One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing Quiz

Answer: Hart

The HG Hawker Engineering Company was founded in 1920 when senior employees bought the rights to the Sopwith company, famous for a number of WW1 aircraft, after Sopwith went into receivership. Hawker was to go on to become one of the great names of British aircraft manufacturing. By 1935, Hawker had subsumed several other aircraft companies including Armstrong Siddeley, Whitworth, A V Roe, Blackburn and De Haviland.

The Hind was a light bomber and the last bi-plane used by the RAF; the Hurricane was a monoplane fighter that was built in vast numbers and often credited as the aircraft that really won the Battle of Britain; the Hawker Siddeley - BAe Harrier was the first truly capable vertical and short take off/landing aircraft in the world; the Hart was a single-engine bi-plane bomber.

Answer: Scimitar

The Supermarine company came into being in 1916 and initially designed and built several racing aircraft. The name disappeared in 1956 when the company was acquired by Vickers.

Participation in those races, particularly the Schneider Trophy, was to give Supermarine a new insight into designs that were to lead to the Spitfire, arguably the most famous British fighter plane ever built. The first Spitfire flew in 1938 and remained in operation with the RAF until 1947. Other air forces continued to use it.

The Spiteful was the successor to the Spitfire; the Swift was a jet fighter and the Scimitar a ground attack aircraft.

Answer: Hound

The De Haviland (sometimes spelt out De Haviland) company came into being in its own right in 1920, although the founder, Geoffrey de Haviland, had designed WW1 planes for Airco. De Haviland became part of Hawker Siddeley in the 1950s.

The Hound was a biplane day bomber; the Dragon Rapide was a twin-engine passenger plane; the Tiger Moth was a biplane trainer in wich thousands of pilots learnt to fly; the Mosquito was a twin-engine fighter bomber and perhaps the most successful and best known war plane from the company.

Answer: Fellowship

Fokker was a German company founded in 1912, but which moved to the Netherlands in 1919. During WW1, it provided the backbone of the German air-force.

The Eindecker was a monoplane when most planes were biplanes. Fokker also made a triplane, the Dreidecker, which was flown by the Red Baron and in which he claimed the last 19 of his 80 'kills'. The Friendship and Fellowship were post-WW2 airliners.

Answer: Super Hornet

The Flying Fortress, Superfortress, and Stratofortress were all Boeing four-engine heavy bombers that flew from the late 1930s onwards in conflicts WW2, Korea and Vietnam. The Super Hornet was a multi-role aircraft primarily for carrier use.

Boeing traces its history to 1916, and through subsequent mergers and acquisitions became the world's largest aircraft manufacturer.

Answer: Cargomaster

Douglas was a family firm created in 1921 and which merged with McDonnell in 1967. The new company, McDonnell Douglas, merged with Boeing in 1997.

While Douglas manufactured most types of aircraft, the four mentioned here were all principally cargo carriers, in both military and civilian use. 'Dakota" was the name given by the Royal Air Force to the DC3, many examples of which continue to fly as freight and passenger carriers more than 85 years after the type first flew in 1935.

Answer: Jenny

Curtis was an American aircraft and motor company founded in 1916. It merged into the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. in 1929.

The Curtis Falcon was a single-engine biplane made for observation and attack; the Fledgling was a trainer; the Hawk was a biplane fighter.

The Curtiss Jenny - official designation JN14 - was a 1918 trainer that saw a lot of service in civilian life after WW1. Even more interesting information: the Jenny stood in for British SE5A aircraft in aerial scenes in the movie "Dawn Patrol" in 1938. Even less interesting information: As any Brit brought up on the "Biggles" books of Captain W. E. Johns, the SE5A was not as good a fighter as the Sopwith Camel. (That is not just prejudice because Biggles flew a Camel, it is a fact; the Camel shot down 1,294 enemy aircraft, making it the most successful Allied fighter of the war.)

Answer: Talon

The Delta, Tiger Shark, Black Widow and Talon were all made by the US firm Northrop. The Delta was a single engine transport plane; the Black Widow a night fighter; the Scorpion a jet interceptor; and the Talon a jet trainer.

Founded in 1939, Northrop never reached the scale of model production of other manufacturers. The most-produced model was the F-5 light jet fighter of the 1950s. The company merged with Grumman in 1994.

Answer: Sunderland

All these aircraft were made by Short Brothers, the world's first mass producer of aircraft. The first aircraft were made in 1908 and it had factories in England and in Belfast, Northern Ireland, up to WW2. After the war, the company moved all production to Belfast.

The Shorts Belfast was a civil passenger plane, the Skyvan was a light freight carrier and the Empire was a flying boat. The Sunderland was also a flying boat that proved crucial to the ultimate allied victory against the U-Boar peril in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Throughout its history the company was in an out of nationalisation and private ownership at times and was taken over by the Canadian company Bombardier in 1989.

Answer: Mirage

All four of these aircraft models were built by the French Dassault company. All were jet fighters.

Both the Super-Étendard and Mirage (in an Israeli-built version) saw action in the Falklands War, but their Argentinian pilots lacked combat experience and were outfought in aerial combat by Britain's Sea Harrier jump jets.

Founded in 1929 by Marcel Bloch Société des Avions Marcel Bloch changed its name to Avions Marcel Dassault. Bloch had changed his own name to Dassault.