Industry | Aviation |
---|---|
Predecessor | Sopwith Aviation & Engineering Company |
Founded | 1920 | (as H.G. Hawker Engineering)
Defunct | 1963 |
Fate | Merged into Hawker Siddeley Group |
Successor | Hawker Siddeley Aviation |
Headquarters | , UK |
Number of locations | Langley, Dunsfold, Blackpool |
Key people | Harry Hawker Thomas Sopwith Sydney Camm |
Products | Aircraft |
Subsidiaries | Gloster Aircraft Company (1934) |
Hawker Aircraft Limited was a British aircraft manufacturer that was responsible for some of the most famous products in British aviation history.
Hawker had its roots in the aftermath of the First World War, which resulted in the bankruptcy of the Sopwith Aviation Company. Sopwith test pilot Harry Hawker and three others, including Thomas Sopwith, bought the assets of Sopwith and formed H.G. Hawker Engineering in 1920. [1]
In 1933, the company was renamed Hawker Aircraft Limited, and it took advantage of the Great Depression and a strong financial position to purchase the Gloster Aircraft Company in 1934. The next year, it merged with the engine and automotive company Armstrong Siddeley and its subsidiary, Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft, to form Hawker Siddeley Aircraft. This group also encompassed A. V. Roe and Company (Avro).
The company continued to produce designs under the "Hawker" name as part of Hawker Siddeley Aircraft, which from 1955 was a division of Hawker Siddeley Group. In 1963, the "Hawker" brand name was dropped, along with those of the sister companies; the Hawker P.1127 was the last aircraft to carry the brand name.
The Hawker legacy was maintained by the American company Raytheon, which produced business jets (including some derived from the 125, whose original design dated back to de Havilland days) under the "Hawker" name. This was the result of purchasing British Aerospace's product line in 1993. The name was also used by Hawker Beechcraft after Raytheon's business jet interests (Hawker and Beechcraft) were acquired by investors and merged.
The first Hawker design was the unbuilt Hawker Humpback of December 1920. [2] This was soon followed by the Hawker Duiker, the first prototype, which flew in July 1923. [3] In the interwar years, Hawker produced a successful line of bombers and fighters for the Royal Air Force, the product of Sydney Camm (later Sir Sydney) and his team. These included the Hawker Hind and the Hawker Hart, which became the most produced UK aeroplane in the years before the Second World War. [4]
During the Second World War, the Hawker Siddeley company was one of the United Kingdom's most important aviation concerns, producing numerous designs including the famous Hawker Hurricane fighter plane that, along with the Supermarine Spitfire, was instrumental in winning the Battle of Britain. During the battle, Hawker Hurricanes in service outnumbered all other British fighters combined, and were responsible for shooting down 55 per cent of all enemy aircraft destroyed.[ citation needed ]
Source: Hannah (1982) [7]
A short take-off and vertical landing aircraft is a fixed-wing aircraft that is able to take off from a short runway and land vertically. The formal NATO definition is:
A Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing aircraft is a fixed-wing aircraft capable of clearing a 15 m obstacle within 450 m of commencing take-off run, and capable of landing vertically.
The Hawker Hunter is a transonic British jet-powered fighter aircraft that was developed by Hawker Aircraft for the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It was designed to take advantage of the newly developed Rolls-Royce Avon turbojet engine and the swept wing, and was the first jet-powered aircraft produced by Hawker to be procured by the RAF. On 7 September 1953, the modified first prototype broke the world air speed record for aircraft, achieving a speed of 727.63 mph.
The Harrier, informally referred to as the Harrier jump jet, is a family of jet-powered attack aircraft capable of vertical/short takeoff and landing operations (V/STOL). Named after a bird of prey, it was originally developed by British manufacturer Hawker Siddeley in the 1960s. The Harrier emerged as the only truly successful V/STOL design of the many attempted during that era. It was conceived to operate from improvised bases, such as car parks or forest clearings, without requiring large and vulnerable air bases. Later, the design was adapted for use from aircraft carriers.
Hawker Siddeley was a group of British manufacturing companies engaged in aircraft production. Hawker Siddeley combined the legacies of several British aircraft manufacturers, emerging through a series of mergers and acquisitions as one of only two such major British companies in the 1960s. In 1977, Hawker Siddeley became a founding component of the nationalised British Aerospace (BAe). Hawker Siddeley also operated in other industrial markets, such as locomotive building and diesel engine manufacture. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Sir Sydney Camm, CBE, FRAeS was an English aeronautical engineer who contributed to many Hawker aircraft designs, from the biplanes of the 1920s to jet fighters. One particularly notable aircraft he designed was the Hawker Hurricane fighter.
The Sopwith Aviation Company was a British aircraft company that designed and manufactured aeroplanes mainly for the British Royal Naval Air Service, the Royal Flying Corps and later the Royal Air Force during the First World War, most famously the Sopwith Camel. Sopwith aircraft were also used in varying numbers by the French, Belgian and American air services during the war.
The Hawker Sea Hawk is a British single-seat jet day fighter formerly of the Fleet Air Arm (FAA), the air branch of the Royal Navy (RN), built by Hawker Aircraft and its sister company, Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft. Although its design originated from earlier Hawker piston-engined fighters, the Sea Hawk was the company's first jet aircraft.
Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Company, or Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft, was a British aircraft manufacturer.
The Hawker P.1127 and the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel FGA.1 are the British experimental and development aircraft that led to the Hawker Siddeley Harrier, the first vertical and/or short take-off and landing (V/STOL) jet fighter-bomber.
The Hawker P.1052 was a British experimental aircraft built by Hawker Aircraft Limited for trials with swept wings.
The Hawker P.1072 was a 1949 experimental British aircraft acting as a test bed for the Armstrong Siddeley Snarler rocket booster engine. It was the prototype Hawker Sea Hawk modified to install the rocket in the tail.
The Hawker Woodcock was a British single-seat fighter built by the Hawker Engineering Company as the first fighter to be produced by Hawker Engineering. It was used by the RAF as a night fighter in the 1920s.
The Dassault Mirage IIIV, also spelled Mirage III V, was a French vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) prototype fighter aircraft of the mid-1960s developed and produced by Dassault Aviation.
The Hawker Siddeley P.1154 was a planned supersonic vertical/short take-off and landing (V/STOL) fighter aircraft designed by Hawker Siddeley Aviation (HSA).
The Rockwell XFV-12 was a prototype supersonic United States Navy fighter which was built in 1977. The XFV-12 design attempted to combine the Mach 2 speed and AIM-7 Sparrow armament of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II in a VTOL fighter for the small Sea Control Ship which was under study at the time. On paper, it looked superior to the subsonic Hawker Siddeley Harrier attack fighter. However it was unable to demonstrate an untethered vertical takeoff and its inability to meet performance requirements terminated the program.
The Yakovlev Yak-43 was a Soviet VTOL fighter designed as the ground-based version of the ill-fated Yakovlev Yak-141, which failed to reach production. Like the Yak-141, the Yak-43 did not reach production. The Yak-43 would have been the third-generation VTOL/STOL fighter, to follow and eventually replace the Yak-141.
The Hawker P.1121 was a British supersonic fighter aircraft designed, but never fully completed, by Hawker Siddeley during the mid-1950s. It was designed by a team headed by Sir Sydney Camm.
Ralph Spenser Hooper, OBE, FREng, FRAeS was an English aeronautical engineer, recognised mostly for his work on the Hawker Siddeley Harrier, specifically in relation to the marriage between the Pegasus engine and the layout of the aircraft, allowing it to safely hover with margins of stability.
The British Aerospace (BAe) P.1216 was a planned Advanced Short Take Off/Vertical Landing (ASTOVL) supersonic aircraft from the 1980s. It was designed by the former Hawker design team at Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, England that created the Harrier family of aircraft.
NBMR-3 or NATO Basic Military Requirement 3 was a document produced by a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) committee in the early 1960s detailing the specification of future combat aircraft designs. The requirement was for aircraft in two performance groups, supersonic fighter aircraft (NBMR-3a) and subsonic fighter-bomber aircraft (NBMR-3b). Both requirements specifically stated the need for V/STOL performance as the contemporary fear was that airfields could be overrun or disabled through Eastern Bloc hostile actions and that dispersed operating bases would be needed. Germany was planning replacements for the Fiat G.91 and Lockheed F-104G Starfighter using the new aircraft types.