Two Hawker Typhoon Restorations

[uxb99]

Hawker Typhoon RB396 – Restoration Update | Vintage Aviation News (warbirdsnews.com) (https://warbirdsnews.com/warbird-restorations/hawker-typhoon-rb396-restoration-update.html)

Anyone know anything about the Canadian example or the viability of making a Napier Sabre airworthy?

[skydiver69]

Are you referring to typhoon Legacy as being the Canadian one? If so they have videos on YT which shows their progress and including info about two the two Sabres they have got. One is a wreck having been salvaged from a crash but the other is a part sectioned but largely complete engine which I assume gives them a fighting chance of a rebuild.

https://youtu.be/Jpnf59573GM

[punkalouver]

Rare World War 2 aircraft gets rebuilt in B.C. | CBC.ca (https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2186509379730)

[POBJOY]

The critical element would be getting a 'reliable' engine/prop combination that could function long enough to see an airframe off the ground and back again.
It would not have to be used at max power or flown at max speeds and weight, but it would HAVE to be suitable to get 20 mins (at a time) of flight for demo purposes. The airframe side of things would be less of a challenge as the weight could be kept down and it is not as if is has to rocket Tanks and take flack. Their problem is the lack of available product knowledge re what are normal operating limits, but modern technology could help there with sensors assisting to pick up issues BEFORE they become failures. The all important gear train and drives can also be sensor protected to avoid running in a range that gives premature wear leading to failures. There is no doubt that the use of modern materials in critical components could also reduce running issues. Many years ago I took a serviceable exhaust valve* from a pre-war radial engine to a specialist provider of valves to the racing car fraternity for an opinion of its suitability. Without even going into detail of material they condemned the part as unsuitable and said they would make a replacement (that would never break). They did and they have never failed since and are now a common 'fix' on this type of engine. That is how I would approach anything to do with a Sabre, as we have some wonderful materials now that were not available when they were new.
* I used to suffer valve failure in the display world (and transits) which 'could' wreck the engine if not chopped immediately. During a display it was less critical because there was somewhere to land, but it was less than helpful on a transit in poor weather !!!!.

Decades ago Pobjoy was on a gliding course at Swanton Morley and a couple of the instructors had flown Typhoons/Tempest. During a break in flying the conversation got around to engines (and reliability) and the CFI related that you had to fine tune the engine by 'feel and sound' to find the best rev range for smooth running. Although the manual would give a suggested rev/power range he said it was only a guide as subtle change either up or down by a 100 revs would suddenly give a much smoother run, and then you used that for that machine.

[meleagertoo]

It's a lovely idea - a fabulous idea but if we can't keep Centrurii running these days (with a some supply of parts and a continuing, unbroken though thready supply of expertise ) what realistic hope is there for an airworthy Sabre with none of either? Theybstruggled to keep the thing running even in the day, and binned it the instant it became unnecessary to the war effort.
I'd guess we might yet see a couple of brave but futile test flights at prodigious expense only to see the aircraft grounded and condemned to static museum status.
I just can't imagine a Sabre in today's risk-averse climate allowing more than that to happen, even if they manage the incredible feat of getting one into airworthy status in the first place.
I hope i'm wrong.

[POBJOY]

The Sabre was produced under a rather (we need it mentality) and never really sorted when it entered service. Like most very complex and complicated engines HOW it was operated also makes a substantial contribution to keeping it serviceable. Given the advances in cnc type production quality and the knowledge that this is not an engine for rapid throttle movements the challenge is how much 'out of the box thinking' will help enable the 'reliability factor' to be improved. Bringing in expertise from todays top racing guys could really help with this. For myself I only had exhaust valve issues, but sleeve vales did live on in later engines, and I suspect that the older technology could be improved enough to keep an example running good enough for demo purposes. They may have to be carefully 'warmed up' and power fed in smoothly, but then that is all part of keeping history alive as opposed to just being a static exhibit. Lots of interesting comments on the Sabre story in Rod Banks book plus the comments that despite all the problems and production issues (with engine and airframe) their part in the Normandy campaign justified the effort (just). Of course in Normandy they also had to contend with sucking in a very damaging dust before being retrofitted with better filters. The average Typhoon 'life' was such that the engines never really gained much of a chance to be improved by strip down inspections. They certainly are not a jump in pull the choke and shoot off type.
The engine ended up in Target tugs at Sylt so must have had some sort of serviceability rate for that job.

[longer ron]

The engine ended up in Target tugs at Sylt so must have had some sort of serviceability rate for that job.

There is no doubt that the later Sabres in the Tempest were 'not as bad' as the earlier marks of engine but I am not sure that is any sort of recommendation :)
I have often pondered the wisdom of using the Tempests as TT a/c post war and the only conclusion I have ever come to was that they must have had hundreds (perhaps thousands) of brand new sabre engines languishing in stores to either scrap or use up - so if they had any serious engine problems on a TT Tempest they could just demand a new engine and swap it out :)
Absolute engineering madness of an engine.

[DHfan]

You really don't like the Sabre or the Centaurus do you? You refer to them both as engineering madness at every opportunity.

They both became very successful engines with the Sabre remaining in service until the early 50s and the Centaurus until the late 60s.

[longer ron]

You really don't like the Sabre or the Centaurus do you? You refer to them both as engineering madness at every opportunity.

They both became very successful engines with the Sabre remaining in service until the early 50s and the Centaurus until the late 60s.

Correct - I think it is a bit of a stretch to call the Sabre 'very successful' - they were always 'touchy' and well 'brittle'- maintenance heavy engines and had to be handled with great care by Air and Ground Crew alike as Pobjoy has alluded to already - you only need to look at a cutaway drawing of all the hundreds of gears etc ;).
As I posted above - probably the only reason they survived into the 50's was a ready supply of spare/new engines in 'stores' - '' here Bert this here sabre sounds like a bag of nails - thats ok Alf we will just demand another one from stores - theres plenty left''.

regards LR

[DHfan]

There's no way of finding out now but I very much doubt there was a ready supply of Sabres. Some certainly but too expensive to buy hundreds of spare engines just in case.

[longer ron]

I saw a reference some years ago to 3,000 spare Sabres available in stores at the end of WW2 - but no way to corroborate of course

[DHfan]

That seems an unlikely number considering there were only a little over 4000 airframes produced in total, Typhoons and Tempests together, that had a Sabre fitted.

One of the Typhoon projects reputedly acquired a zero hours Sabre, possibly crated but that's from memory so not sure, from a museum somewhere.

[longer ron]

AFAIK - approx 5,000 Sabres were built - not sure of breakdown in type/mark though.

[POBJOY]

We have to remember that these 'so called ' hyper engines' were the hoped for power plants for bombers rather than a fighter.
Rolls gave up with the Vulture, and that used existing technology, and then binned the Eagle. It is always easy to be clever 'after the event', but with a war to win and a serious amount of catch up to do there is no doubt that the Sabre was a very neat package, but ahead of the available materials that it really needed. I suspect that its shere power and in such a tight confinement was always going to be a problem if just one component failed. It really was an F1 engine in a van, not helped by issues with the van. At the end of the day when needed it did actually perform in the very hostile low level regime, and therefore played its part just in time. I doubt if the RAF were keen to look for more use for it as they had the Griffon by then which of course saw them into the Shackleton days. I think 'engineering madness' is not far off the mark, but also its power/size/weight was an amazing package for its time, and the 'compressed' development rather pushed it into service before the issues solved. I never fail to be impressed that they got all those gears,rods,and an oil system to work at all, and would love to hear one run and possibly fly.

[longer ron]

Just out of interest I have been doing a little googling around this morning whilst topping up on caffeine levels :)

Sabre 'Reliability' - a couple of random extracts from the 'Jever Steam Laundry' website - ref target towing at Sylt....

https://www.jeversteamlaundry.org/4fm540jul52.htm

7.7.52
Flag after flag was cancelled - four of them - due to Tempest unserviceability. This is quite distressing, because we need 120 sorties to complete our task, and the weather is perfect.

8.7.52
A steady programme was flown until the towing aircraft broke down at 15.00 hours

9.7.52
This was the worst day. Six Tempests were cancelled, because it was found to be difficult or impossible to start them.

The Tempests were hangared at Sylt in peacetime conditions so not having serviceability problems caused by front line/outside parking etc.

[sycamore]

Dunno,but I think the Sabre was `shotgun cartridge` started,and that can lead to a lot of time-wasting ,if you`ve not got the priming/throttle /fuel cut-off correct.... if it`s wrong,you then have to wait for a couple of minutes before trying again,or fire one to `blow-out` if it`overprimed...or maybe the `safety disc ` has blown...6d pieces can be substituted ,if you`ve run out of spare discs..! At this point ,get out,have a coffee or two,go back,offer prayers to any `gods`,talk to `her` sweetly,make promises,and maybe ,just maybe ,she`ll start....
Much better to have an electric starter,good battery or `trolley-acc` for big engines,still requires `incantations`,and hopefully you`ll be rewarded with lots of `huffing,puffing,chugging,lots of smoke,and finally all cylinders chiming in....Don`t forget to thank your `gods....

[papajuliet]

ATA pilot, Hugh Bergel, in his book "Fly and Deliver" says that the early Sabre engines had a service life of only 20 hours after which they had to be rebuilt at the works.

[POBJOY]

As alluded on another thread, I had a very brief chat with Ray H at an airshow regarding the Sylt Tempests.
He had managed to 'swop' a ride in whatever he was using at the time for a 'one off' trip, which had left him with some memories.

Only the ground guys started the engines as a failed fire up could entail 48 plugs having to be cleaned !!!
Getting into the machine was a challenged due to its height and a spray oil finish everywhere.
Sitting in with engine at idle one was aware of this moving mass ahead describing a fig of 8 before increasing the revs.
There was some talk of full rudder trim and starting on one side of the runway to ensure it stayed on the runway.

After all that the flying bit was fine !!!

[chevvron]

As alluded on another thread, I had a very brief chat with Ray H at an airshow regarding the Sylt Tempests.
He had managed to 'swop' a ride in whatever he was using at the time for a 'one off' trip, which had left him with some memories.

Only the ground guys started the engines as a failed fire up could entail 48 plugs having to be cleaned !!!
Getting into the machine was a challenged due to its height and a spray oil finish everywhere.
Sitting in with engine at idle one was aware of this moving mass ahead describing a fig of 8 before increasing the revs.
There was some talk of full rudder trim and starting on one side of the runway to ensure it stayed on the runway.

After all that the flying bit was fine !!!
As well as all that, I was told by an ex Typhoon/Tempest pilot that it was unwise to raise the tail too high when taking off especially on grass; best to keep the aircraft attitude 'neutral' until a convenient bump bounced the aircraft into the air otherwise the prop tips would gouge lumps out of the ground.
This 'tail down' attitude was used years later when operating Air Cadet 'Vigilant' aircraft.

[POBJOY]

I was told one could have a pleasant lunch during take off in the Falkes and Viggiees !!!

However the Tempest tug (which looked beautiful) without the winch was probably used because they had spare ones around at the time.
No doubt no one was to sad to loose the Sabre and I think the Tempests were replaced with Sea Furies (two seat) eventually.
The Furies did their spell and then got grabbed by various groups inc Boscombe and RN historic flight.
Unfortunately they then suffered a series of misfortunes when landing without the tail wheel locked so this thinned them down.
I do not know why the piston machines continued so long when there were so many Meteors available which seemed to fit the job quite well.
A clean Tempest in plain finish is quite magnificent and coupled with the Sabre howl has to be a 'must see' airshow act, except the numpties would probably want to see it changed to electric !!!

[treadigraph]

Certainly be nice to see the Centaurus Tempest II of which Richard Grace has (almost?) completed the rebuild at Sywell - originally one of a few recovered from India by Doug Arnold in 1979 and sold on to Richard's dad Nick and Chris Horsley, then to Autokraft, etc, etc...

[longer ron]

I do not know why the piston machines continued so long when there were so many Meteors available which seemed to fit the job quite well.


I have little doubt it was at least partially because of the large numbers of piston engines various languishing in 'stores' after the war - engines were being produced in vast quantities by many factories and it took some time to shut off the flow post war.
You only have to look at the B.P. Balliol - The top kneddies decided to use up some of their large stock of spare Merlin engines to power this trainer - the Merlin was hardly a suitable engine for an advanced trainer but hey we had 'loads in stock'.
The Meteor would get its chance at TT jobs soon enough :)

[POBJOY]

There is a 'Sea Balliol' down at Newquay in the Classic Museum (complete with folding wings). I had no idea it was there so do not know how complete or original it is.

[longer ron]

There is a 'Sea Balliol' down at Newquay in the Classic Museum (complete with folding wings). I had no idea it was there so do not know how complete or original it is.
Built by Boulton Paul Heritage Trust - it looks quite nice although close up you can tell it is a part replica.

[Jhieminga]

I do not know why the piston machines continued so long when there were so many Meteors available which seemed to fit the job quite well.
The later Meteors could do a lot of the jobs, but especially those that required a longer endurance or range would be best left to a piston-engined type at the time. The Meteor F.8 had a 1 hr endurance only, I don't know if that includes reserves or not.

[longer ron]

By the time though that the Meteor was settled into Target/Flag towing it had a minimum of an additional ventral fuel tank (where the cable 'hooked on') - the 'proper' TT versions usually had the ventral tank + 2x wing drop tanks.

[POBJOY]

Certainly be nice to see the Centaurus Tempest II of which Richard Grace has (almost?) completed the rebuild at Sywell - originally one of a few recovered from India by Doug Arnold in 1979 and sold on to Richard's dad Nick and Chris Horsley, then to Autokraft, etc, etc...

I remember when N Grace was interested in the Tempest 2, but was surprised when I mentioned they never quite made it to ops in WW2, hence never quite a 'warbird', and certainly difficult to value.

[treadigraph]

Tempest II gets nearer to first flight at Sywell...

https://www.facebook.com/UltimateWarbirdFlights/videos