This is my build of the Hawker P.1173 - The Hawker Hart T.2 advanced transonic crew trainer that was selected as the winning design against AST.362.
Air Staff Target 362 was issued in June 1963 for an advanced transonic pilot trainer to replace the Gnat/Hunter sequence. The aircraft would be used in preliminary conversion and continuation training. A secondary operational (strike) role was intended for the resulting design. In service date was specified as 1975, but the AST went into holding pattern when it emerged that the French were looking at a similar concept (what eventually emerged as ECAT). The discussions which followed between the British and French Staffs/Politicians ultimately lead to the SEPECAT Jaguar, which became a rather different beast than what had been intended to meet AST 362.
Taking what is in Tony Buttler's BSP:Bombers book, three designs were evolved in the UK to AST 362:
BAC Type 593 - Vickers Supermarine team proposal for a VG Strike Trainer
BAC P.45 - EE Warton team proposal for a VG Strike Trainer
Hawker P.1173 - Hawker Siddley Kingston team fixed wing Strike Trainer/Supersonic Hunter replacement.
Dimensions:
Span - 25 ft (8.7m)
Length - 45 ft (13.5m)
Wing Area - 210 sq ft
AUW - 20,250lb
Engine - 1 x 13,000lb Static Thrust RB-172 in reheat
Max Speed - M 1.4 @ sea level/M 2.4 @ 36,000 ft
Load - 2 x 30mm cannon/2 x 1000lb bombs or 2 x ASM's
In 1965 Discussions with the French regarding collaboration came to naught and eventually the decision was made to go it alone with a wholy British design. Following detailed evaluation of the submitted design the Hawker P.1173 was selected as the most suitable design to meet the requirement. The two rival VG types were seen as too technically risky, though the Operational Requirments Board had originally stated a strong preference for twin engines, studies presented by Hawker Siddley showed that the improvement in safety in a twin engined type was only translated into a 15% lower peacetime attrition rate, which had to be set against the higher developmental cost and greater maintenance burden of a twin engined design.
With budgets tight following the decision to continue with the TSR-2 project, the Treasury lobbied very strongly for selecting a single engine type. The P.1173 was to be powered by a Rolls Royce RB.172 lightweight turbofan developing 13,000lb static sea-level thrust. Hawker was awarded a development contract in May 1966 for 5 "Development Batch" airframes and long lead items for the first 24 production aircraft. there were no "prototypes" as such. From the very beginning the Hawker design team (and Hawker Siddley senior management) had viewed the P.1173's development as a transonic trainer to be a Trojan Horse way of achieving their long persued goal of developing a true successor to the immensely succesful Hawker Hunter.
To this end a single seat version had been studied from the very beginning, though this was for the moment kept a secret from both the MOD and the RAF. The priority remained a twin seat trainer with some air to ground capability (though this was meant to allow it's use as a tactical weapons trainer rather than as a dedicated strike platform).
The first DB airframe was rolled out on the 13th of May 1968, following a variety of ground trials including low speed and high speed taxi tests test pilot Duncan Simpson made the first flight of the P.1173 on the 8th of August 1968. The following 19 month test program revealed only a few minor issues that required changes to be made to the airframe and it's systems prior to the types acceptance into RAF service with deliveries to 226 OCU commencing in June 1970.
The test program had also revealed that the P.1173, soon to be named the Hawker Hart and designated the T.2 in RAF service, was a very high performance machine. Test Fights had reached Mach 2 even with the fixed geometry intakes and this re-ignited interest within the Hawker Siddley group of developing a single seat version as a cheap light-weight fighter for sale to export customers. A decision was made in December 1970 to privately fund the conversion of the 5th DB airframe as a single seat demonstrator. This rebuilt airframe flew for the first time in February 1973 by which time interest in a dedicated single seat strike model was growing in the Operational Requirments Board of the RAF.
This could be used as a cheaper adjunct to the very expensive TSR-2 Eagles, to be used against low value targets that the Eagles could not be risked against due to their high cost and high value as deep penetration assetts. A formal go ahead for a RAF specific single seater was received in May 1974 as the Hart FGR.1. This type was eventually used by 2, 6, 14, 20 & 41 squadrons in the close support/battlefield interdiction role from 1976 onwards. Initially they were armed with BL.755 cluster bombs, SNEB rocket pods and freefall bombs and were equipped with a simple nav/attack system and had only a small ranging radar for their two 30mm Aden guns. In 1984 the type received a Mid-Life Upgrade that added guided weapons capability, a new INS navigation system, redesigned cockpit with moving map display and a new light weight Pulse Doppler radar developed by Ferranti, the Blue Parakeet to be be redesignated as Hart FGR.3's. This now added a very useful air-to-air capability to these aircraft.
The type was used by the RAF until withdrawn due to defence cuts in 2007 (ironically only 3 years after the last had been upgraded to FGR.5 standard with glass cockpit and improved avionics). They were used by the RAF in both the First and Second Gulf War's, the NATO operations against Serbo-Yugolsavia and the US-UK invasion and subsequent counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan.
The twin seat trainer was used for advanced tactical weapons training by 19, 100 & 208 squadrons with the aircraft having a secondary war time role as CAS/BI aircraft. The FGR equiped sqaudrons also had two twin seaters each. The Hart trainer version remained in service with the RAF even after the Hart FGR.5's were withdrawn from service in 2007. Fitted with new digital cockpits and processed through a structural refurbishment program they were redesignated as Hart T.5's in 2006.
Hawker also launched a determined drive to win export sales for their single and twin seat versions, and were rewarded with a substantial number of sales to countries who either could not afford or justify the need for one of the US "Teen Series" jets, or could not get the US to supply these aircraft for various political reasons.
The initial export success, perhaps not suprisingly, was with India which selected the type as it's replacement for the Folland Gnat and the improved Ajeet in 1975. Hindustan Aviation Limited eventually went on to build 180 single seaters under licence, and 90 two seaters as trainers for the Indian Air Force.
Eventually sales were made of the Mk.50 single seater and Mk.55 twin seater to Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Indonesia and Singapore.
My build represents a Hart T.2 of 41 Squadron RAF in 1978. The aircraft is depicted with a training load of drop tanks and SNEB rocket pods.
The kit was made by cutting up a Hasegawa X-29 for the aft fuselage. The forebody is from a Kopro L-39 Albatross, wings and horizontal stabs are from MPM F-100 suitably cut up and sanded to the correct shape and aerofoil profile. The vertical stab is a suitably butchered Kitech F-18 stab and the exhaust is a cut down Italeri Gripen nozzle. The canopy is a cut up and modified Kitech F-18B canopy. It's not a perfect match for the actual canopy on the 1173 so I cut the canopy up so I could pose the two canopies open to disguise this fact.
The weapons and drop tanks are from an Airfix Hunter, the undercart is also from modified Airfix Hunter parts. I made the bay doors from plasticard using Italeri Hawk parts as guides. The whole build consumed what seemed like tonnes of putty, strip plasticard and yet more putty. The dorsal spine is made from laminated plasticard filed and sanded to the correct shape.
Decals are straight from an Italeri Jaguar T.2, the kit is airbrushed in the standard RAF wrap-round scheme of Dark Green and Dark Sea Grey using Xtracolour Acrylics.
The following pictures are of the single seat P.1173 as built by Geoff Baker (Thorvic) as a shadow build to help validate the approach I would be using in this build. This build depicts a Hart Mk.50 in service with the Omani Air Force.
My thanks goes to Geoff for his help in validating the scratchbuilding method to be used for this build, sourcing the kits for the build,providing constant advice and assistance whilst I was putting this together and above all for frequent kicks to my back bumper to keep me going forwards on this build, without those I don't think I would have persevered with it.
Prelude:
Leading up to the 1936 Olympics, Hitler’s global spectacle of Aryan racial superiority, the world had stood witness to his many provocative and arrogant actions and statements in the time since he had risen to power in Germany.
That Hitler had included Slavs along with Jews and Gypsies in his statements declaring which ethnicities he felt deserved complete eradication was not ignored in the halls of power in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Both countries had been upgrading their military equipment and training throughout the early 30s. By 1935, both countries had a defensive alliance to assist each other in defending their mutual territory and further development of their respective arsenals.
Of great concern to Czechoslovakia was their southern flank. In sharing a border with Austria and Hungary, both of which had strong ties to Germany, it was realized that it would be most prudent to try to secure additional alliances on the continent. As both Poland and Czechoslovakia shared a border with Romania at the time, an alliance with that country was considered essential. Using Hungary’s right wing leanings, its desire to reclaim the territory it lost to Romania in the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Hitler’s apparent willingness to help them do it as leverage; Czechoslovakia and Poland formally proposed a tri-national defensive alliance. After a major amount of negotiation, the Romanians accepted the proposal. This went into history as the Bucharest Alliance.
The Bucharest Alliance was a tenuous one in the beginning, the three countries did not exactly have a harmonious history with each other and there was much in the way of old animosities to overcome. It did, however seem that sense was over-riding history and the three countries realized it was in their mutual interests to combine resources and stand together against Hitler.
At the time of the Hossbach Conference, in November of 1937, where Hitler declared a clear intent to secure territory in Czechoslovakia, plans for the prototypes of the PZL.50 Jastrab and Avia B.135 and IAR 80 fighters were on the tables in Poland and Czechoslovakia and Romania and every attempt to accelerate their development was being made. The existing front line fighters in those countries were long in the tooth and not up to fighting what the Germans could send. A stopgap measure had to be found quickly to buy time for the development and implementation of the new fighters.
Enter the Hurricane:
By this time, the new Hawker Hurricane fighter was known about, and of great interest to the Bucharest Alliance countries as a potential stopgap measure. The introduction of the Hurricane into RAF service in December of 1937 was a key incentive for them to approach Great Britain with a proposal to not only purchase Hurricanes, but also open assembly lines for them on the continent if Britain would grant them a production license.
As it was known that these countries possessed highly skilled technical workforces that were competent to carry out such a task, and Hitler was becoming a more worrisome issue by the day for any European nation that wouldn’t align themselves with him, Britain was not about to say “no” to any help it could get in increasing production output and deployment of the new fighter. In spite of the geographic proximity to the Soviet Union, another large worry for Britain, production licenses for both the aircraft and the Merlin engine that powered it were quickly, and quietly, granted. The first production facilities were highly secretive and well concealed.
In early 1938, a handpicked group of top Polish, Czechoslovak and Romanian pilots were sent to Britain to be trained on the Hurricane, to accelerate the process, priority was given to any pilot who had some, however limited, command of English already. By the time they returned home in early summer of the same year, round the clock production of Hurricanes at all three factories had assured a respectable and viable force of the aircraft in the three countries. There was also no shortage of young men eager to be trained to fly it.
Storm and Counter Storm:
By this point, Germany had declared union with Austria and clear signs of mobilization were seen in Germany’s military along the border with Czechoslovakia, an invasion attempt was clearly in the works. Combined Polish, Czechoslovak and Romanian forces mobilized to counter any such attempt. However, the Hurricanes were kept back initially.
While it could not be said that Germany was completely ignorant to the three countries working with Britain, it was clear that they had underestimated the exact presence and strength of the Hurricane force in the region. At the time the Hitler proposed the Munich agreement, the combined force of Hurricanes was in the hundreds. If he had knowledge of the production lines, he was not showing it.
On September 30, 1938; in recognition of Hitler as the mad man that he was and in gratitude to Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania for their willingness to help produce the Hurricane, Britain refused to be signatory to the Munich Agreement. The Hurricane lines on the continent had been established and could not be compromised.
Hitler, enraged, gave the order to invade Czechoslovakia and Poland in October of that year. Germany’s first invasion attempt was largely on the western border and primarily intended to secure the Sudetenland area with its high percentage of Germanic descended people. The attempt was brief, bloody and not at all what the Germans had expected.
The Germans had intended on taking the countries primarily by numbers and overwhelming the combined defense forces. However, the cohesiveness and discipline of the joint Czechoslovak and Polish forces, in addition to better usage and deployment of their resources not only kept the Germans in check, it also effectively cut the entire territory of Silesia off from the rest of Germany.
The biggest shock for the Germans came in the air. Two fleets of Luftwaffe bombers, with relatively light fighter escort, bound for Pilsen and Liberec were all but cut to ribbons well before reaching their targets when they were jumped by large formations of Hurricanes.
The German bombers retreated and the Hurricane’s scope of presence in the region would be a secret no longer.
The western borders had been maintained. By the end of November, the Germans had been driven back to their own side of the border and the territories of Silesia and East Prussia had been annexed from them. Hurricanes had been stationed at key points and patrolled the borders routinely.
Knowing full well that Germany would try to retake the annexed regions, it was only a matter of time, the governments of the Bucharest Alliance instituted martial law in all regions within their borders that contained high Germanic populations. Any and all communication between Germanic populations in these countries and Germany or its allies would be seen as treason and severely punished.
The Main Act Begins:
Britain had little choice but to see Germany’s invasion attempt as an act of war, In December 1938 Britain, the Bucharest Alliance, Australia, New Zealand, France and Canada formally declared war on Germany and its allies.
Almost at once, Denmark became the first major battle ground of the war. In early January of 1939 Germany mounted an invasion into Denmark. As a clear sea corridor between Britain and Poland would be essential to maintaining logistical ties. Both countries mobilized their navies and converged on Denmark. A drive along Germany’s Baltic coast, by the Polish navy, army and air force to cut further German access to the Jutland Peninsula was also initiated. After three months of fighting, Denmark had been saved and an uninterrupted sea corridor between Britian and the Bucharest Alliance was established.
To support the established Polish land blockade between Denmark and Germany, the Danish military was furnished with surplus Polish Hurricanes, PZL.37 Los bombers and training on them.
In Poland, the PZL.50 Jastrab was on the eve of entering service and many Polish Hurricanes were being refitted to ground attack work.
A similar action was being taken with Czechoslovak and Romanian Hurricanes as the Avia B.135 and IAR.80 fighters were being put into service in the air defense role. As such a large number of early build Hurricanes became surplus in the region. Several of them found their way to Britain to bolster the RAF’s existing Hurricane fleet, still others were provided to Norway for their agreement to help defend the North Sea and keep the corridor to the Baltic open. In the North Sea, Danish and Norwegian Hurricanes were a scourge to any German ship that dared enter the region. Armed with armor piercing rockets and 30mm cannons, they were particularly feared by the crews of smaller surface vessels.
Through the summer of 1939, tension was kept on the border between the Bucharest Alliance, Germany, Austria and Hungary. With the assistance of Italian equipment, the Hungarian military was mobilizing along its borders with Czechoslovakia and Romania. A second, larger invasion was on the horizon.
The Devil Comes Calling:
Moscow saw the Bucharest alliance nations as potential stepping stones to securing a foothold further west in Europe. Seeing a second, larger invasion force amassing, the Soviet Union approached the Alliance governments with an offer of “assistance”.
The offer was to provide “assistance regiments” in key locations throughout the alliance countries to ensure as little territory as possible would be lost to any advance Germany attempted to make. Militarily the arrangement worked. However, the political ramifications were dire to say the least. To say that the Bucharest Alliance signing into such an agreement with the Soviets made relations between them and Britain frosty would have been a true understatement. Hitler was distasteful to Britain, Stalin only marginally less so. To see the Soviet Union joining the fray was not exactly welcome in all quarters.
In September of 1939, the combined forces of Germany and Hungary clashed with the Bucharest Alliance forces and their Soviet “assistance” all along the border region. It would be a bloody and long battle and would become known as the eastern front of the European Theatre in history books.
1940:
Having made little headway eastward, Germany redirected the bulk of its aggressions westward; first invading France and then directly attacking Britain
The face of the Soviet assistance regiments was changing rapidly. What had begun as simple tactical help, quite often a Soviet crew in Bucharest Alliance provided hardware, had transformed into clearly recognizable Soviet army detachments or full regiments with their own Soviet produced machinery, including bombers. Many of their outposts had been enlarged to near base sized fortifications.
Many higher-ranking officers within the militaries of the Bucharest Alliance were demoted or outright replaced by Soviet officers. Several Polish, Czechoslovakian and Romanian officers, fearing for their positions quietly left the region and volunteered to serve in Danish, British or Norwegian military units.
The Battle of Britain began and the ranks of the RAF had been reinforced with many former Bucharest Alliance pilots who possessed valuable combat experience in the Hurricane.
The Axis was formally established between Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain. Throughout WWII Germany would locate death and forced labour camps on the Iberian Peninsula. Germany was also granted Spanish land to establish testing grounds for new weaponry.
Hungary fell in 1940. One of the bloodiest battles along the eastern front was the battle for north Transylvania, a former Hungarian territory that had been given to Romania when the Austro-Hungarian Empire was dissolved. Hungary, with Italian backing, staged an attack to recover the region by force. Not only did they fail to recover the region, they paid dearly for the attempt.
In retaliation, the Soviet forces, with largely Romanian fighter escort, launched large scale bombing raids on the Hungarian cities of Debrecen, Szeged and Kecskemet. The Soviets swiftly occupied the eastern part of the country and demanded unconditional surrender threatening an even heavier bombardment of Budapest. Initially Hungary resisted, however after a week of near relentless and merciless strafing by Romanian Hurricanes of the bombed cities and Budapest itself, the resistance was crushed. On May 1, 1940, Hungary surrendered to Soviet control. Shortly after, in June, the Soviets would use Hungary and Romania to mount their occupation of the Balkans.
An Alliance Broken:
With the occupation of the Balkans, Britain formally severed ties with the Bucharest Alliance. Having their hands full with Germany, and America yet to involve itself in the conflict in any official sense, Britain used great caution in properly and diplomatically severing those ties. A war with the Soviet Union could not be risked. Newly elected British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill declared that the corrupted Bucharest Alliance could no longer be considered a truly reliable ally.
In August of 1940, Britain and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty in Copenhagen. The treaty stipulated, among other things, that the Soviet forces were to come no further west than the Czechoslovak border with Germany and that the Bucharest Alliance would no longer be recognized as an official body by Britain or her allies. The signing of this treaty also revoked any licenses granted to the Bucharest Alliance for producing the Hurricane or the Merlin engine for it. However, with Soviet support, unauthorized Hurricane production would continue.
Taking advantage of the break of Britain with the Bucharest Alliance, and the desire to have the Balkans for itself, Germany turned their attentions again eastward. Austria was still under German control and would be used to mount a land based counter occupation into the Balkan Peninsula. While the Germans and Italians moved eastward, the Soviets and Bucharest Alliance secured Bulgaria and much of Greece with little trouble.
The battle for Austria was the beginning of the end for any hope the Axis had of securing the Balkans. In August of 1941, the first of many Soviet heavy bombing missions into Austria was initiated. Two large fleets of Petlyakov PE-8 bombers with large fighter escort from bases in Czechoslovakia and Hungary set out for Vienna and Graz. Despite Luftwaffe counter attack, they were largely successful in inflicting major damage on both cities. Through late summer and autumn, the Soviets and former Bucharest Alliance nations pushed both west and south to establish a land blockade between Germany and the Balkans. In December of 1941 they succeeded in establishing such a blockade between Linz, Austria and Trieste in Italy. Three months later, the Axis surrendered the Balkans. Shortly thereafter, the Soviets occupied Turkey.
The Curtain Falls:
March 1942 marked the end of any further major fighting along the eastern front, there were still small localized skirmishes here and there, eventually Germany retook part of its Baltic coast region, but the line was clearly drawn as to where Socialism’s influence on Europe would be and the Soviet Union and countries that would form the nucleus of the Warsaw Pact had made it clear that it was a line that could be held. An evolved heavy air defense variant of the Hurricane had emerged early in 1942 and squadrons of them had been strategically stationed along the border region as a warning of what the Luftwaffe could expect to greet them.
A virtual straight line was drawn from the point where the German, Austrian and Czechoslovak borders converged south to Trieste. The balance of the war in the European Theatre would be fought to the west of that line.
Austria lay split into a democratic west and socialist east and would remain so until 1989. Vienna would remain the capital in the east while Salzburg was established as the western capital.
The entirety of the Balkan Peninsula, including Greece, was firmly in Moscow’s grip and would remain so until 1989.
Signatory to the establishment of the Warsaw Pact in 1955 were: The Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Austria, Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Romania, Hungary, and Turkey.
The Hurricane was one of the most produced fighters of the war regardless of who had built them. Its actions, both Heroic and oppressive in the hands of Bucharest Alliance pilots too numerous to list. It was a ubiquitous shape throughout Europe and North Africa. The exact number of Hurricanes built is highly speculative, particularly after August of 1940. In the post war years it was widely suspected that the Soviets had opened up their own production lines for Hurricanes as instruments and placards found in the wreckage of many later aircraft with Bucharest Alliance nation markings contained Cyrilic characters.
After the fall of Socialism, the existence of Soviet production lines was proven. While the true production numbers of the Hurricane family will never be known for certain, it is estimated to have been in the tens of thousands.
Czechoslovak Hurricane K7-6 “Magda’s Revenge”
The subject of my build was a Czechoslovak Hurricane flown by the young, but respected, Kapitan (Captain) Ladislav Holy. He dubbed his aircraft “Magda’s Revenge” in honour and memory of his sister, Magdalena (Magda for short) who, along with their aunt and Uncle who had raised them, were killed in a Luftwaffe straffing attack on their home town of Teplice inearly 1939.
In mid 1940, Holy found his entire career in jeopardy. He had been in line to be promoted and take over deputy commanding duties of his regiment, based at Hradec Kralove. His promotion was overuled by theregional commander of the Soviet “Assistance regiment” ; the primary reason given for overuling the promotion was that the art work on his aircraft was of too personal a nature rather than patriotic and would set a “bad example” for his subordinates in the unit and encourage them to take the war too personally.
However, within the unit, it was generally felt that what cost Holy the promotion was his clear popularity with his fellow unit mates, both officers and enlisted, that made the Soviet commanders percieve him as a threat to their growing authority. It generally is surmised that he would have been promoted had he been more supportive of the Soviet “Assistance regiments”.
Holy’s lot got increasingly worse after the debacle over his lack of promotion. He was given increasingly more dangerous missions to fly in the hopes that he would become a combat loss and so no longer a threat. Much to the disdain of the Soviet orders to put him deeper into harm’s way, Holy’s skills as a pilot were always enough to bring him back home.
In early 1941, rumour in the unit were that the Soviets were planning to strip Holy of his wings and court martial him on charges of “insubordination” stemming from his ever increasing popularity in his unit everytime he came back from a mission alive. To this day, surviving members of the “Assistance regiments” deny such a plan was ever afoot to discredit and destroy Holy.
The rumors were too much for Holy, he, and three other pilots, decided in mid February of 1941 that they would desert the unit and try to fly their planes to Denmark.. On the evening of February 15, the plan was set in motion. Holy and the other three pilots were scheduled to go out on a night training mission and decided to use it as their opportunity to flee.
Their Hurricanes, early variants of the heavy air defence version that would eventually debut in 1942, had pods for 20 mm cannons built into the wings. In a very risky move, Holy and his wingmen had the cannon modules removed and replaced with auxiliary fuel cells. This move reduced their armament to four .50 calibre machine guns, but did ensure their aircraft could cover the distance to Denmark..
They took their aircraft to maximum altitude as quickly as they could and hoped to be well over Poland before Soviet commanders suspected anything was amiss and put the alert out to Polish forces and Soviet forces in Poland to intercept them.
The flight was largely uneventful until they were just past Poznan and turning toward Denmark. They were suddenly jumpedby five aircraft from the local “assistance regiment”; quickly breaking formation, they were forced to engage the Soviets. Holy and his wingmen quickly dispatched two of their attackers when two additional aircraft joined the fray, this time Polish Hurricanes.
The Polish pilots, led by Martin Gorny, made it clear early on that they were there to support Holy and his men. Gorny and Holy had trained on the Hurricane together in Britain and had become friends quickly. Word had travelled discretely to Gorny about what Holy and his men were trying to do and why. Gorny was in a similar situation to Holy, fearing for his career at the hands of the Soviets and decided to use the situation as a an opportunity for his own escape.
Gorny and his wingman down two of the other marauding Soviet planes and sent the other into retreat. The attack had come at the cost of one of Holy’s wingmen, Pavel Lipa. The wreckage of Lipa’s aircraft was found in a Polish lake in the mid 1950s. It is generally agreed that he escaped from his aircraft, but his whereabouts after the incident have remained a mystery. Today he is still officially listed as MIA.
Gorny and his wingman, Janusz Sokolski, joined Holy’s formation and continued toward Denmark.. Near the Danish border they encountered anti aircraft fire from both land and ships. Sokolski’s aircraft sustained a direct hit and was destoyed leaving him no chance of escape. A hit to the tail of one of Holy’s remaining wingmen ,Stanislav Borsky’s , aircraft sent him spinning into the Baltic. Borsky’s body was recovered by a Danish navy ship the next morning.
The three remaining aircraft dropped altitude quickly and engaged in a mad dash across the Danish border. Holy was able to radio the control tower of a nearby Danish air force base and, with no small difficulty, arrange clearance to land for himself, his remaining wingman, Tomas Kovarek and Martin Gorny. All three aircraft wer dangerously low on fuel upon arrival.
“Magda’s Revenge” and the other two Hurricanes were immediately handed over to Danish forces for evaluation as they represented a variant not at that time known outside the Bucharest Alliance. The three pilots briefed the Danish air force on the variant.
Kovarek’s aircraft had been damaged in the escape and he opted to stay in Denmark while the presence of Holy and Gorny and their undamaged aircraft were requested in Britain. Holy and Gorny flew their aircraft across the North Sea under heavy RAF escort directly to Hawker aircraft facilities. The aircraft were immediately impounded and heavily scrutinised by both Hawker and RAF authorities. The two pilots found themselves givng similar briefings to British officials as they had to the Danish ones.
Their aircraft would never fly combat missions again and instead were set aside for research and test flying for the development of further Hurricane variants by Hawker. A similar end was for Kovarek’s aircraft once it was rendered airworthy again. A Hurricane assembly line was opened in Denmark and Kovarek’s aircraft served as a research aircraft until it was destroyed in a crash, with Kovarek at the controls in 1943. Kovarek was hospitalised but did not survive his injuries.
Gorny and Holy were eventually assigned to RAF Hurricane units and both survived the war. Sadly, in their lifetimes, they were not able to return to their homelands. Branded as traitors by the Socialist regime that had taken over Poland and Czecholsovakia after the war, there could simply be no going back for them.
Gorny found his way to Australia and was instrumental in helping to develop the Post war RAAF. Holy settled in south western England, married and raised a family and worked as a regional airline pilot in the post war years.
“Magda’s Revenge” was dismantled and passed from one owner to another after the war but was never reassembled and simply gathered dust in various hangars over the years. Though she languished, she was fortunately always hangared so deterioration was minimal.
She was eventually taken on by a German museum in the early 80s and restored to static condition. Sadly, the “Magda’s Revenge” artwork could not be referenced for reproduction as no knowm pictures, drawings or descriptions existed of it and Holy himself would talk very little of the war, even to his own family. He passed on shortly before the restoration was completed in 1985 and the true form of the “Magda’s Revenge “ artwork died with him. However, as some small testament to the identity of the aircraft and it’s history, the patch of dark green paint Holy was ordered to slap over the airtwork by the Soviets, was reproduced in the restoration.
After the fall of Socialism, she was presented to Prague’s Kbely Museum and, in a special ceremony attended by Holy’s son, daughters and grandchildren, Holy was posthumously named a national hero of the Czech Republic and promoted to a full Colonel.
OK. Tagged as a WIFing Neophyte, I felt that I had to take action, so here is my WIFing history.
Firstly my real name is Jim Bricknell. I am a long time member of IPMS UK. I am also an Air Traffic Control Officer with the UK NATS, and have been based at the Shanwick Oceanic Air Traffic Control Centre for the last seventeen years. So if any of you are members of the IPMS UK What If site, and have seen JayBeeShanwick, that’s me!
I am also, through my professional and modelling world, an old friend of Mike McEvoy.
My very first WIF was created in the late 1950’s, or very early 1960’s, and was a combination of the AIRFIX Swordfish and Auster Antarctic to give the Fleet Air Arm it’s first float equipped, monoplane, torpedo bomber with an enclosed canopy. The model was never painted, and so remained in white and yellow plastic till it’s dying days, which may (I can not remember exactly when) have been very soon after that.
Modelling lapsed for a number of years due to the usual reasons (girls, marriage, babies, in that order!) but it resumed in the early 1970’s.
In the mid 1970’s I was a trainee ATCO and was doing my Area Radar training at Northern Radar (RAF Lindeholme, near Doncaster). Having been a member of IPMS UK for a few years I sought out the nearest branch, and this turned out to be Sheffield.
Here I met another long time friend, Neil Robinson.
However, it was at one of the monthly meetings here that things changed. The Trent Modellers Society came for a visit, and one of their members was talking to me about the Hasegawa CF-104 (F-104G kit) which I had painted up in the Tiger Striped markings of 439 Sqdn., at that time there were no transfer sheets available for anything like this. He also had a realy lovely 1/72 scale model of a Cosmic Wind racer that he had produced from his own vac-form. The next thing that he spoke about was the model he had built of a tandem two seat Lightning. This engaged my interest. Didn’t it just, what happened after this is all your fault KIT SPAKMAN!!
However, you might have been right! In an article in Aircraft Illustrated February 2006 there was an article about the roll out of the IWM’s TSR-2.
In this article Jimmy Dell, the No.2 Chief Test Pilot for BAC, was asked “You also flew chase, I believe, in a Lightning (a two-seater with a BAC photographer in the back on some of the early TSR2 flight”.
QED!
Not long after that, I completed my training and was posted to Stornoway Aerodrome in the Outer Hebrides. I formed an IPMS branch there (Isle of LEWIS Branch) but after three years, when I was posted to Edinburgh airport, the branch ceased to exist.
It was during this period in the Outer Hebrides, faced with a Hasegawa kit of the A-4 Skyhawk, with a fuselage that was reportedly over sized, and armed with Kit Spakamn’s thoughts, that I conceived, and produced, the side-by-side, two seat Skyhawk trainer. (Photos to follow).
It was shortly after this, having spoken to Mike McEvoy about the proposed Dasault Twin Ouragan, that I conceived of, and built , the twin Vampire HFR-21 (again, photos to follow).
Once I was back in central Scotland I contacted members of IPMS, and the “Central Scotland” branch of IPMS was formed.
We introduced monthly themed competitions, and once a year we had “IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN!”. The rules were that the model had to be of something that really might have happened, and, you had to provide documented proof!
So, there were lots of Luftwaffe/Kriegsmarine Lightnings, and some other things.
For my part, the Luftwaffe two-seat Lighnting, in splinter camouflage, with over-wing tanks, no longer exists, nor does the Austrian Air Force single seat Lightning, in natural metal, with BAE SkyFlash missiles (AIM-9 Sparrow derivatives) on the fuselage pylons, and twin Sidewinder rails on the over-wing pyloms. They have been reduced to produce a lomg time ago.
But, I did produce others which do exist, and the photos will follow.
They are:-
Heinkel He-100, as supplied to Japan.
The Mikoyan“FIREFOX” as it might have appeared in the film.
Clint Eastwood, as Director, had asked the Swedish government for the use of one of the Viggen prototypes for the film. Due to the testing schedule, this was refused.
Folland Sea Gnat T-3.
The larger wing, and tail surfaces had been designed for a proposed single seat naval fighter. They were subsequently used in the design of the two seat trainer for the RAF.
There might have been a two-seat trainer for the FAA.
QED.
That is it for the moment.
I will try and get the photos into a gallery over the next week or so.
SABCA took the design into production, and only 3 months later on March 5 1947, the Flitzer took to the air. one problem was the engine, the BMW 003 engines were no longer, so SABCA integrated a De Havilland Goblin 3 engine. the Belgian Air Force was verry impressed by the performance of the aircraft, and said they found the fighter they were looking for. a total of 160 Flitzer F-Mk.1's and 40 T-Mk.2's were ordered and all were delivered to the BAF by 1949, equiping 10 squadrons, 2 of witch were based on Basis Kamina in the belgian Congo. it was also the first belgian fighter to be exported, over 500 were exported to India, France, West-Germany and Brasil.
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