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The Hurricane was the RAF's
first monoplane fighter, going into service before its famous partner in RAF
service the Spitfire. The Hurricane was available in greater numbers for its
finest hour in the Battle of Britain, where it played a crucial role in the
defence of this country, shooting down more enemy aircraft than the Spitfire.
Hurricane Mk XIIa 5711 (G-HURI) was built in 1942 by the
Canadian Car Foundry as part of their sixth production batch and it joined the
Royal Canadian Air Force in 1943. It is believed to have served with
123 Squadron at Debert before going to 127 and 129 Squadrons at Dartmouth and
onto 1 Operational Training Unit at Bagotville.
Struck of charge from the RCAF in 1947 it was purchased by a syndicate in
Saskatchewan. It was restored by Paul Mercer in 1985 and made its first
post-restoration flight in 1989.
Historic Aircraft Collection acquired the Hurricane in 2002; it is still based
at Duxford where it is the perfect stablemate for HAC's Spitfire Mk.Vb.
After undergoing an 18 month
extensive programme of repairs and maintenance the Hurricane reappeared in an
entirely new paint scheme for 2004. G-HURI now flies as 'Z5140' with the code
letters HA-C and is in a paint scheme that was worn by a Gloster-built Hurricane
IIB, flown with 126 Squadron during the siege of Malta. Z5140 arrived at Malta
on June 6th, 1941 during Operation Rocket, having flown off HMS Ark Royal.
Whilst it would be expected that the aircraft would be in a tropical paint
finish, the Malta squadrons were desperate to receive any aircraft regardless of
colour and the first ones were kept in the familiar "Battle of Britain" green
and brown scheme.
In September 2005 Hurricane “Z5140” became the first
Hurricane to return to the Mediterranean island of Malta since the Second
World War. It flew there together with Spitfire BM597 as part of the
Merlins Over Malta
project.
Hurricane
Mk XIIa G-HURI is on permanent display in Hangar 4 at the
Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
Click here to download a PDF
datasheet for the Hurricane
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