Airfix A02110 1/72 Hawker Tempest Mk.V Post War

 

Featuring a newly designed laminar flow wing and a much thinner compared to its predecessor, this plane had its first flight on 2nd September 1942. With its lighter frame and powered by a massive 24-cylinder Napier sabre engine, this fighter aircraft performance was spectacular.

 

An aircraft which has to be considered one of the finest aeroplanes of the Second World War, the Hawker Tempest V could trace its design lineage back to the Hurricane fighters which proved so decisive during the Battle of Britain only two years earlier, but would represent the absolute zenith of piston engined fighter design. Indeed, when accomplished designer Sydney Camm was looking to produce his '˜Super Hurricane'™ replacement for the aviation saviour of the Battle of Britain, the aircraft he surely had in mind was the Tempest V. As it was, the Tempest is often confused with its predecessor in Royal Air Force service, the Typhoon, even though the two are very different aeroplanes.