Hawker Tempest II      MW742

                                 

                                        Now that's what I call a "going machine".   2,500 hp of sheer brute force powered this, one of the
                                        fastest piston engined fighters ever manufactured in quantity.  Unfortunately, this Bristol Centaurus V
                                        powered beauty was produced too late to see operations in WW II.  Had it done so, it would have
                                        been used in the Pacific theater and would clearly have decimated anything the Japanese could have
                                        thrown up against it at the time.   452 Tempest IIs were built, most of them as fighter-bomber FB.IIs.
                                        Many were passed to both the Indian Air Force and Pakistani Air Force in 1947.