Aircraft of the Battle of Britain Quiz

Answer: Hawker Hurricane

Based on a biplane design, the Hawker Hurricane was a monoplane fighter aircraft that entered RAF service in 1938. It retained a frame type fuselage, covered with doped linen more commonly found on older biplanes. Despite this old fashioned design, the Hurricane could withstand more battle damage than an all-metal skinned fighter due to the fact that enemy cannon shells could pass right though the fuselage without causing catastrophic damage.
The Hurricane was fitted with the same Rolls Royce Merlin engine as the Spitfire, which was slightly faster but the Hurricane could out-turn both the Spitfire and the German Messerschmitt Bf 109E. Generally, RAF strategy dictated that the Hurricanes were to engage the enemy bomber formations, while the Spitfires would engage their fighter cover.
Many RAF Hurricane pilots suffered horrific burns when attacked by German aircraft due to the position of the fuel tank, just in front of the pilot.

The Hawker Typhoon and its later derivative the Tempest both proved themselves during WWII but were not involved in the Battle of Britain.

Answer: Corpo Aereo Italiano

The Fiat CR.42 was an biplane fighter used by the Italian Air Corps (Corpo Aereo Italiano) which carried out one mission in the Battle of Britain, as bomber escort on a raid on Ramsgate on England's Kent coast.

Fuerzas Aéreas de la República Española-FARE (Spanish Republic Air Forces), Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily (Soviet Air Force) and the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force were not involved in the Battle of Britain and in fact never attacked the British mainland.

Answer: Do17

The Dornier Do 17 was sometimes known as the Fliegender Bleistift ("flying pencil") due to its slim fuselage. Designated in the early 1930s as a light bomber it was produced by Dornier Flugzeugwerke and featured two engines and a twin tail fin configuration.

The Junkers 52 was a German transport aircraft but did see service as a bomber during the Spanish Civil War.

The word "Stuka" would strike fear into the hearts of soldiers and civilians alike in Europe during Hitler's "Blitzkrieg". Officially known as the Junkers 87, it was an all metal monoplane dive-bomber, sporting distinctive "gull" wings mounted with sirens to make its presence known. Outperformed by the Hurricane and Spitfire, it required fighter escorts for protection and was later withdrawn from the battle due to heavy losses.

The Junkers 88 was built in greater numbers than any other German twin engined aeroplane.

The last foreign "invasion" on British soil was carried out by the crew of a shot down Ju88 in Kent in September 1940. Orders had been issued by the RAF to try and capture a new variant of Ju88, but when this particular aircraft was downed its crew decided to go on the offensive. The crew used machine guns from the aircraft against the soldiers of the London Irish Rifles who had arrived following the crash landing. The crew were taken prisoner.

Answer: Powered dorsal gun turret

The Boulton Paul Defiant was equipped with a powered dorsal turret mounted with four .303 inch Browning machine guns. The Defiant enjoyed early success during the battle when Luftwaffe fighter pilots mistook the Defiant for a Hurricane due to its similar outline. They attacked from the rear, not being aware of the presence of the gun turret. Soon the Luftwaffe became wise to this and due to the heavy turret and subsequent lower performance Defiants began to suffer unacceptable losses. The Defiant was eventually transferred to night fighter duties.

Powered gun turrets were commonly used by the British on bomber aircraft such as the Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster.

Answer: He111

The Heinkel He111 was known for its "greenhouse" nose, which gave the crew excellent visibility. In line with the German design principles of of the time, the crew were closely situated, apparently to promote crew morale.
The He111 was designed in the early 1930s masquerading as a transport aircraft due to the Treaty of Versailles. Although slow and lacking mobility, it was able to cause significant damage during the Battle of Britain and subsequent Blitz raids against British cities.

The Heinkel He 177 (or "Greif") was the only heavy bomber built in large numbers by Germany during World War II.

The Heinkel Kabine was a "bubble car" designed by Heinkel Flugzeugwerke and was in production from 1956 to 1958. Bubble cars were popular in Europe and elsewhere during the 1950s and 1960s, offering a low cost alternative to normal sized cars and motorcycles.

The Heinkel He 219 Uhu ("Eagle-Owl") was a German night fighter that saw service in the later stages of World War II. The 219 was the first operational military aircraft in the world to be fitted with ejection seats.

Answer: True

The Merlin engine of the Spitfire was fitted with carburettors rather than the fuel injectors found on the Me109. This was because the British felt that carburettors increased supercharger performance, which in turn led to increased engine performance.
The downside to this, however, meant that the Spitfire was unable to enter a steep dive as its fuel was forced by negative g out of the carburettor. The fuel injection system employed on the Me109 did not suffer this drawback. Later British carburettor designs sought to address this problem.

Answer: De-synchronised engines

The Germans felt that the use of de-synchronised engines would help avoid detection by British "Sound Mirrors" which were large concrete cones attached to microphones, situated on the British coast. Used to detect the noise of approaching aircraft, sound mirrors were made obsolete by the introduction of radar, which in turn made the use of de-synchronised engines pointless.

Answer: Heinkel He 59

In accordance with the Geneva Convention the He 59 seaplane was unarmed and was painted white with civilian registration markings and red crosses. However, increased British suspicion that the Luftwaffe was using the rescue planes to gather intelligence resulted in attacks on the aircraft by fighters of the RAF and the rescue planes were eventually repainted in camouflage.

The Ar 196 was a German reconnaissance aircraft that could be launched from the ships of the Kriegsmarine (German Navy).

The Messerschmitt Bf 110 despite enjoying success in the early stages of WWII suffered heavy losses during the Battle of Britain and was redeployed as a night fighter.

The Supermarine Walrus was a seaplane used by the RAF as an air-sea rescue aircraft in the waters surrounding Great Britain.

Answer: BMW

The Bayerische Motoren-Werke AG or Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) was founded in 1916.
The company's famous circular blue and white logo is said to represent the movement of an aircraft's white propeller turning through a blue sky. (Blue and white are also the colours of Bavaria). BMW is a successful and well known manufacturer of motorcycles and cars, and is now ironically the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.

Interestingly, Volkswagen owes its post-war existence mainly to a British Army officer, Major Ivan Hirst, but that's another story.

Skoda is a car maker based in the Czech Republic and is now owned by VW. Not known for the manufacture of aero engines, Skoda did, however, produce tanks during WWII that ended up being used by the Germans after Czechoslovakia was occupied.

The car maker Auto Union was founded in Germany in the 1930s as the result of a merger of four German car manufacturers. Again not known for aircraft engines the company is now known as Audi and is a subsidiary of Volkswagen Group.

Answer: True

It's true that an almost complete Do 17 had been discovered off the coast of southern England, but the discovery was kept secret to avoid treasure hunters. A fantastic find, the Dornier Do 17Z-2 was on a raid to bomb RAF Debden and RAF Hornchurch on 26 August 1940, but crash-landed. The Royal Air Force Museum is planning to raise the wreck in 2011 and intends to restore the aircraft.