A Definitive Guide to the World’s Last Airworthy Hawker Hurricane Fighters

The Hawker Hurricane, workhorse of the Battle of Britain, never captured the public imagination to the same degree as the more glamorous Spitfire during the long summer of 1940, but nevertheless accounted for some 55 per cent of enemy kills. Popular with pilots, the heavily-armed Hurricane proved itself to be a reliable and robust fighter, regarded by the likes of British ace Douglas Bader as “a marvellous gun platform” that dispatched countless Luftwaffe bombers to the bottom of the English Channel. But had it not been for the tenacity of legendary aeronautical engineer Sir Sydney Camm, the Hurricane may never have gone into production at all.

When Camm first proposed his design to the Air Ministry in 1934, it was rejected in favour of what became Supermarine’s more “thoroughbred” Spitfire. Undeterred, Camm pursued his venture privately, and the government eventually placed an order for 600 of what would become more than 14,500 aircraft, to be rolled out of factories across Britain and the Commonwealth over the next decade. During the Battle of Britain, at the hands of The Few, the two fighters cemented their place in history, defending the skies over southern England and beyond against Germany’s aerial armada at overwhelming odds.

Camm’s rugged design would prove adaptable to all manner of roles throughout the war, from fighter-bomber to maritime reconnaissance in all major theatres of battle. Older versions were even adapted as catapult launched ‘Hurricats’. But when the Second World War came to a close, airworthy Hurricanes became an endangered species by comparison to its Supermarine rival. In recent decades, though, that trend has slowly been reversing, as more and more Hurricanes are brought back to life. This article is an attempt to document the world’s last airworthy Hurricanes as they are today. Among them are those undergoing restoration to flight, and others being returned to running condition and perhaps, one day, to the skies again.