page_title: Roy Chaplin
section_title: Hawker
hierarchical_section_title: Roy Chaplin / Hawker
caption_attribution_description: K5083, the prototype Hawker Hurricane at Brooklands prior to its maiden flight. Construction of the first prototype, K5083, began in August 1935 incorporating the PV-12 Merlin engine. The completed sections of the aircraft were taken to Brooklands, where Hawker had an assembly shed, and re-assembled on 23 October 1935. Ground testing and taxi trials took place over the following two weeks, and on 6 November 1935, the prototype took to the air for the first time, at the hands of Hawker's chief test pilot, Flight Lieutenant P.W.S. Bulman.
context_page_description: Roland Henry Chaplin, OBE, FRAeS, known as Roy Chaplin, was an aeronautical engineer who worked with Sydney Camm at Hawker Aircraft Limited from 1927 to 1962. He helped design the Hawker Fury biplane, the Hurricane monoplane, and the Harrier jump-jet. He graduated with a degree in engineering from London University and retired in the 1960s.
context_section_description: In 1926, Chaplin joined Hawker Aircraft at Kingston, when it had fewer than forty design staff. Chaplin worked on the Hawker Fury biplane design. He recalled that, in 1933, many Air Ministry diehards believed that the monoplane structure was unsuitable and dangerous for use as a military aircraft.
  Hawker's developed the idea of a monoplane version of the Fury biplane fighter with other refinements, such as an enclosed cockpit. Chaplin played a role in the 1934 development of the 'Hawker Fury Monoplane', which became the 'Hurricane'. The Hurricane prototype first flew from Brooklands on 6 November 1935.
  By March 1936, test flying of the prototype was completed. The Hawker Board issued instructions planning, jigging, and tooling for the production of one thousand aircraft. The official contract followed three months later. According to Chaplin, "The Hurricane brought down more enemy aircraft in the Battle of Britain than all the Spitfires, Blenheims, Defiants, and ground defences put together."
  In 1939, Chaplin was promoted to assistant chief designer. Ralph Hooper recalled during an interview with Thomas Lean in 2010 that "Sydney Camm used to reduce his secretaries to tears from time to time and Roy Chaplin who was his number two used to come in and cheer them up again". In 1940, Chaplin and most of the Hawker Design Office moved down the Portsmouth Road from Kingston to Claremont, an 18th-century mansion at Esher. From 1937 until after the Second World War, he was involved with the design of the Typhoon, Tempest and Sea Fury aircraft. In 1946 Chaplin's role in the design and development of the Hurricane was acknowledged when he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
caption: Chaplin's contributions to the design of the Hurricane were rewarded in 1946 with an OBE. Pre-production version at Brooklands, 6 November 1935
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