Hi all.
Im trying to find out the position of the IFF wires on a Hurricane MK1 circa late 1940.
Ive been searching the net and my books and cant find any evidence of IFF wires on a Hurricane.
I presume they must have had IFF fitted somewhere.
Has anyone got a photo,some line drawings or a link that would help me out.
Cheers
Nige

Yes mate got a diagram, I'm writing this just before going to work so I will scan it later. Basically it goes from mid fuselage, level with the tailplanes, to the tips of the tailplanes. Pic to follow
Mal

Thanks Mal.
Looking forward to it.
Guess this gives it away as to what Im building at the moment :-)

Hi Nige,
The IFF wires weren't always fitted on Hurricanes, I haven't found a picture of one in any of my references, yet. A good subject for your next model
This is taken from The Modellers Datafile on the Hawker Hurricane by Sam Publications. If you want a higher resolution copy let me know and I'll email it.

I'm afraid this is the best I have but it does show the position, but no real reference point as to the location in the fuselage.
HTH
Mal

Thanks Mal.
Thats just the sort of drawing I was looking for.
Interesting to note that IFF wires werent allways fitted to Hurricanes.
I thought every aircraft at that time was fitted with IFF.
If the wires werent fitted does anyone know what form of IFF was carried on Hurricanes?
The thought of flying around the skies of southern England in 1940 without IFF doesnt sound appealing.

IFF? ID Friend or Foe?

Hi Murdo.
Thats right. IFF is Identitfication Friend or Foe.
I think it emitted a pulse of somesort that identified the aircraft to radar operators as being RAF.
Generally speaking if a radar plot was picked up without any IFF it was a good chance that the pilot of the "silent" aircraft was going to get a close encounter of the Spitfire kind in the very near future.

I had NO IDEA the RAF had IFF in 1940! Hence the question.

Still a bit shocked...

Not half as shocked as an unsuspecting Luftwaffe pilot!!!!

Yeah, poor them.

Unfortunatelly, not all aircraft carried IFF, and it did account for some mishaps. However, "flight vectoring" and other tracking methods did attempt to keep things straight.

The Mk I, IFF system (invented by the British) was figured out by the Germans and they mimiced it, this of course lead to Mk II, Mk III and Mk IV versions of the IFF system. :-)

Air controllers are some of the unsung Heros of WW II.



Correct the IFF signal was a pulse code sent from the ground based Radar system, which was "answered" by the aircraft system. Again unfortunatelly not all ground stations had IFF capability either, as it was a retrofit seperate piece of equipment.

Hi all.
Thanks for the input.
I think in this particular case I will leave them off.
Hopefully I'll get around to finishing the Hurricane before I go away on Monday.
Work calls and its back on the road for me.
2 weeks of cold turkey
Nige

This is fascinating... Any more info?

It's a strange one this, I've seen diagrams and drawings of the hurricane with IFF wires depicted but never a photograph that shows them.