Hawker P.1052

Hawker's story on page 1052

In September 1947, a few years after the end of World War II (1939-1945), when piston-powered fighter jets dominated air combat, British aviation flew what would become the Hawker Seahawk naval fighter for British aviation. the first time. By the end of this single-seat, single-engine platform, a total of 542 units will be produced, and the product will fly with foreign navies until the early 1980s.

An equally successful design laid the foundation for another Hawker product, the "P. 1052" - a Royal Aircraft Institute (RAE) design used as a dedicated test bed for high-speed swept wing research in the early 1990s during the Cold War.

Hawker engineers were working on plans for an experimental high-speed swept test model as early as 1945, but it didn't gain momentum until early 1946, when World War II was nearly over, with two A - Prototype contract awarded by the British Department of Aviation to specification E. 38/46. The contract was awarded in May 1947, and thorough work followed to bring the aircraft to fruition - it was a direct offshoot of the design work for the P. 1040, which later became the aforementioned Seahawk.

The final test form uses a metal structure and a circular streamlined hull design. The single-seat cockpit is mounted under a large light-frame two-piece canopy above the nose. The wings are centrally mounted on the sides of the fuselage with a 35-degree sweep. The triangular air intakes are located at the root of the wing for intake of single-engine units buried in the fuselage, through the wing root canal. The fin consists of a circular vertical fin with a horizontal plane mounted halfway through the structure.

Fully retractable tricycle landing gear for ground operation.

Power comes from a single Rolls-Royce R.N. 2 "Nene" turbojet producing 5,000 pounds of thrust.

The original prototype, named "VX272", was completed in 1948 and flew for the first time on November 19 of the same year. The second contract prototype "VX279" flew in the air on April 13, 1949. A third static airframe was eventually added to the stable for other controlled ground tests.

The VX279 has been redesigned with a single-jet exhaust (as opposed to a dual-jet form), a revised tail (now with swept surfaces) and "variable incidence" elevators to better handle higher speed flight Envelope. Changes to this prototype are sufficient to send this entry on its own development path, described elsewhere on this site as "P.

1081".

At the same time, the VX272 continues to fly in a research-led manner - culminating in enhanced fuselage and wing major aircraft elements, production Seahawk-proven landing gear, and subtle aerodynamic improvements to address emerging high - Speed ??issues, and the original tail of the early VX279 prototypes with snap hooks for carrier deck landings. In this camouflage, the VX272 successfully completed takeoff and landing from the deck of the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle in May 1952. A variable incidence tail assembly was eventually incorporated into the prototype in June to complete the new look of the aircraft - which first flew in September 1953 and was then downgraded in favor of the 'P.

1067' abandoned - this particular entry Will be a classic Hawker Hunter production fighter (detailed elsewhere on this page).

When completed, the P. 1052 will have an overall length of 39.6 feet, a wingspan of 31.5 feet, and a height of 10.5 feet. Empty weight reaches 9,450 lbs and maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) is 13,500 lbs.

Performance specs include a top speed of 682.5 mph, a service ceiling of 45,500 feet and a climb rate of 3,864 feet per minute.

Specification

Basic

Production

Roles

Dimensions

Weight

Performance

Performance

Armor

Changes