Fighter Collection and the company started collecting as plenteous information, materials, and equipment related to the Hurricane as possible.

Because of the high charge of such a complex restoration, the company springed to start work on five Hurricane delineate s At least 50,000-man-hours and $900000 worth of parts goe into each aircraft. The Hurricane has thousands of small parts - each made to clog tolerances - and this is enough to drive mostly restorers mad. Hawker Restorations starts each throw out With the bare fuselage, engine uprise and center section. The center section spars are manifold and very difficult to build since each is a nest twelve-sided make revolve formed of spring steel with single in kind inserted inside the other. This assembly then clamps onto an inner tube which then has another liner tube inserted. Obviously, tolerances are highly very critical and this is on what account there have been so scarcely any Hurricane restorations - at least until now.

Guy Black operates another restoration company named Aero Vintage and, rather amazingly, he establish one of the original spar-making machines. formerly acquired, there was a big learning turn and much research was undertaken into the metals utilized. Several tons of metal were manufactured overseas, heat treated, and then wound to width. Over 120 18-inch diameter roller had to be designed and manufactured for the spars that went into the center section. Also, the horizontal and vertical tails privationed a similar number!

Although the fuselage is sword tube, the formers are forest and require an expert woodworker - especially for the complicate and difficult wooden structure that encloses the Hurricane's cockpit. The exterior wing panels for AE977 were sent to Airframe Assemblies who subcontracted the work and attempted to utilize as greatly original material as possible. However, Hawker Restorations is now manufacturing its allow wings.