Another Hurricane Restoration

Kyt · Feb 27, 2008

Helsingin Sanomat - International Edition - Home

"What I thought I’d do is fly a couple of circuits over Helsinki and then land at Malmi Airport", says Philip Lawton.
There is nothing particularly out of the ordinary in the Englishman’s remarks - there are plenty of middle-aged men out there with pilot’s licences and cockpit dreams.
But Lawton’s dream is of a rather more ambitious nature than most, and right now it is lying in bits in an aircraft hangar in Hampshire.

A World War II Hawker Hurricane is looking forward to taking wing once more in the colours of the Finnish Air Force.
All that is required for the transformation is the work of six mechanics over two years, a lot of missing spare parts, and around EUR 1.5 million in costs.
There are at present no airworthy Hurricanes left in Finland, though there is one museum specimen.

You have to ask the question: why would an apparently sane Englishman want to invest such a large amount of money on behalf of Finnish aviation history?
Naturally it is a labour of love.
"As a little kid I used to put together scale model aeroplanes. I started flying fifteen years ago."
The other love affair is a Finnish one. In fact Lawton, his wife Jaana, and their children will be moving to Finland soon. Permanently. They have already bought a house in Espoo.

The restoration project on the Hurricane fighter began three years ago, when Lawton sold his engineering business and took retirement.
He had extra time on his hands - and a fair bit of extra money, too.
In England, the restoration of old military aircraft - "the warbird scene" - is a popular hobby.
"In the summer months there can be two or three flying show displays every weekend", says Lawton, and he promises that when it is completed he will fly his own 65-year-old aircraft at shows in Finland.

The work to reconstruct the Hawker Hurricane begins from scratch, with all the parts separated and carefully catalogued. According to Lawton there are “around a million of them”. Each component is cleaned and screened for signs of metal fatigue.
Once that process is done, then begins the exercise of building the plane from the ground up with the aid of manuals.
The construction work and the condition of the individual parts is monitored closely by the Civil Aviation Authority’s Safety Regulation Group, which keeps a database register of civil aircraft in the UK.

"Look at that! The quality of this steel is quite fantastic", says Lawton as he shows off a piece of metal about the size of his fist.
It gleams like new, even though it is approaching seventy years of age and has spent much of its life who knows where.
Lawton is painstakingly building his Hurricane from two written-off “corpses”.
One was bought from England and the other hails from Canada, where the aircraft was designated the Hurricane XII. He is also putting together the additional components he needs by swapping items with other Hurricane enthusiasts.

"There were six Hurricanes left in Finland after the war. One of them is in the Aviation Museum in Tikkakoski, but what became of the other five is not known. It would be wonderful if someone could shed some light on their later history. I’d really like to have some parts from Finnish Hurricanes in my aircraft", says Lawton.

Flying vintage aircraft is not without its dangers.
"As a matter of fact accidents do happen quite often. Last September one Hurricane came down during an airshow display and the pilot was killed."
Flying to Finland in a plane such as this is also a time-consuming business.
In order to fly to Malmi from the UK, one needs to book a couple of days and be prepared to make a substantial detour across Central Europe.
This last may cause problems of its own.
When flown by the Finns in the Continuation War of 1941-44, the Hurricanes were painted with the blue swastika roundel [introduced some years before Nazi Germany commandeered the symbol, just in case anyone wonders] that was the insignia of the Finnish Air Force.
“I guess I’ll have to cover them up somehow for the duration of the flight”, says Lawton.
Click to expand...

Kyt · Feb 27, 2008

Helsingin Sanomat - International Edition - Home

The first Hawker Hurricane flew in England in 1935.
The Hurricane was a single-seat, single-engined fighter designed to use the new Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. The original design was the work of Sir Sydney Camm.
In all, around 14,000 Hurricanes were built by Hawker and later by a company in Canada.

On the outbreak of the Winter War in late 1939, Finland bought 12 Hurricane I planes from England. It has occasionally been suggested that they were a gift, but all accounts point to the fact that the Finns paid hard cash for the aircraft, buying them from the Gloster factory. Gloster was a subsidiary of Hawker at the time.

Two of the aircraft were damaged beyond repair while being flown from the UK, and they never arrived in Finland.

A total of ten Hurricanes thus made landfall in Finland in March 1940, by which time the Winter War was entering its final days, and the planes did not see any action in this conflict.

During the Continuation War of 1941-44, the Finns managed to capture three Soviet Air Force Hurricane IIB planes.
Only one of them could be made airworthy.
Naturally the involvement of the UK on the other side of the conflict from Finland (in the Continuation War) made the acquisition of spare parts even more difficult than it had previously been, and this hampered the use of the aircraft.

Five Hurricanes were destroyed - three in aerial combat and two by anti-aircraft fire, for the loss of four pilots.

The final Hurricane sortie in Finnish colours took place on May 31st, 1944. In the following autumn the aircraft was removed from the FAF’s register.

Finnish Air Force Hurricanes did not actually enjoy very much success in combat, recording 5.5 kills in action. The Hurricane, one of the heroes of the Battle of Britain, was outshone by the American Brewster Buffalo. Deemed a failure in the U.S., in the hands of Finnish pilots these planes shot down over 450 enemy aircraft for the loss of only fifteen of their own.

Following the entry of the Soviet Union into the war on the side of the Allies, the Soviet Air Force received a total of 2,952 Hurricanes of various types under lend-lease agreements.
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Antipodean Andy · Feb 27, 2008

Good on 'im!

morse1001 · Feb 28, 2008

I wish him luck, it would be good to see a hurri in Finnish Colours!

Nostalgair · Feb 29, 2008

Great to see another Hurricane being preserved.

Cheers

Owen

Kyt · Mar 1, 2008

Will be interesting to see it in Finnish colours as the blue swastika will look quite striking on a Hurri (like this one):

Finnish Aircraft

morse1001 · Mar 1, 2008

It certainly does! But looks quite good!

Nostalgair · Mar 30, 2008

Hi All,

I had a contact come through my website regarding yet another Hurri restoration. Here's the link.

AM 274

Cheers

Owen

Antipodean Andy · Apr 9, 2008

Excellent, Owen. Can't have enough of them!

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