It’s time to honour our Hurricane hero

I FULLY support the suggestion that Polish pilots who fought so courageously in the Battle of Britain should be honoured (Mail), and feel the same should be done for the man who created the Hawker Hurricane fighters in which they flew. Sydney (later Sir Sydney) Camm began his career designing and flying model aircraft as a member of Windsor Model Aeroplane Club and was one of a group of club members who, before the outbreak of World War I, designed and built a full-size man-carrying glider. After working in the fledgling aircraft industry during that war, he worked as a carpenter at Hawker Aircraft (aircraft of that era were built largely of wood). His design skills came to the attention of the management, and he was drafted into the design team and quickly rose to become chief designer. As such, he was responsible for a wide range of Hawker aircraft, all using the principles aeromodellers would find familiar to this day: a lightweight skeleton covered in fabric to produce a strong, streamlined, airtight structure. The Hurricane, which was also designed in this way, was quicker and easier to build than the more famous Spitfire, better able to withstand battle damage and easier to repair in the field. Hurricanes outnumbered Spitfires by two to one during the Battle of Britain. They shot down twice as many German aircraft and were responsible for more than half of all German aircraft destroyed in the battle. Sadly, Sir Sydney’s legacy hasn’t been honoured. His beloved home in Thames Ditton, Surrey, in which he lived during this vital time in our history, has been demolished by a property developer. The success of his design has been largely overlooked (most people associate only the Spitfire with the battle) and few Hurricanes remain airworthy. It’s time his contribution was recognised.

BOB HOWARD, Southall, Middx. HOW dare American pilot Chuck Yeager criticise the British (Mail) when his King of the skies: The Hawker Hurricane and, inset, designer Sir Sydney Camm

success and fame are down to the wonderful British aviator and designer, the late F. G. Miles? He designed the world’s first supersonic aeroplane, the Miles M52, a model of which used to sit outside my office when I was a director of one of the Miles Group of Companies. It is now on show in Berkshire Air Museum in Woodley, Reading. A letter from the MoD to Miles just after the war, stating that ‘man will never fly faster than sound’, sounded the plane’s death knell, and led to its design being handed over — free — to the Americans. They used it to build the Bell X-1 in which Yeager broke the sound barrier, but didn’t even have the decency to name it after its designer. Even with such free advice, the U.S. was still behind us technically, as shown by Concorde, the world’s first supersonic passenger-carrying plane. DAVID M. BERNSTEIN, High Wycombe, Bucks.