The Hawker Hurricane was originally designed in 1934 as an updated monoplane version of the Hawker Fury (also in the MAM collection). It first flew the next year.

It could be argued that Britain would have lost the war in 1940 without this plane. During the Battle of Britain, when that country fought alone against expected invasion, the Hurricane was flying in greater numbers than the more popular Spitfire, and accounted for 80% of enemy planes destroyed.

The MAM Hurricane was built in 1943 as one of the 1,451 planes built in Canada, and it is almost completely in it’s original condition. The livery is that of Pilot Officer John Kenneth Haviland, the only U.S.-born RAF pilot who flew in the Battle of Britain that survived the war. Haviland returned to the U.S. and retired as Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia.

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