Talking to my dad the other day, he joined the RAF in 1949. Key points he remembered about the Hurricane vs Spitfires..
He's worked a bit on Spitfires, but only once on a Hurricane. Spitfires were often the station commanders 'personal' transport, held and mainained for almost personal use after their operational roles ended.
Despite his age (he's 82) he could remember the wingspans in a heartbeat..36ft for the Spit, 40ft for the Hurricane. The Hurricane was a heavy duty workhorse, the Spit was seen as 'dainty', noticeably smaller than the hurricane,
Early hurricanes were part fabric covered, easy as hell to work on, while the Spitfire was stressed skin making maintenance much harder. Often work had to be done through hand sized access holes and was done blind, by feel only.
He agreed with something i said earlier...the hurricane was the end product of older technology, descended ultimately from the Hawker biplanes of the 30s. The spitfire was different, it was far more complex, the new technology allowed it to be updated far more than the hurricane.
I said his time in the RAF must have seen huge leaps in technology, when you consider in less than 20 years they'd gone from Spitfires to EE Lightnings, from Lancasters to Vulcan bombers...so far removed from each other in technology, complexity, ability and speed.....he said everything went at a relentless pace, he loved every minute of it.
