Often times there are important aircraft built in rather large numbers that goes somewhat unnoticed by the aviation enthusiast. One of these is Hawker's Typhoon. Initially developed as a replacement for the Hurricane, it was rushed into unit service where its many faults were quickly revealed. Though quite fast at low level, its Sabre engine lost a lot of power above 15,000 feet, pretty well dooming it as a dogfighter. European air to air combat usually took place at or above these levels. Its Sabre engine was also a cause of a lot of trouble. It was prone to catching fire, gave off a prodigious amount of CO2, requiring its pilots to be on oxygen as long as the engine was running, and  initially had a very short engine life of about 25 hours.

Naturally, this was not good, but the plane had a great deal of promise thanks to its heavy armament of four 20mm cannon and it was decided to use it mostly for ground attack. It was fitted with bomb racks and later rocket rails for the then secret rocket projectiles (RP). The aircraft was developed rather quickly as faults were found and fixed. Unit service showed that the framed canopy was not good and a 'bubble' canopy was developed and retrofitted. The original three blade prop was replaced by a four blade version and the engine woes were eventually brought under control. It was also found that the tail section was weak and several failed under load. The fault was thought to be elevator flutter and while the elevators were fixed and the tail reinforced, it didn't totally eliminate rear fuselage failures.

Regardless, the war meant that the aircraft had to be in unit service in enough numbers to operate with the newly formed 2nd TAF (Tactical Air Force) that would be accompanying Allied ground forces in their march through Europe after D-Day.

This book by Chris Thomas follows the design and development of the Typhoon. It's initial squadron introductions and modifications is also clearly detailed. But the brunt of the book is on the use of the Typhoon with the 2nd TAF. All of the various wings and squadrons are provided sections and as the war progresses, we can follow their exploits until the end of the war. It has a goodly number of pilot and crew stories, with some of the more interesting characters in these units highlighted. Not surprisingly, with the end of the war, a huge number of these war weary airframes were soon reduced to scrap with only the best still left continuing on in the RAF.

Typical of Osprey books, there are a superlative number of period photos of the planes and those who flew them. This is further enhanced by a large selection of color profiles by author that show examples of the Typhoon as the war progressed.

This is an outstanding book on the subject and is one that I can easily recommend to you.

October 2010

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