Well, not yet. Following the taster in the form of Centaurus engine parts posted last month (Roll Out The Barrel), I have failed to find any Tempest action in the archive apart from this. The top pic is not my 'plane but has to be shown because i love the shape. The MkII was in fact finally sorted after the war had ended and in my opinion is a much prettier machine than the Napier Sabre powered MkV which did see action. The Tempest was conceived by Hawkers as a successor to the Typhoon in its ground attack role, with a thinner wing chord and a lot more power it was considerably faster, I think the MkII was the fastest propeller airplane to see service with the RAF. The second pic is of two of the ex Indian Air Force MkIIs prior to being squished into containers and shipped back to blighty, the right hand one ended up in the Diplo workshop, sadly no longer on the fleet and believed to be in France. 2500 hp @ 2500 rpm. MORE POWER
8 comments:
It all brings back to mind H.E.Bates' Fair Stood the Wind for France. All these pics need is a farmer's daughter weeping in one corner, possibly with an economy WW11 Gauloise trapped in an un-lipsticked mouth.
Oh, and by the way, great, and I mean great, blog title.
Oh...I've gone into ecstasy! Did one of the Tempests go to Duxford? I spent an hour there some time back watching a man rebuilding an Indian Tempest. He took about 30 mins to install one bolt using a socket wrench from the biggest set of Snap-On tools I have seen outside of the McLaren F1 garage! Was it you? And I know there's a risk that you'll put me right but I think the DH Hornet would outrun the Tempest II. Beautiful post!
A F-A - your almost certainly right about the DH Hornet, beautiful machine. I was talking out of my hat and obviously had failed to engage the multi-engine category in my befuddled data base.
Re-read 'Fair Stood The Wind for France' a couple of years ago, on holiday. I'd forgotten what a great book it is. Also, saw an under-rated Czech movie recently: 'Dark Blue World'. Contains some excellent flying sequences; no Tempests 'though. Great photos Diplo.
Talking about Czechs, does anyone know the Lithuanian for 'you have beautiful hands' ?
Hands ?! are you sure that's what you want to say ?
Well no, but I've got to start somewhere.
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