DEVELOPMENT OF FIGHTERS

Southland Times, Issue 24575, 25 October 1941, Page 7

DEVELOPMENT OF FIGHTERS

FAR-SEEING MEN IN ROYAL AIR FORCE REVOLUTIONARY CHANGES (8.0.W.) RUGBY. October 23. How British design and forethought proved a match for German mass planning and ruthlessness has been described by the Air Ministry in an account of the origins of the eight-gun Spitfire and Hurricane fighters—the famous aircraft which routed the Luftwaffe in the daylight attacks on England a year ago. That Britain possessed at such a crucial moment fighters of such performance that small numbers were able to establish superiority over anything the enemy could send over was due to the men who foresaw in the developments of modern bombers the need for fighters of superlative quality as defensive weapons. The eventual replacement of the Fury and the Bulldog, the leading fighters of those days, with a fighter with eight guns was first proposed by the late Wing-Commander A. T. Williams in April 1933. Later the advent of the monoplane enabled the new proposal to be adopted with less adverse effect on flying performance. The new plans were drawn up by Squadron Leader H. S. Sorley in 1935 and then British engineers produced a first-class liquidcooled engine—the Rolls-Royce Merlin ll—which gave the designers of the Spitfire and the Hurricane that performance, power and shape which enabled them to produce the first aircraft which would not only fire eight, instead of four, guns, but also exceed 300 miles an hour and climb higher than operational aircraft had done before. If this revolutionary change of policy had not been made Britain would have been found with fighters insufficiently armed to deal with the German bombers put into production soon after' Hitler came to power. A further indication of the superiority of their quality was the fact that our planes went back into the air time after time each day. Squadron Leader Sorley—now an air vice-marshal at the age of 43 years—is now Assistant Chief of the Air Staff charged with the special consideration of operational requirements and tactics. The decisions of today for the fighting requirements of tomorrow remain his province.