No.1 SQUADRON RAF (PART FOUR) - FROM FURY TO HURRICANE

No.1 Squadron RAF was one of the last of the RAF's squadrons to change over from the Hawker Fury biplane to the Hurricane Mk.1 monoplane, achieving re-equipment with the new fighters by the end of the first week of November 1938. Within only a year, No.1 Squadron would be at war. 

The end of the Fury, 1938.

Re-equipment took place within weeks of the Munich Crisis at the end of September 1938. The imminent prospect of war in September 1938 had nevertheless caused No.1 Squadron to camouflage its previously brightly coloured Furies:

A diecast Corgi model of a 'Munich Fury' in camouflage colours

The underside of the same diecast Corgi Fury showing the black/white underside arrangement

Airfix Magazine carried a number of articles on the peacetime Fury and the Munich Crisis Fury (probably best to download these and 'blow them up' for legibility):

Thus, the era of the "silver wings" came to an abrupt end (other than in the alternative timeline of the VBCW, of course), and so too the era of "Pulp Illustrations":

Bill Barnes, Air Adventurer, from 1934. Barnes appears to have
been an American competitor to Biggles - but here he is in a Fury.

Model Airplane News showcases the Hurricane, April 1936.
At this time, the Hurricane was still very much in development
and nowhere close to squadron service - possibly explaining the
unique colour scheme shown here!

A much more realistic scheme from a cigarette card - 1938.
Note interesting roundel patterns.

The cigarette cards of 1939 understandably emphasised the number of available Hurricanes

as did this July 1939 edition of "Popular Flying". Note roundels again.
Shame the hangars haven't been camouflaged - although such is probably 
just the illustrator.

The difference between the Fury and the Hurricane was immense. In amongst the blizzard of performance statistics (which do not seem to be that reliable or easy to compare) about the two machines, Paul Richey's comparison seems the most telling, i.e. the Fury was "one man, 695 horsepower and two slow-firing Vickers machine guns", while the Hurricane was "one man, 1030 horsepower and eight quick firing Browning machine guns".