The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–1940s that was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd for the Royal Air Force (RAF). Although overshadowed by the Supermarine Spitfire, the aircraft became renowned during the Battle of Britain, accounting for 60 percent of the RAF air victories in the battle. It served in all the major theatres of the Second World War. The Hurricane originated from discussions during the early 1930s between RAF officials and British aircraft designer Sir Sydney Camm on the topic of a proposed monoplane derivative of the Hawker Fury biplane. Despite an institutional preference at the time for biplanes and repeated lack of interest by the Air Ministry, Hawker chose to continue refining their monoplane proposal, which resulted in the incorporation of several innovations that would become critical to wartime fighter aircraft, including retractable undercarriage and a more powerful engine in the form of the newly developed Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. In late 1934, the Air Ministry placed an order for Hawker's "Interceptor Monoplane". On 6 November 1935, the prototype Hurricane, K5083, performed its maiden flight.

Info: Hurricane Mk.I, V6799 K.W. McKenzie, 501 Sqn, Gravesend 1940 - 100 Years of the RAF