Hawker Hurricane variants
The Hawker Hurricane was a British single-seat fighter aircraft designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft. Some versions were built in Canada by Canadian Car and Foundry. British variants Hurricane Mk I Hurricane Mk I (Early production) The first Mk I production machines were ready fairly quickly, with deliveries starting in December 1937. These early aircraft featured fabric-covered wings, and a wooden, two-bladed, fixed-pitch propeller. Initially the tailwheel was designed to be retractable; early on it was discovered that the Hurricane needed a larger rudder area to improve the control characteristics during a spin. To this end the lower part of the rudder was extended and a distinctive ventral "keel" was added to the rear fuselage. The tailwheel was now fixed. Early Hurricanes lacked armour or self-sealing tanks. They used "ring and bead" gunsights, with the ring being mounted above the instrument panel and the bead mounted on a post above the engine cowling. The standard GM2 reflector gunsight was introduced in mid-1939, although many Hurricanes retained the "bead". Fuel capacity was 97 Imperial gal (441 L) in two fuel tanks, each of 34.5 gal (157 L) in the wing centre-section, between the spars; the fuel was pumped from these