Did pilots resist Hurricane and Spitfire enclosed cockpits?

Oh arr…

Canopy jamming?

Yes – our only fatal in Russia was a bullet jammed canopy.

What a way to go.

= Tim

I wonder if it would have taken a bubble canopy mod?

It could – as in the Avia S-199 in post war service

The Galland hood more correctly an Erla haube (after Erla – an Me109 sub-contractor) and IIRC had little if anything to do with Galland

I think you might have appreciated the canopy when flying at 20,000+ft 🙂

I think, having sat in a ‘109’, that the hood was deemed very ‘tight’ and difficult to lift up and get out

I have also been lucky enough to sit in a 109. I closed the canopy for that `authentic feel` and yes you guessed it, ended up fast in there !

“Fat Herman ” …Whooosh aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!

I think and could be wrong, but wasn’t the method of blowing a full up Bubble Canopy under British patent by Malcolm? I don’t think any other country had the know how until quite late in the war.

I wonder if it would have taken a bubble canopy mod?

You’d think so, given the superficial similarities between the 109s canopy and that of the early P-51s, which were modified for the Malcom hood on the Mustang iii / P-51c.

But when you finally spotted them, maybe your left hand hovered ‘twixt throttle and that little red handle. Just in case. 🙂

I have no great illusions about my stock of bravery.

Once I spotted a Merlin spinner in my mirror I’d be out over the side before you could say “Fat Herman”

Moggy

I wonder if it would have taken a bubble canopy mod?

Indeed.

But when you finally spotted them, maybe your left hand hovered ‘twixt throttle and that little red handle. Just in case. 🙂

My concern would not so much have been about getting out, but of spotting the ‘bandits’ through all that heavyweight framing.

Moggy

To get out in a hurry, Herr Willy had thoughtfully fitted a little handle that jettisoned the lifting part of the canopy, the fixed rear part and also carried away the mast and aerial wire as well.

I have one sitting on my desk right now!

I think, having sat in a ‘109’, that the hood was deemed very ‘tight’ and difficult to lift up and get out of what was a pretty small space.
Adolph Galland designed the ‘Galland hood’ for Herr Willy, and it can often be seen on documentary films of the Luftwaffe in action

Didn’t some pilots lock their canopies back when going into battle.
Just in case they jam and you couldn’t get out.

When did jettison-able canopies appear on Spitfires?

I think if I were a combat pilot and Herr Willy proudly showed me the Bf109 canopy I’d have ‘resisted’ pretty loudly!

Moggy

I’ve never heard of any resistance from service pilots, although most manufacturers were offering open cockpits for military aircraft until just before the Spitfire and Hurricane. For civil/commercial pilots there was the same ‘wind in your hair’ thinking. I’m sure some of it was also driven by the need, in the immediate post-WWI days, to use celluloid for any sort of sensibly streamlined enclosure, as toughened glass was only available in relatively small, flat sheets. Anyone who’d been through aerial combat and been shot at, particularly if they’ve seen tracer at close quarters, wouldn’t want a flamable canopy wrapped round their head. In Imperial Airways and it’s precursors the pilots were determined to keep their open cockpits – until they ventured into the Middle East. Out there the ‘wind in the face’ was often full of sand, and they wanted a full cockpit enclosure (on the DH.66 in the first case) very quickly, thank you. Apart from a few flying boats (not much sand over open ocean) commercial aircraft had full enclosures from then on.

Through the 1920s, much of the RAF’s activity was overseas, often with obsolescent equipment and in desert conditions. They would have had the same imperative to keep the elements out of the cockpit as their commercial counterparts, and by the time the manufacturers got round to providing an enclosure that was viable in combat (could be opened easily under all conditions to enable bailing out, amongst other factors), many of the the service pilots would have had experience in the desert and were probably only too glad to get it. Not until the Spanish Civil War did the Luftwaffe venture to such dusty climates and by then they’d got at least one aircraft type with a full canopy. Presumably they found the benefits in short order, and that’s what all subsequent designs had.

What has always surprised me is that there wasn’t more of a general drive to keep the rain out. Even if you expect your pilots to be hardly types and not notice a little water, it must have played hell with the instruments on occasion. And obviously there are other factors that come into play under certain conditions: you need adequate provision for demisting a full enclosure; windscreen wipers when you can’t just wave your hand over the top of the screen or look round it; and so on. It must have been a case of matching demand with available, mature technology and then making a reasoned choice. Different reasons = different choices.