The high-speed successor designed to fix the Typhoon's fatal flaws

Wars & Conflicts · Published 9 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: The Hawker Typhoon was a powerful fighter plagued by engine unreliability and poor high-altitude performance. To solve this, engineers developed the Tempest: a streamlined predator featuring a revolutionary laminar flow wing that made it the fastest single-engine propeller aircraft of the war at low altitudes.

The Tempest emerged from a need to rectify the Typhoon's aerodynamic shortcomings. The original Typhoon utilized a thick wing section that suffered from compressibility issues at high speeds and altitudes. To address this, Sydney Camm and his design team developed the 'Typhoon II'—later renamed the Tempest—which utilized a thinner, low-drag laminar flow wing design inspired by NACA research.

Performance increased notably thanks to this novel wing, which possessed a 14.5 per cent maximum thickness-to-chord ratio at the root. To compensate for the loss of leading-edge fuel tanks caused by the new wing shape, engineers added a 76-Igal fuel tank in a new 21-inch bay in front of the cockpit. The design also moved the engine radiators from the nose to the wing's leading edge, eliminating the Typhoon's distinctive 'chin' radiator and further streamlining the aircraft.

The Tempest's development was complicated by engine availability and various technical hurdles. While the Mk.V variant eventually entered service in 1944 to perform low-level interception and ground attacks during operations like Market Garden, other variants faced different fates. The Mk.I was abandoned due to Sabre IV engine issues, and the Mk.II did not reach production before the end of hostilities. Despite these complexities, the Tempest proved its mettle by countering even the new German jet-propelled Messerschmitt Me 262.

By the end of the war, the Tempest had become a formidable asset for the Royal Air Force, used for everything from intercepting V-1 flying bombs to destroying German rail infrastructure. Its evolution from a troubled derivative to a high-performance interceptor highlights the intense engineering race for aerial supremacy during the conflict.

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