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Creation of Sopwith factory
On Canterbury Road, the Sopeith Aircraft Factory is founded -
The first flight of the Sopwith Camel
The Sopwith Camel was made as a replavcement for the Sopwith Pup. The Camel had much better handling than the Pup (this sometimes worked against it) and could go up to 1500 bhp. -
Sopwith changes to Hawker
After the war, Sopwith went into liquidation. This was due to the fact that they were scared that the goverment impose a hefty tax liability on them. So now, Tommy Sopwith merged with Harry Hawker and some other people and made Hawker Engineering -
The Hawker Fury is first flown
The Hawker Hornet, or the Haeker Fury as it was known for a short while of time when it was made was the foundation plane for the Hawker Hurrincane, probably the greatest fighter plane Britain ever had. Until the Hurricane was made, the Fury was the only fighter plane we had and while it may have been an exceptionally good plane, it was not as good as the planes the Germans had -
The Hawker Hurricane is introduced
The Hawker Hurricane is arguably the greatest fighter plane that Britain has to offer. In the Battle of Britain, the Hawker Hurricane had be the cause of over 60% of all the Allied victories, showing its sheer dominance in the Battle of Britain -
The Hawker Typhoon
The Hawker Typhoon was a bit of a flop at the start, with it hopefully being the direct succesor of the Hawker Hurricane, the greatest British war-plane of all time. It was a single seater bomber plane and was capable of flying at very low altitude. However, with the help of piolts such as Roland Beaumont, it became a good night-time intruder and an extremely good long-range fighter. It was also very fast, with it breaking the speed record going at 652 mph -
Hawker Hunter
The Hawker Hunter was the first plane made after World War 2. It broke the speed record, beating the Hawker Typhoon, going at 727 mph. The Hunter was also one of the first British planes to be exported to different countries, being exported to 21 different air-forces. It is also still being used by the Lebanon Air Force. -
Hawker Harrier
The Hawker Harrier was the first fighter plane to have vertical take-off. In order to do this, it used rotating nosels in order to accomplish this. The Harrier was armed with a Vickers machine gun and a Lewis gun which carrried no more than 1000 pounds. The Harrier was extremely fast, reaching a top speed of 1,175 mph. The Harrier was also used by the US Marine Corps in the 1970s as well as fighting in the Falklands War in 1982.
