2
POLIKARPOV I-16 TYPE 24 RATA
HAWKER HURRICANE MK.XII
The Polikarpov I-16 fighter was a mixture of cutting-edge design and conventional traits of the era. Observers joked that the fighter was simply a huge engine with parts of an airplane following behind in close formation.
Given enough power, even a barrel will fly. The Polikarpov I-16 Type 24 Rata certainly fit this description. This pudgy little machine was very modern for its time, but still retained more than a few antiquated traits.
Why such a leap in design? It is fair to say that Nikolai Polikarpov was highly
motivated by outside forces. Soon after creating the Po-2 and various biplane fighters in the late 1920s, Joseph Stalin, the all-powerful leader of the Soviet Union, decided
Polikarpov and his engineering team were not meeting expectations. As a result,
Polikarpov was arrested and sentenced to death on trumped-up charges of sabotage and
counter-revolutionary activities. Later, the sentence was reduced to ten years of hard labor.
He began working on the radically new I-16 fighter during his time in prison.
This plane was a bulbous brute dominated by a massive radial engine. The first version of the machine was powered by a Russian copy of a Bristol Jupiter nine-cylinder
powerplant. As with the Gee Bee racing planes of the era, a flyer really had to struggle to see around the nose while taxiing.
The I-16, coming at the end of the biplane era, was the first of the next chapter in
fighter design—a cantilevered monoplane with retractable landing gear. “Cantilevered”
meant all of the wing’s structure was inside the skin, so that speed-robbing struts, wires, and supports howling in the slipstream no longer caused drag.
In oversimplified terms, the I-16 was much like the Polikarpov I-15 biplane fighter, but without the top wing. Losing the upper wing, struts, and wires gave the monoplane a more than one-hundred-miles-per-hour speed advantage over its older brother.
The plane’s fully retractable landing gear factored into that speed equation too. A cable led from each wheel to a crank at the pilot’s right hip. It took forty-four muscle-busting turns to draw the wheels up into the wings. On takeoff, I-16s would often wobble, pitching slightly up and down, as a flyer worked the landing gear crank.
The I-16 was a mix of materials similar to the Po-2 from five years earlier. The
fuselage was primarily wood, with a birch strip skin bonded with glue called shpon. The skin was 4mm thick near the nose and tapered to just 2.5mm at the tail. The wings were made of metal and mainly fabric-covered.
The plane had cartoonishly big wings and tail. Control surfaces, not far from the
fighter’s center of gravity, needed to be large to work effectively. However, Polikarpov didn’t go too far; the skittish I-16 was known to be highly maneuverable because it was naturally unstable.
The first I-16s had an enclosed cockpit but biplane era pilots hated being closed in;
they felt separated from the seat-of-the-pants flying they were used to. When the I-16’s canopy started to fog over, it was the final straw. Designers reverted back to an open cockpit configuration to meet pilot demands.
Drop-down doors on either side of the cockpit allowed a pilot to lean out to see around the massive nose both on the ground and even in the air. Soviet manuals stated, “Do not be shy or embarrassed to open the side doors in flight prior to landing to help you see out.”
In an effort to make the I-16 as speedy as possible, the fighter’s Shvetsov engine and prop hub are almost completely covered by a metal shroud. In the center of the spinner is a Hucks starter—used by ground crew to mechanically start the engine.
Despite his cruel treatment by Soviet leaders, Polikarpov had created another
astounding success. The I-16 became the Soviet Army’s main fighter type from 1934 to
1941—and, the Red Air Force was busy during this period. Even before the German
invasion of the Soviet Union, I-16s flew in the Spanish Civil War, the Russo-Japanese and Sino-Japanese conflicts in the late 1930s, and the Winter War with Finland. Everywhere it went, it seemed, the odd little plane gathered another nickname.
With such cold conditions in western Russia, it is only natural that some I-16 fighters would be converted to fly with skis. On this version, a Type 5, the skis were fixed, but later Rata aircraft flew with a set of retractable skis.
Restoration and maintenance chief Jason Muszala coaxes the I-16’s engine to life outside the FHC’s hangar door during an engine test. Oil collected in the cylinders of a radial engine often makes for puffs of blue smoke when the plane is first fired up.
The I-16 had fabric-covered wings and a plywood fuselage. Yet the pint-sized fighter is incredibly weighty and solid. During combat, Soviet pilots would sometimes ram enemy aircraft with their hearty Ratas.
FHC pilot Carter Teeters takes the Polikarpov I-16 on a test flight near Paine Field. Built with small control surfaces, the Rata is naturally unstable and requires constant attention while it is in the air.
The men who flew it in Spain called it mosca (fly), while those who fought against it knew it as rata (rat). The Japanese called it abu (gadfly) and the Germans dienstjäger (duty fighter). Russians called it yastrebok (young eagle) or ishak (little donkey).
Though obsolete by the time World War II began, the little plane soldiered on, fighting against more sophisticated German aircraft on the Eastern Front. Soviet pilots resorted to ramming German bombers with their solid I-16s when outnumbered and out of
ammunition. The least dangerous method involved a Soviet pilot striking an enemy plane with part of his own, bumping it with his wing for example. Other pilots chose to use their propeller to chop into the control surfaces of a fleeing German bomber. The most
dangerous method was the “direct attack”—an all-out collision with an enemy plane. If a pilot was skilled, and very lucky, he might survive the intentional crash and bail out.
The FHC’s I-16, a Type 24, is a late version of the fighter. It had a tail wheel instead of the earlier tailskid, an improved engine, and could carry rockets and external fuel tanks.
Most I-16s, including the collection’s aircraft, were built at Plant No. 21 in Nizhny
Novgorod. This aircraft came off the assembly line in July 1940 and most likely went right into combat in northwest Russia.
The full story of the loss of the FHC I-16 may never be known but it is interesting to note that the location of the wreck corresponds with a dogfight that took place overhead on August 13, 1941, between Soviet and Finnish pilots. In the melee, two I-16s were lost.
Historians following the career of Flt. Mstr. Yrjö Turkka, a Finnish ace of the 24
Squadron, wrote about the scramble to intercept Soviet bombers with a group of five BWs (Finnish Brewster Buffaloes) near the Finnish front line.
“At Soanlahti the Finnish pilots spotted five twin-engine bombers flying in opposite
course, a little higher. Lt. Sarvanto ordered everyone to climb and stand by for attack.
When the BWs were 300m above the bombers they were also 200m behind, ‘Zamba’
[Turkka] rocked his wings as the signal to attack: the BWs dived …”
“During the dive, the Finnish pilots spotted a trio of I-16 fighters heading in to break up their attack. The BW pilots split up, some staying on the bombers and others taking on the I-16s. After a drawn-out dogfight, Turkka managed to destroy one of the I-16s.”
“The burst of the focused 0.5” [.50-caliber] machine guns hit the fuselage of the I-16
between the cockpit and the engine, and the Soviet fighter caught fire. Turkka decreased power and flew on the wing of the I-16, so close that he could see the face of the enemy pilot who kept flying in level flight. The Soviet pilot turned his head and looked at the Finnish pilot, then the flames burst in the cockpit and at the face of the pilot. He lifted one hand to protect his face, then turned his fighter upside down and dived into the terrain.
The fuel tank of the I-16 exploded in a fireball that ignited the surrounding forest.
“All five fighters came and continued for Joensuu. In debriefing it was found that two DB-3s had been shot down, as well as two I-16s, the other one by Sgt. Kinnunen.”
These clean, almost-too-pristine I-16 aircraft were photographed in flight for a 1941 Soviet propaganda film with the pithy title, The Soviet Red Army Air Force Guards the Frontiers of the Motherland.
The wreck of the FHC aircraft was found just a few miles away from Turkka’s combat,
near the northwest shore of Lake Yaglyayarvi.
Sir Tim Wallis—a New Zealand flyer and entrepreneur, who established the New
Zealand Fighter Pilots Museum, the popular Wings Over Wanaka air show, and the Alpine
Deer Group (including the Alpine Fighter Collection)—was investigating warbird wrecks
shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. He conceived the idea of
recovering and restoring Soviet aircraft while others were focused on Allied Lend-Lease aircraft found in Russia. Six I-16s were recovered and restored in the early to mid-1990s by Avio Restorations and the Aeronautical Research Bureau and Plant in Novosibirsk. The latter is located at Plant No. 153, which produced some I-16s during the war. Interestingly, two of the men involved in the restoration project had been fifteen-year-old workers at the factory in 1941 when the I-16s were still being produced.
It was always very difficult to see around the I-16’s massive engine. Drop-down doors allowed a pilot to lean to each side—
even while flying.
The spartan cockpit of the I-16 featured a padded leather sill, a two-hand control stick, and, off to the right, a manual crank for the fighter’s retractable landing gear.
From this shot, it is easy to see why some flyers called the Hurricane the “hunchback.” The fighter’s slightly bent appearance put the pilot at the top of the fuselage, giving a good view of the world around him from the cockpit.
The collection’s I-16 was the fifth I-16 to be restored. Each plane was flight-tested and certified in Russia before being disassembled and exported to New Zealand. There, the
planes were reassembled and flight-tested. The FHC I-16 was registered as ZK-JIQ on
October 9, 1997 and flew with four other I-16s at the Warbirds over Wanaka air show in 1998.
A photo of the collection’s future I-16 was featured in a full-page ad in Warbirds Journal in July 1998. The Alpine Fighter Collection ad states, “[T]his is one of THE
significant fighters to re-appear from oblivion.” The plane was acquired by the FHC as part of a four-aircraft deal with the Alpine Deer Group of New Zealand in August 1998.
The I-16 remains one of the most exotic and unusual aircraft seen in the FHC. More
familiar but no less interesting is the Hawker Hurricane, which many Americans saw
flying regularly in the pages of Life magazine even before the United States entered World War II.
Airmen joked that the Hurricane was so old that it started life as a biplane. It was
actually the other way around. The Hurricane was a monoplane version of the double-
decker Hawker Fury fighter just like the I-16 was a monoplane offshoot of the Polikarpov I-15 biplane.
Hawker Aircraft Limited chief designer Sydney Camm took on the project of
modernizing the Fury as a private venture in 1933, even before the Royal Air Force (RAF) had formally asked for it. The single-winged Fury, renamed Hurricane, became the first monoplane fighter used by the RAF and the first RAF fighter to fly at over three hundred miles per hour.
The “fin flash” on the Hurricane is a throwback to World War I, when the entire rudders of many Allied planes were covered with bold vertical stripes. The recognizable stripes were supposed to keep British pilots from accidently bouncing French aircraft (or vice versa) in cases of mistaken identity. Many planes continued to carry a small block of colors, more as tradition than identification, up through World War II and beyond.
The FHC’s Hawker Hurricane Mk XII is a rare example built in Canada. Made to be launched from a ship on a one-way mission, the fighter was never called upon to sacrifice itself in order to save an Allied merchant ship convoy.
In the starboard wing of this “Hurri-bomber,” just inboard of the guns, is the housing for the plane’s G.45 gun camera. The small twelve-volt recorder saw action in Hurricanes and many other British fighters of the era.
In this image, the Hurricane reveals its biplane heritage. Nearly all the surfaces behind the pilot are skinned in fabric. Also note the fixed tail wheel—permanently hanging below the fighter.
The plane had many of the construction traits of the planes of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Like the I-16, the aircraft was a mixture of wood, steel, and fabric. The core of the new fighter was a high-tensile steel tube frame that was mechanically assembled without welds. Unlike the monocoque skins of many modern fighters, in which the stressed metal skin carries much of the structural load, the inner structure of the Hurricane was similar to the composition and appearance of a railroad bridge. A wooden framework covered that
stout skeleton with metal skin near the nose and fabric from the trailing edge of the wings aft.
Some Allied pilots, particularly those flying sleek-looking Spitfires, called Hurricanes
“hunchbacks” because of their bowed appearance while sitting on the ground. In flight, the odd shape was an advantage because the pilot sat high—giving him a good view from the
cockpit.
The wings of the Hurricane prototype were steel structures covered in fabric. However, later versions of the aircraft used stressed metal skins for better performance. The
Hurricane’s designers mounted the plane’s glycol and oil coolers in the big scoop under the fighter’s belly.
A highlight of the new fighter was the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. The Hurricane and
Spitfire, of Battle of Britain fame, used the dependable and powerful V-12.
Other traits of the new Hurricane included a wide-track retractable landing gear and a fully-enclosed canopy. Both of these improvements over the Fury biplane would soon pay dividends in World War II combat theaters where the Hurricane operated from some of the most unforgiving and primitive airfields around the globe.
SUICIDE SORTIE
The Flying Heritage Collection’s Hawker fighter plane began its life as a Sea
Hurricane: an aircraft made to be launched from a ship as last-ditch protection against a marauding enemy patrol bomber. Out at sea, merchant ships were hundreds of miles
from any land-based aircraft protection. German long-range Focke-Wulf Condor
bombers could intercept Allied convoys outside the range of fighter cover and wreak
havoc. In the last part of 1940, these attacks sunk over a half million tons of Allied shipping.
The solution was for convoys to bring their own cover. The Royal Navy invented
the Catapult Aircraft Merchantmen (CAM) ship in the period before the advent of the
escort carrier. “Hurricats,” as the sea-going planes were sometimes called, were
perched on a trolley riding on a bow-mounted catapult rail. The trolley was propelled
by thirteen rockets fired by the Catapult Directing Officer after the pilot dropped his arm to signal readiness. Some thirty-five CAM ships operated between May 1941 and
July 1943.
A Hurricane fighter, hurtled into the skies from a ship, was more than a match for
the slower and bigger Condor bombers. Sometimes, even the sight of a rocket-
powered launch was enough for German attack aircraft to move away in search of
easier targets.
Victory, however, was only half the battle. After a fight, a Sea Hurricane pilot had
to make some very hard choices. He could set a course for the nearest land, or if the
ships were too far out at sea, he had to ditch his plane or jump. Bailing out was
dangerous, but the frozen waters of the North Atlantic were even worse. A pilot had to pick just the right moment to leave the plane, because he wasn’t going to last long in the water.
Flyers were originally drawn from volunteers in the Fleet Air Arm, but, after the
Battle of Britain, many of the pilots on the CAM ships were RAF combat veterans.
The CAM ship concept worked. Hurricane pilots officially shot down six Condors
and damaged many others. Still more enemy attackers were driven away by the new
convoy protection. The cost was high. Many flyers and aircraft were lost while
attempting to keep the sailors and their supply ships safe.
The collection’s Sea Hurricane, of course, was never launched into the cold skies
over the North Atlantic. Eventually, the plane went back to the aircraft factory for
reconditioning and it started the next stage of its career.
A “Hurricat” fighter launches into the skies with the help of rocket power during testing. These catapults were later mounted on the decks of ships to protect ship convoys from German patrol aircraft.
Early-model Hurricanes are lined up for inspection in France, circa 1939. Some of the first batches of Mk.I Hurricanes had Venturi tubes on their sides and wooden, two-bladed, fixed-pitch Watts propellers.
Mechanics say that working on the Hawker Hurricane is a challenge. A multitude of the plane’s systems are stuffed into the voids between the plane’s engine and steel tube structural members. This image was taken as the FHC’s Hurricane was being prepped for a test flight.
This image shows the distinctive exhaust stacks of the Hurricane’s Merlin engine. Many think the name Merlin came from the King Arthur legend. However, Rolls-Royce chose the names of birds of prey for their power plants—Falcon, Eagle, and Buzzard.
The merlin is a small hawk seen in the northern hemisphere.
Spin tests of early model Hurricanes led designers to add a slightly enlarged rudder and a distinctive underfin near the fighter’s fixed tail wheel.
When fighting began in France, the Hurricane’s original fixed-speed, two-bladed,
wooden propeller became a liability. Later versions incorporated a constant speed
propeller, which allowed the prop to change blade pitch to use engine power more
efficiently at various settings.
The Battle of Britain was the real test of the Hurricane. While the beautiful
Supermarine Spitfire stole all the headlines, the Hawker Hurricane did more of the work.
Britain had more Hurricanes than Spitfires because they were much simpler to build.
In battle, German explosive bullets sometimes passed right through a Hurricane’s
biplane-era fabric-covered aft fuselage without detonating. And, due to the simple (some would say outdated) construction method, the metal tube structures and basic skins could usually be repaired fairly quickly and the Hurricane could be returned to active service much faster than a Spitfire.
When everything went as planned in the skies over Britain, there was a certain division of labor between the RAF Spitfire and Hurricane pilots. The fast and maneuverable
Spitfires took on the German fighters while the Hurricanes went after the enemy bombers.
The Hurricane was uniquely suited to this task: sturdy and steady as a gun platform, it had an ample wing that could carry an arsenal, often eight Browning machine guns.
When the summer of 1940 was over, the Hurricane had accounted for 1,593 of the
2,739 total air-to-air victories claimed in the Battle of Britain. Though nearly obsolete, the Hurricane went on to serve in nearly every combat theater, including North Africa,
Southeast Asia, the Mediterranean, and on the Eastern Front with the Soviets. As with
many proven planes, the Hurricane took on more than fighter duties. Versions of the plane flew as ground attack craft, night fighters, and reconnaissance planes.
Pilots said that the Hurricane was a big and powerful, but gentle machine. From the
cockpit, a flyer could see nearly everything, but was deafened by the roar of the Merlin engine and the constant drumming of the fighter’s fabric-skinned sides. Where the I-16
was skittish and slippery, the Hurricane flew steady, sturdy, and solid. This characteristic was not great in a turning dogfight but was excellent for getting the maximum amount of lead into the hide of a slow-moving German bomber.
The Hurricane’s big, convex rear view mirror can be seen in this image of the fighter’s cockpit. Note that the plane’s gunsight has been removed. Sometimes, for Fly Day performances, pilots prefer to operate the planes without the space-consuming sight installed.
The FHC’s Hurricane has one thing the aircraft of RCAF No. 135 Squadron did not—a spinner. The squadron’s planes flew with an American engine and propeller and the prop dome was too big to cover the original style spinner. So, through most of the war, No. 135 planes flew without the streamlined piece of metal at the nose of the aircraft.
The FHC Hurricane was one of 1,451 Hurricanes built by the Canadian Car & Foundry
Company (CCF) at Fort William, Ontario, Canada. The British Air Ministry, concerned
about damage that could be done to aircraft factories in the UK, developed a specification for the Canadian Department of National Defense in 1939 for aircraft production in
Canada. In short order, the CCF received a contract, a Hawker Hurricane to use as a
pattern, and microfilm of drawings of all components and manufacturing tools. The first forty Hurricanes were produced by September 1940.
The collection’s aircraft was one of a block of fifty Sea Hurricanes ordered in 1941 for use in the RAF’s Merchant Ship Fighter Unit. The planes were fitted with catapult spools, slinging gear, and a naval radio to communicate with merchant ships. The FHC aircraft
was built with a Merlin III engine, a three-bladed de Havilland Hamilton Hydromatic
propeller, and eight .303-inch machine guns. Serial number BW 881 was delivered to
Eastern Air Command at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, on January 22, 1942. No. 118 (F)
Fighter Squadron took charge of this aircraft, but it was seconded to the Admiralty in Halifax, stored for possible use. The aircraft never saw active service with the Merchant Ship Fighter Unit.
On June 23, 1943, the FHC’s aircraft was returned to the CCF where it was converted
to a Mk.XIIA. This version used an American-built Packard Merlin XXIX engine. After
conversion, the aircraft was transferred to No. 1 (F) Operation Training Unit at Bagotville, Quebec in September 1943. A few weeks later, the Hurricane had just taken off and was
climbing through four thousand feet, near St. Anne, Quebec, when its engine quit. Flight Sergeant E. E. Whitehead guided the plane down to a belly landing and was uninjured in the crash. The plane was judged Category D (damage pertaining to power plant).
Investigation placed the cause of the failure on “engine threw oil through the breather …
Possibility scavenge pump failed.”
Slightly less than a year later, on September 7, 1944, the Hurricane was involved in a Category B (not repairable on site) crash at Chicoutimi, Quebec. The report on the
accident states that Flight Officer E. L. Banks was testing a new engine that quit due to a broken connecting rod. Banks brought the plane down for a wheels-up landing “behind
Chicoutimi hospital.” He was uninjured in the crash but the plane was heavily damaged. It was transferred to the No. 9 Repair Depot on September 9, 1944 but there is no indication that any work was carried out. On September 28, 1944, the aircraft was written off to
“spares and produce.”
The prototype Hawker Hurricane first took to the skies in 1935 with H.G. Hawker Engineering’s Chief Test Pilot, Flight Lt. Paul Ward Spencer “George” Bulman in the cockpit. Tests with the plane led to many improvements in the Hurricane’s design, mostnotably the addition of an underfin and all-metal stressed Duralumin wings.
The ensuing history of the FHC Hurricane is not entirely clear; however, it appears that Cameron Logan, a farmer in Quebec, purchased the remains of the aircraft after the war.
The wreck sat at his farm in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu for thirty-five years before Jack Arnold, an aviation collector in Brantford, Ontario, purchased it in 1982. Passed through many hands, the Hurricane wreck became the property of the Alpine Fighter Collection of New Zealand in 1998.
The FHC acquired the Hurricane as part of a four-aircraft deal with the Alpine in
August of that year. The Hurricane was restored at Hawker Restorations in Milden,
England. Hawker Restorations specializes in the rebuilding of Hurricanes, and has
acquired and developed the manuals, drawings, jigs, and tooling necessary to rebuild this complex airframe.
The ports holding the Hurricane’s Browning .303s are taped over. In combat, tape kept out dirt and moisture that might foul the weapons. As well, the tape (often red or yellow) acted as a warning to everyone working around the fighter that the guns were loaded and ready to fire.
Gear down, the FHC’s Hawker Hurricane prepares to land. The plane is a rarity—built in Canada. Since it was built in North America, the plane is equipped with a Packard Merlin engine instead of a British-built Rolls-Royce.
The restored BW 881 is today fitted with a Packard Merlin 224 and a Hamilton
Standard hydromatic propeller. It is painted with the colors of the Canadian Home
Defense No. 135 (F) Squadron. The “Bulldog Squadron” was assigned to the Western Air
Command, headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. The 135th was formed at
Mosabank, Saskatchewan, and eventually moved to Patricia Bay, British Columbia;
Annette Island, Alaska; and Terrace, British Columbia. The bulldog emblem was inspired by the squadron’s mascot, a bulldog named “King.”
The fully restored Hurricane was first flight tested by Stuart Goldspink in England
before being shipped to Arlington, Washington, in August 2006. It was reassembled after arrival in Arlington and is today flown regularly at Fly Day events at the FHC in Everett, Washington.