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Old March 31st 04, 05:52 PM
ANDREW ROBERT BREEN
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In article ,
Paul J. Adam wrote:
In message , JetA1
writes
Hi All,

I am reading a book written by John Nichol, name of the book is
"Exclusion Zone". They fly aircraft called Tempest GR7.

I have now been googling around for a while, but simply did not
find any data on what sort of aircraft this "Tempest GR7" is. Does
it even exist? Could the novelist be referring to Harrier GR7?


It's a fictional aircraft created for the book, loosely based on the
Tornado at a guess. Back in WW2 I seem to recall the Tornado and Tempest
competed for the same staff requirement, and the Tempest won so the name
languished a little: Nichol may have used a historical in-joke to use
his Tornado experience without being sued for libel.


Tornado and Typhoon, IIRC: Tornado had the Rolls-Royce Vulture X-24,
Typhoon the Napier Sabre H-24 (Jeez what a choice..). Tempest had
a new thin wing and a longer fuselage and a choice of Napier Sabre
or Bristol Centaurus and was very much the Typhoon done as it ought to
have been (mind, if the engines had worked right the Typhoon/Tornado
would have been in service for late 1940, and if it had it would have come
as a nasty shock to a lot of folk flying aeroplanes with balck crosses on
them).
Tempest, I'd therefore surmise, is meant to be some hypothetical
development of the Typhoon, maybe optimised for air-ground given the
"GR" designation.

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
"Time has stopped, says the Black Lion clock
and eternity has begun" (Dylan Thomas)