Hawker Hurricane in ARR

I have infos about six captured Yougoslav Hurricane Mk. I. Some of them did not have any armament. What did Roumanians used (belgian Brownings?) on this Zmaj Hurricane?

I remember that only 3 ex. yugo Hurricanes were used by romanians.
From the pictures with romanian Hurricanes it looks that most of them were removed 2 browning guns ( the remaining 6 were enough for wood russian planes and saving weight made the plane faster and more maneuvrable ) and probably resolve the lack of spares guns for the rest of Hurricanes.

Do not forget another way to resolve problem of spare parts - chages between ARR and Navy, for torpedo boat Vosper class (the same engines).
Source: Modelism, article with Gura Portitei event.

Iama

I know that, but the question from Modly was related only to the guns spares.

I heard a not confirmed story,that during tha "Battle Of Britain" ,on Pipera airfield,British and Germans mechanics worked side by side,but on dif planes (Hurricanes-He 112 Me 109).
Is it correct?

Only the Hurricanes and the Bf-109s needed to be assembled here. The He-112s were flown in.

Wasn't talking about asambling.
About instructing local mechanics.
But is the information true?

I read something in some romanian magasines. No incidents mentioned. I think was Modelism issue with Hawker Hurricane in him. (Sorry, my english is verry bad, escp3cially in the morning.... )

Iama

I suggest you to write the text in a Word document first. It will automatically highlight the spelling errors. Then you can look for the correct spelling. Only after that, you should cut-and-past the proper text into the forum. This way, one can avoid the embarassing spelling errors and improve the quality of posts.

Gen. Dénes

Good Ideea!

Iama

Dicesare flew a few times an Hurricane and said it was a "soft" airplane.
He disliked him because he use to loose a lot of speed during turns.

Just a note on the armament originally used on V.V.K.J. Hurricanes: both the locally made machines and the imported ones were armed with 7,92mm F.N.-Browning machine guns, similar to those used by the A.R.R.
I recall having read somewhere that Yugoslav Hurricanes supplied to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia had .303 British-built Brownings, but this is not true. The standard rifle and machine gun calibre of the Yugoslav army was the 7,92x57. The air force retained the .303 (7,7mm) for a while until the mid-Thirties, but by 1937 the French Darne machine guns chambered for the British round - which had been a sort of more or less standard ammo for aircraft rifle calibre machine guns in most Western European countries since the Great War - were exchanged by the efficient Belgian guns. Some fighters were modified accordingly, eg the Hawker Yugoslav Fury Mk.II (I have strong reasons to believe that the last ones built by Zmaj and Ikarus were directly fitted with the F.N.'s).

Ruy

Hi fellows,

Interesting story about ex-VVKJ Hurrie’s. Does anyone knows how many machines were delivered to Rumanian AF and in which unit they served. Was there some spare parts and equipment from Zmaj factory too?
Ruy, unfortunately all examples of Yugoslav built Fury’s were finally equipped with Darn machineguns. I said unfortunately, because Yugoslav pilots found them as pretty unreliable during short April war back in 1941. Whole bunch of cut-outs during combat were reported by VVKJ pilots. Some of 5.Fighter Regiment Mk.II’s were armed with only one Darn MG ! Can you believe that?
Does anyone of Rumanian colleagues have any photo or additional info made during delivery of captured Yugoslav Hurricanes or shortly after transfer?

Regards,
Aleks

There were three ex-Yugoslav Hurricanes impressed into ARR service (Nos. 13-15).
All served in Escadrila 53 vânatoare.

Gen. Dénes

Zdravo Aleks,

Yes, I can believe that.
The fixed version of the Darne gun was found to be quite unreliable, as early as the first test in the U.K. took place. Even the underwing guns (as tested at Martlesham Heath, in an Hawker-made Mk.II - this arrangement a la Gladiator, was never used by the V.V.K.J., though - any indication on the contrary would be welcome), which were devoid of any synchronization mechanism, were found to be "less than satisfactory" by the British armourers who tested them. I have a copy of the original report, and on the whole the conclusions drawn from the tests are quite unflattering for the French machine guns.

What do you mean by "finally"? Do you imply that Vickers Mk II or Mk IIID guns in .303 calibre were used before that? The first Furies received by the V.V.K.J. were, in fact, supplied with British machine guns, but I don't know whether these were ever replaced by Darnes.

In what concerns the Mk.II's, yes, I know that some aircraft had only one gun, and a few weren't even armed at all, namely some that were asigned to 1. Odelenje (1st Section) of the 3. Pilotska Škola, in Mostar. But those, were, of course, relegated to the training role. But, as far as I know all Mk.II were armed from the outset with Darne machine guns, even the first ten fighters built in the U.K. As for the F.N.-Browing guns, I have some indication that at least some Furies were re-armed with the newer Belgian mgs, something which makes sense because, according to some sources, the Ikarus Ik-2 (the 12 production machines delivered in 1939) were also fitted with F.N.-Brownings - I did found, however, conflicting data on this last detail, because other references state that Darnes were used... At least, the second prototype (the IK-02) was indeed armed with two Darne Modele 30 mgs!
Cheers,

Ruy

This post has been edited by Ruy Aballe on February 05, 2005 09:53 am