Hawker Tempest

1. Lead

The Hawker Tempest was the fastest British piston-engine fighter of the Second World War, and one of the finest fighter aircraft of the conflict. Developed from the Hawker Typhoon, it entered service in early 1944, just in time to meet the German V-1 flying bomb offensive against London, and it became the most successful V-1 interceptor of the war, credited with destroying more than 600 of the missiles.

It then went on to serve as a ground-attack fighter over Normandy and north-west Europe, where its speed, its four 20 mm cannon and its ability to carry bombs and rockets made it one of the most feared Allied aircraft of the final year of the war.

Only 1,702 were built, and the Tempest’s service was short — it arrived late, and it was soon overtaken by the jet age — but in the eighteen months in which it fought, it earned a reputation as a superb fighting machine, and its pilots, among them the French ace Pierre Clostermann, regarded it as the best fighter they had ever flown.

The Tempest was, in many ways, the Typhoon done right. The Typhoon, which had entered service in 1941, was a powerful aircraft with a troubled history: its thick wing limited its speed at altitude, its engine was unreliable, and its tail could fail in a dive.

The Tempest kept the Typhoon’s engine and its armament, but it had a new, thinner wing, a longer fuselage and a redesigned tail, and these changes transformed the aircraft: it was faster at all altitudes, it handled better, and it could dive safely at speeds that the Typhoon could not.

The result was an aircraft that could catch the V-1, which flew at about 640 km/h, and that could outrun almost any German piston-engine fighter at low level. The Tempest’s story is the story of a design that learned from its predecessor’s mistakes, and of an aircraft that arrived just in time to do the jobs that no other Allied fighter could do.

2. Key Facts

Type	Single-engine fighter / fighter-bomber
Origin	United Kingdom
Designer	Sydney Camm (Hawker Aircraft)
Manufacturer	Hawker Aircraft Ltd
First flight	2 September 1942
In service	1944–1953 (RAF)
Produced	1943–1948; 1,702 built
Crew	1
Length	10.3 m (Tempest V)
Wingspan	12.5 m
Height	4.9 m
Empty weight	About 4,800 kg
Maximum take-off weight	About 6,200 kg
Engine	Napier Sabre IIA H-24, about 2,180 hp (Tempest V)
Top speed	About 695 km/h
Range	About 1,200 km (about 2,400 km with drop tanks)
Service ceiling	About 11,000 m
Armament	Four 20 mm Hispano Mk V cannon; up to 900 kg of bombs or eight RP-3 rockets
Notable role	Most successful V-1 flying bomb interceptor

3. Background and Development

From Typhoon to Tempest

The Tempest began as a fix for the Typhoon. The Typhoon, designed by Sydney Camm at Hawker, had entered service in 1941 as a fighter, but it was soon found to be disappointing at altitude: its thick wing, which had been designed for strength, created too much drag, and the aircraft was slow above 6,000 metres.

The Air Ministry asked Hawker for an improved version, and Camm’s team proposed a new wing — thinner, with a laminar-flow section, and with a different planform — and a longer fuselage to improve stability. The result was first called the Typhoon II, and then, as the changes grew, the Tempest.

The first prototype flew on 2 September 1942, and it was immediately clear that the new aircraft was a great improvement: it was faster than the Typhoon at all altitudes, and it handled better in every respect.

The Sabre engine

The Tempest’s engine was both its strength and its weakness. The Napier Sabre was a 24-cylinder, H-block engine, one of the most powerful piston engines of the war, producing about 2,180 horsepower in the Sabre IIA that powered the Tempest V.

It gave the Tempest its speed — about 695 km/h, the fastest of any British piston fighter — and it gave the aircraft a rate of climb and a dive performance that no other Allied fighter could match at low level. But the Sabre was also unreliable, particularly in its early versions, and it demanded careful maintenance and skilled mechanics.

The engine’s problems delayed the Tempest’s entry into service, and they remained a concern throughout the aircraft’s career: Tempest squadrons needed more maintenance than Spitfire squadrons, and their serviceability was lower. The pilots forgave the engine because of what it gave them: speed, and the ability to catch anything in the sky.

Into service in 1944

The Tempest entered service in January 1944, with No. 3 Squadron, and it was just in time. In June 1944, a week after D-Day, Germany began launching V-1 flying bombs against London, and the RAF needed a fighter that could catch them.

The V-1 flew at about 640 km/h, at low altitude, and most Allied fighters were too slow to catch it; the Tempest, with a top speed of about 695 km/h, was one of the few that could. The Tempest squadrons were moved to the south coast, and they became the RAF’s principal V-1 interceptors, destroying more than 600 of the missiles in the summer of 1944.

The Tempest’s service had begun with the hardest job in the RAF, and it had done it better than any other aircraft.

4. Design

The thin wing

The Tempest’s most important feature was its wing. The new wing was thinner than the Typhoon’s, with a laminar-flow section that reduced drag, and it had a different shape: the leading edge was straight, the trailing edge was swept forward, and the wingtips were clipped.

The result was an aircraft that was faster at all altitudes, that handled better in a dive, and that could be dived at speeds that would have torn the Typhoon apart. The wing also housed the Tempest’s armament: four 20 mm Hispano Mk V cannon, two in each wing, with a high rate of fire and a large ammunition supply.

The cannon were the Tempest’s principal weapon, and they were effective against aircraft, against ground targets and against the V-1, whose small size made it a difficult target for machine guns.

Fuselage, cockpit and handling

The Tempest’s fuselage was longer than the Typhoon’s, which improved its stability, and its tail was redesigned, with a larger fin and a new tailplane, which cured the Typhoon’s tail failures. The cockpit was roomy and well laid out, with a good view forward and to the sides, and the pilot sat high, with the engine in front of him and the radiator under the fuselage.

The aircraft handled well: it was stable as a gun platform, it was responsive in a turn, and it was forgiving to fly, which mattered for the young pilots who flew it in 1944 and 1945. Its one handling fault was its take-off: the Sabre’s torque was strong, and the aircraft needed a firm hand on the rudder until it was airborne.

Once in the air, however, the Tempest was one of the best-handling fighters of the war.

Armament and ground attack

The Tempest was designed as a fighter, but it became a fighter-bomber. Its four 20 mm cannon were its principal weapon, and they were supplemented by bombs and rockets: the Tempest could carry two 450 kg bombs under its wings, or eight RP-3 rockets, and it used both against German ground targets in Normandy and north-west Europe.

The aircraft’s speed and its low-level performance made it ideal for ground attack: it could approach a target at high speed, deliver its bombs or rockets, and be gone before the defences could react. The Tempest’s ground-attack work was dangerous — the squadrons flew at low level, in the face of German anti-aircraft fire, and their losses were high — but it was effective, and it became the Tempest’s principal role in the last year of the war.

5. Variants

Variant	Years	Key features	Production
Tempest Mk I	1943	Prototype; Sabre IV engine; never entered service	1
Tempest Mk II	1945–1948	Bristol Centaurus radial engine; tropical service	About 450
Tempest Mk V	1944–1945	Main wartime version; Sabre IIA engine; four 20 mm cannon	About 800
Tempest Mk VI	1944–1945	Sabre V engine; improved performance	About 140
Tempest F.2	1946–1948	Post-war version of the Mk II	Included above
Tempest F.6	1946–1949	Post-war version of the Mk VI	Included above
Tempest TT.5	1948–1953	Target tug conversion	About 30 converted

The Tempest Mk V was the version that fought the war. It entered service in January 1944, and it was the aircraft that hunted the V-1 and fought over Normandy and north-west Europe. The Mk VI, with a more powerful Sabre V engine, entered service late in the war and saw only limited combat, and the Mk II, with a Bristol Centaurus radial engine in place of the Sabre, did not reach the front line before the war ended — it was built for service in the Far East, where the radial engine was thought to be more reliable in tropical conditions, but Japan surrendered before it could be used in combat.

The post-war Tempests, the F.2 and the F.6, served with the RAF until the early 1950s, and with the air forces of India and Pakistan, where they were among the last piston-engine fighters in service.

The radial-engine Tempest

The Tempest Mk II deserves a note of its own, because it solved the Tempest’s greatest problem: the Sabre engine. The Centaurus was a radial engine, simpler and more reliable than the Sabre, and it gave the Mk II a performance that was close to that of the Mk V, with a top speed of about 720 km/h.

The Mk II was intended for the war against Japan, and it was built in large numbers for that purpose, but the war ended before it could be used. After the war, the Mk II served with the RAF in Germany and in the Middle East, and with the Indian and Pakistani air forces, where it fought in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–48.

It was the last of the Tempests, and in some ways the best of them.

Production and the end of the line

The Tempest was built in relatively small numbers, and its production shows how late it arrived. Hawker built 1,702 Tempests between 1943 and 1948, at its plants in Kingston and Langley, and the aircraft was built in fewer numbers than the Typhoon that it replaced, because the war was already ending when it entered service.

The most numerous version was the Mk V, with about 800 built, and the Mk II, with its Centaurus engine, was built in about 450 examples. The Tempest’s production continued after the war, with the F.2 and the F.6 serving with the RAF and with the air forces of India and Pakistan, but the jet age had already arrived, and the last Tempests were built in 1948, when the Gloster Meteor and the de Havilland Vampire were taking over the fighter role.

6. Operational History

The V-1 offensive, summer 1944

The Tempest’s first campaign was against the V-1. On 13 June 1944, a week after D-Day, Germany began launching V-1 flying bombs against London, and the RAF’s fighters were scrambled to intercept them. The V-1 was a difficult target: it was small, it flew at about 640 km/h at an altitude of about 600 metres, and it was too fast for most fighters.

The Tempest, with a top speed of about 695 km/h, could catch it, and the Tempest squadrons — No. 3, No. 56 and No. 486 (New Zealand) Squadrons — became the most successful V-1 interceptors of the war. Their pilots developed two methods of destroying the missile: shooting it down with their cannon, and tipping it over by placing a wingtip under the V-1’s wing and rolling it, which upset the missile’s gyroscopes and sent it crashing to the ground.

The tipping method was dangerous — the pilot had to fly within centimetres of the missile — but it saved ammunition, and it became famous. By the end of the summer, the Tempest squadrons were credited with destroying 638 V-1s, more than any other aircraft type, and the V-1 offensive had been blunted.

Normandy and north-west Europe, 1944–1945

The ground-attack fighter

In September 1944, the Tempest squadrons moved to the Continent, to airfields in France and then in Belgium and the Netherlands, and they became ground-attack fighters. Their job was to support the Allied armies as they advanced into Germany: they attacked German tanks, transport, artillery and airfields, and they flew armed reconnaissance missions, searching for targets of opportunity.

The Tempest’s speed and its cannon made it ideal for the work, and its pilots became expert at low-level attack. The most famous Tempest pilot was the Frenchman Pierre Clostermann, who flew with No. 3 Squadron and then with No. 122 Wing, and who became the most successful French fighter pilot of the war, with 14 confirmed victories in the air and many more on the ground.

Clostermann’s book, The Big Show, published after the war, made the Tempest famous, and it remains one of the best-known accounts of the air war in Europe.

The last battles

The Tempest’s last battles were fought in the spring of 1945, over Germany itself. The squadrons flew in support of the Allied advance to the Rhine and beyond, attacking the German airfields from which the new jet fighters — the Messerschmitt Me 262 — were operating, and shooting down the jets as they took off and landed, when they were at their most vulnerable.

The Tempest’s speed at low level made it one of the few Allied fighters that could catch a jet, and its pilots claimed a number of Me 262s in the last weeks of the war. The Tempest’s war ended in May 1945, when Germany surrendered; by then, the Tempest squadrons had destroyed more than 600 V-1s, hundreds of German aircraft, and thousands of vehicles and guns on the ground.

After the war

After the war, the Tempest served with the RAF in Germany, as part of the occupation forces, and with the air forces of India and Pakistan, where it fought in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–48. The last Tempests were retired in the early 1950s, as jet fighters took over.

The aircraft’s service was short, but it had done the jobs that were asked of it, and it had done them well. The Tempest’s post-war service also included a period with the occupation forces in Germany, where the squadrons flew patrols and training missions, and where the aircraft’s speed and firepower were still valued.

The last RAF Tempests were retired in 1953, when the jet age had fully arrived, and the aircraft was replaced by the de Havilland Vampire and the Gloster Meteor. In India and Pakistan, the Tempest’s service lasted into the early 1950s, and the aircraft fought in the first Indo-Pakistani war, the last combat of its career.

7. Performance and Specifications

Specification	Tempest Mk V
Engine	Napier Sabre IIA, about 2,180 hp
Top speed	About 695 km/h
Cruising speed	About 550 km/h
Range	About 1,200 km (about 2,400 km with drop tanks)
Service ceiling	About 11,000 m
Rate of climb	About 23 m/s
Cannon	Four 20 mm Hispano Mk V
Bombs / rockets	Up to 900 kg of bombs or eight RP-3 rockets
Crew	1
Number built	1,702 (all versions)

Speed at low level

The Tempest’s performance was built around speed at low level. Its top speed of about 695 km/h was the fastest of any British piston-engine fighter, and it was faster than the German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and the Messerschmitt Bf 109 at low altitude, where most of the fighting in 1944 and 1945 took place.

Its rate of climb, about 23 metres per second, was good, and its dive performance was excellent: the new wing allowed the aircraft to dive at speeds that the Typhoon could not, and the Tempest could out-dive almost any German fighter.

Its range, about 1,200 km on internal fuel and about 2,400 km with drop tanks, was enough for the missions it flew, from the south coast of England to the Continent, and its ceiling, about 11,000 metres, was high enough for the air combat it was asked to fight.

The Tempest was not a high-altitude interceptor, and it was not meant to be: it was a low-level fighter, and at low level it had no equal.

Against its contemporaries

Compared with the Spitfire, the Tempest was faster at low level, more heavily armed and better suited to ground attack, but it was less agile in a turn and less effective at high altitude. Compared with the American P-51 Mustang, the Tempest was faster at low level and had a heavier cannon armament, but the Mustang had a much longer range and was a better escort fighter.

Compared with the German Fw 190, the Tempest’s closest enemy, the two aircraft were evenly matched at low level, and the outcome of a fight between them depended on the pilot. The Tempest’s place was as a low-level fighter and a V-1 interceptor, and in those roles it was the best Allied fighter of the war.

8. Operators

The Royal Air Force

The Tempest was used above all by the Royal Air Force, which operated it from 1944 to 1953. The RAF’s Tempest squadrons fought the V-1 offensive, fought over Normandy and north-west Europe, and served after the war in Germany and in the Middle East. The most famous Tempest squadrons were No. 3 Squadron, the first to receive the type, No. 56 Squadron, and No. 486 (New Zealand) Squadron, which was one of the most successful V-1 squadrons. The RAF’s Tempests were flown by British, Commonwealth and Allied pilots, including the Frenchman Pierre Clostermann, and they became one of the most respected fighter forces in the RAF.

India, Pakistan and others

After the war, the Tempest was exported to India and Pakistan, which used it as their principal fighter in the late 1940s and fought with it in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–48. The Indian and Pakistani Tempests were among the last piston-engine fighters in front-line service, and they were not retired until the early 1950s, when jet fighters replaced them. The Tempest was never a major export aircraft — it arrived too late, and the jet age was already beginning — but its service in India and Pakistan shows how highly it was regarded, and how long a good piston fighter could remain useful after the war.

9. Legacy and Influence

The V-1 hunter

The Tempest’s most important legacy is the V-1. It was the most successful V-1 interceptor of the war, and it proved that a fighter could catch and destroy a flying bomb — a weapon that, a year earlier, had seemed unstoppable. The Tempest’s V-1 campaign was the first successful defence against a cruise missile, and it remains a landmark in the history of air defence.

The pilots who flew it, and the ground crews who kept it flying, saved London from hundreds of V-1s, and their work is remembered as one of the RAF’s finest achievements. The Tempest squadrons flew from airfields in southern England, and their pilots often flew four or five sorties a day in the summer of 1944, when the V-1 offensive was at its height.

Their success depended on the aircraft’s speed and on the skill of the pilots, who had to judge the V-1’s course and speed in seconds, and who often attacked the missile at low level, where a mistake could be fatal.

The last great piston fighter

The Tempest’s second legacy is as the last great British piston fighter. It was the fastest piston fighter that Britain built, and it was the culmination of the Hawker line that had begun with the Hurricane and continued through the Typhoon. The jet age overtook it quickly — the Gloster Meteor was already in service when the Tempest entered combat — but the Tempest showed what a piston fighter could do at its best, and it remains, in the judgement of many historians and pilots, the finest British fighter of the war at low level. Its pilots, above all Pierre Clostermann, made it famous, and Clostermann’s book, The Big Show, has kept its memory alive for generations of readers.

10. Surviving Examples

Where to see one today

Several Tempests survive in museums, and the best known are in Britain. The Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon, London, holds a Tempest Mk II and a Tempest TT.5, the target-tug version, and other Tempests survive in museums in Britain and overseas.

The surviving aircraft are few — fewer than ten complete Tempests are known — but they are enough to show visitors the aircraft’s thin wing, its four cannon and the Sabre engine that made it the fastest British piston fighter of the war.

The Hendon aircraft are displayed alongside other RAF fighters of the period, and visitors can compare the Tempest’s thin wing and four cannon with the Spitfire and the Typhoon that served beside it. The museums also hold photographs and personal accounts from the Tempest’s pilots, which give a sense of what it was like to fly the fastest British piston fighter of the war.

Restoration and memory

The Tempest’s survivors are the subject of restoration projects, and the aircraft is remembered through the books of its pilots, above all Clostermann’s The Big Show, and through the museums that hold the surviving aircraft. For most visitors, the easiest way to see a Tempest is at Hendon, where the surviving aircraft stand as reminders of the fighter that hunted the V-1 and fought over Normandy and Germany in the last year of the war.

Clostermann’s book has been reprinted many times, and it remains in print today, more than seventy years after it was first published. The Tempest’s pilots formed associations after the war, and their reunions and their memoirs have kept the aircraft’s memory alive for the generations that never saw it fly.

Model makers and aviation artists have also kept the Tempest alive, and the aircraft’s distinctive shape — the thin wing, the long nose and the four cannon — is familiar to anyone who studies the air war in Europe.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the Hawker Tempest?
The Hawker Tempest was a British single-engine fighter of the Second World War, developed from the Typhoon, and the fastest British piston fighter of the war. 1,702 were built.

How many V-1s did the Tempest destroy?
Tempest squadrons were credited with destroying 638 V-1 flying bombs in the summer of 1944, more than any other aircraft type.

What engine did the Tempest use?
The Tempest Mk V used the Napier Sabre IIA engine, a 24-cylinder H-block engine producing about 2,180 horsepower. The Mk II used the Bristol Centaurus radial engine.

What was the difference between the Tempest and the Typhoon?
The Tempest had a new, thinner wing, a longer fuselage and a redesigned tail, which made it faster at all altitudes and better handling than the Typhoon.

Who was Pierre Clostermann?
Pierre Clostermann was a French fighter pilot who flew the Tempest with the RAF and became the most successful French fighter pilot of the war. His book The Big Show made the Tempest famous.

Where can I see a Tempest today?
The Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon, London, holds a Tempest Mk II and a Tempest TT.5.

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Sources

1. Wikipedia, “Hawker Tempest” — first flight, production of 1,702, specifications, variants and operational history.
2. Pierre Clostermann, The Big Show (Chatto & Windus, 1951) — the Tempest in combat over Normandy and north-west Europe.
3. Chris Thomas and Christopher Shores, The Typhoon and Tempest Story (Arms and Armour Press, 1988) — development and operational history.
4. Francis K. Mason, Hawker Aircraft since 1920 (Putnam, 1991) — design, the Sabre engine and variants.
5. Alfred Price, The Hawker Tempest (Airlife, 2002) — the V-1 campaign and the ground-attack role.
6. The Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon, “Hawker Tempest” — the surviving aircraft.