Hawker P.V.31934 |
FIGHTER | Virtual Aircraft Museum / United Kingdom / Hawker |
Designed to meet the requirements of Specification F.7/30 calling for a single-seat, four-gun day and night fighter, the P.V.3 was flown on 15 June 1934 with a 695hp Rolls-Royce Goshawk III steam-cooled engine. This was later to be replaced successively by B.41 and B.43 Goshawks. The P.V.3 was structurally similar to the Fury, and two of its four 7.7mm machine guns were paired over the engine and the others mounted one each side of the nose. Officially evaluated at Martlesham Heath with the 700hp B.43 Goshawk, the P.V.3 featured a weighty and vulnerable evaporative evaporative cooling system, and further development was not pursued. This was partly as a result of the unsatisfactory cooling system but primarily owing to the rethinking of fighter requirements for the RAF that had meanwhile taken place and the imminent appearance of the Hurricane in consequence.
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