autoevolution
 

de Havilland Hornet: Like an E-Type Jag With Wings, The Perfect Twin-Engine Piston Fighter

Sports cars and fighter planes may share a place in our hearts, but their respective worlds are pretty different than what you might think. With power-to-weight ratios being even more important in the air than on the ground, this usually means airplanes only make just enough power and not much more beyond.
de Havilland Hornet 9 photos
Photo: Royal Air Force Archives
de Haviland Hornetde Haviland Hornetde Haviland Hornetde Haviland Hornetde Haviland Hornetde Haviland Hornetde Haviland Hornetde Haviland Hornet
But this isn't always true. Every so often, a fighter plane comes around with engines like a hot rod and not much of any weight at all to lug around. Like a good British sports car on some twisty countryside roads, the de Havilland DH.103 Hornet was like a dream to fly. Though it flew alongside the first jet fighters, the Hornet could easily kick the snot out of any of those.

Though the de Havilland Hornet is, in fact, a bespoke model, telling its story would only be possible by at least mentioning its predecessor, the DH.98 Mosquito. Inspired by a series of twin-engine racing planes from the 1930s, the Mosquito's unique composite wood construction was spurred not necessarily in the name of saving weight alone. Rather, the main impetus for this design choice is a shortage of wartime necessities like iron, steel, and aluminum at the onset of the Second World War.

Sporting twin Rolls-Royce Merlin liquid-cooled V12 engines of legend; they were equally at home in a Mosquito as they were in a Spitfire or a P-51 Mustang. The Mosquito continued to serve until as late as 1963 in some cases. But after the war, it was clear something just a bit more refined was needed to bridge the gap between post-war superprops and the earliest turbojet fighters.

As early as late 1941, the anticipation of the completion of the jet-powered de Havilland Vampire was already getting the process of upgrading the Mosquito underway. In initial rough sketches, what was originally dubbed the DH.101 sounded menacing on paper. The design proposal called for a redesigned composite-wooden construction powered by twin Napier Sabre 24-cylinder piston engines making 2,200 hp each.

de Haviland Hornet
Photo: RAF Archives
Because Napier was busy supplying Saber engines to the Hawker Tempest and Typhoon, a backup proposal was proposed under the name DH.102, sporting either an upgraded Merlin engine or the new Rolls-Royce Griffon engine. With the RAF Air Ministry's Specification F.12/43 update in June 1943, the project ceased to be a solely private venture. Soon after, the name DH.103 Hornet was christened around a year before the first prototype's rollout in July 1944.

Thirteen months after the Hornet's green light from the Air Ministry, the first Hornet prototype, serial number RR915, took to the skies for the first time on July 28th, 1944. Even in its most primitive form, lead test pilot Geoffrey de Havilland Jr found the Hornet to be a remarkably capable airplane. A plane that could climb quickly and accelerate rapidly, all while being a joy to fly aggressively. You know, a bit like a sports car.

By the end of 1944, the production Hornet F.1 sporting updated, supercharged variants of the Merlin engine was nearing completion. Come February 1945, a production order for 60 examples began to be fulfilled for the RAF at the Boscombe Down air base in Wiltshire, England. With a maximum speed rated at 475 mph (764 km/h) from the factory, it's possible some examples even broke the 500 mph barrier, albeit unofficially, during combat sorties.

Before long, the original F.1 Hornets were phased out in favor of the updated F.3. The F.3 sported a larger range and provisions to mount bombs and rockets on the plane's undercarriage.  All just in time for some of Great Britain's colonies in the Far East to decide to have a big boogaloo and try to overthrow the ruling commonwealth. In the skies above modern-day Malaysia, then known as British Malaya, the Hornet got its first taste of live combat against separatist communist forces. Armed with bombs and rockets alongside four 20mm Hispano Mk. V cannons, it was the most sizable combat the Hornet ever saw.

de Haviland Hornet
Photo: RAF Archives
As for those carrier-Hornets, Sea Hornets purposefully differentiated their from land-based counterparts in that their airframes could withstand the brute force of carrier landings reliably. Though the Sea Hornet was overshadowed by the single-engine Hawker Sea Fury, which famously shot down a MiG-15 jet over North Korea, the Sea Hornet was no-less loved by those who flew it.

Perhaps most strikingly, the famous Royal Navy Air Officer and flyer of the greatest number of aircraft types, Eric "Winkle" Brown, described his experience testing the first semi-carrier-based Sea Hornet as nothing short of Nirvana when talking to Air International Magazine in 1982. "The next two months of handling and deck landing assessment trials were to be an absolute joy; from the outset, the Sea Hornet was a winner!" said Captain Brown of the mighty Hornet's first carrier trials.

"The view from the cockpit, positioned right forward in the nose beneath a one-piece aft-sliding canopy, was truly magnificent. The Sea Hornet was easy to taxi, with powerful brakes. The takeoff using 25 lb (2,053 mm Hg, 51" Hg) boost and flaps at one-third extension was remarkable! The 2,070 hp (1,540 kW) Merlin 130/131 engines fitted to the prototypes were to be derated to 18 lb (1,691 Hg, 37" Hg) boost and 2,030 hp as Merlin 133/134s in production Sea Hornets, but takeoff performance was to remain fantastic. Climb with 18 lb boost exceeded 4,000 ft/min." We couldn't explain it any better ourselves.

But for how magnificent to behold the Hornet may have been for its pilots, the writing was on the wall for the death knells of piston fighters long before the de Havilland ever left the ground. By then, the Gloster Meteor, the Messerschmitt Me-262, and the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star were already undergoing test flights. Before long, the even more formidable jets like the Soviet MiG-15 made hostile skies a very dangerous place for inexperienced piston-fighter pilots.

de Haviland Hornet
Photo: RAF Archives
As the British arsenal of Hornets slowly found its way into storage, traditionally awful British weather began to eat away at both the plane's wooden airframe. Whatever sparse pieces of metal happened to be exposed to the elements didn't fare any better. As a result, not a single land-based Hornet survives intact today. At least one Sea Hornet was in the process of being restored in New Zealand as of 2017.

But it's not exactly possible to weld pieces of wood to old rotted-out parts of this bird's airframe. Meaning, of course, it's possible we don't hear about it again before this decade is out. Slow and steady wins the race when you're restoring old warbirds. One wrong move and the whole darn plane could collapse into a pile of century-old English cabinet furniture not even worth decorating your living room with. We're rooting for the world's sole remaining Hornet. It's a real treat to watch an endangered species be preserved.
If you liked the article, please follow us:  Google News icon Google News Youtube Instagram X (Twitter)
 

Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?

You will only receive our top stories