Hawker Fury The Hawker Fury was a British biplane fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force in the 1930s . It was a fast , agile aircraft , and holds the distinction of being the first interceptor in RAF service to capable of more than 200 MPH . The Fury is the fighter counterpart to the Hawker Hart light bomber . Design and development . The Hawker Fury was a development of the earlier Hawker F . 20 / 27 prototype fighter , replacing the F . 20 / 27 ' s radial engine with the new Rolls - Royce F . XI V - 12 engine ( later known as the Rolls - Royce Kestrel ) , which was also used by Hawker ' s new light bomber , the Hawker Hart . The new fighter prototype , known as the Hawker Hornet , first flew at Brooklands , Surrey , in March 1929 . The Hornet was a single engined biplane , with single bay wings , initially powered by a 420 hp ( 313 kW ) Rolls - Royce F . XIC engine enclosed by a smooth , streamlined cowling , but was quickly re - engined with a 480 hp ( 358 kW ) Kestrel IS . It was evaluated against the similarly powered Fairey Firefly II , being preferred because of its better handling and its all metal structure compared with the mainly wooden construction of the Firefly . The Hornet was purchased by the Air Ministry at the start of 1930 , and was subject to further evaluation , with a small initial production order for 21 aircraft ( to be designated Hawker Fury - as the Air Ministry wanted fighter names that " reflected ferocity " ) placed during 1930 . The Fury I made its maiden flight at Brooklands with chief test pilot George Bulman at the controls on 25 March 1931 . The Fury was the RAF ' s first operational fighter aircraft to be able to exceed 200 mph ( 322 km / h ) in level flight . It had highly sensitive controls which gave it superb aerobatic performance . It was designed partly for the fast interception of bombers and to that end it had a climb rate of almost 2 , 400 ft / min ( 730 m / min , powered by a 525 hp / 391 kW Kestrel engine ) . An experimental prototype , the High Speed Fury , was built to test design features for Hawker ' s planned competitor for the F . 7 / 30 fighter competition ( the Hawker P . V . 3 ) as well as for more general development . While the P . V . 3 was unsuccessful owing to the use of the unreliable evaporatively cooled Rolls - Royce Goshawk engine , many of the improvements tested on the High Speed Fury were incorporated in an improved Fury II , with a cleaned up airframe and reduced drag , and powered by a 690 hp ( 515 kW ) Mk4 Kestrel engine . These improvements gave improved speed and rate of climb . Designer at Hawker , Sidney Camm , designed a monoplane version of the Fury in 1933 . It was not developed until the Rolls - Royce developed what was to become their famous Merlin engine . The design was then revised according to Air Ministry specification F5 / 34 to become the prototype Hawker Hurricane . Operational history . The Fury I entered squadron service with the RAF in May 1931 , re - equipping No . 43 Squadron . Owing to financial limitations owing to the Great Depression , only relatively small numbers of Fury Is were ordered , the type equipping only two more squadrons , 1 and 25 Squadrons . At the same time , the slower Bristol Bulldog equipped ten fighter squadrons . The Fury II entered service in 1936 - 1937 , increasing total number of squadrons to six . Furies remained with the RAF Fighter Command until January 1939 , replaced primarily with Gloster Gladiator s and other types , such as Hawker Hurricane . After their front line service ended , they continued to be used for training purposes . The Fury was exported to several customers , being supplied with a variety of engines , including Kestrels , Hispano Suiza , and Lorraine Petrel vee - type engines , Armstrong Siddeley Panther , Pratt & Whitney Hornet , and Bristol Mercury radials . Three Furies were ordered by Spain in 1935 , it being intended to produce another 50 under licence . The Spanish variant had a cantilever undercarriage design with Dowty internally sprung wheels , similar to that used on the Gladiator , and was powered by a 612 hp ( 457 kW ) Hispano Suiza 12X br engine , reaching a speed 234 mph ( 377 km / h ) . The three Furies were delivered without armament on 11 July 1936 , just before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War . They were taken into service by the Spanish Republican Air Force , being fitted with machine guns scrounged from crashed aircraft . One Fury made a forced landing behind enemy lines due to a lack of fuel and was repaired by the Nationalists , although it was not used operationally , while the Republicans used one of the Furies in the defence of Madrid until wrecked in a crash in November 1936 . Although phased out from RAF squadrons , the Fury was still used by some foreign air forces in the early 1940s ; Yugoslav Furies saw action against Axis forces in the German invasion of 1941 . On 6 April 1941 a squadron of Furies took off to defend their country against the invading German Messerschmitt Bf 109 Es and Messerschmitt Bf 110 s . In the resulting conflict 10 Furies were destroyed , almost the entire squadron . The Commanding Officer of the 36 LG was Major Franjo Đzal watched from the ground as his men were slaughtered in their obsolete biplanes . In an unequal battle against superior adversaries , five aircraft were destroyed while taking off and eight pilots killed . Two more Furies and Bücker Bü 131 were destroyed on the ground . But of the attacking German aircraft 5 Bf - 109s and 2 Bf - 110s failed to return , though most were non - combat losses however at least one was lost when rammed by a Fury . The other squadron of Yugoslav Furies active at the time of the invasion strafed enemy tanks and ground forces , some being lost to ground fire and one being destroyed in a dogfight with a Fiat CR . 42 . The rest of the Yugoslav Furies were destroyed when they became unserviceable or at the time of Armistice on the 15th . Ex - RAF Furies were also used by the South African Air Force against the Italian forces in East Africa in 1941 and despite their obsolescence destroyed 2 Caproni bombers as well as strafing many airfields , destroying fighters and bombers on the ground . A total of 262 Furies were produced , of which 22 served in Persia , 3 in Portugal , at least 30 in South Africa , 3 in Spain , at least 30 in Yugoslavia , and the remainder in the United Kingdom . Survivors . A Hawker Fury Mk . I , serial number " K5674 " , is owned by the Historical Aircraft Collection and based at the Imperial War Museum Duxford in the United Kingdom . This aircraft was delivered to the RAF in 1935 and allocated to 43 Squadron , where it was flown until 1939 by Flying Officer Frederick Rosier , later to be Air Chief Marshal Sir Frederick Rosier . In 1940 , it was sent to South Africa where it was flown by 13 Squadron ( later 43 Squadron ) of the South African Air Force . It was written - off after making a forced landing , due to running out of fuel . It was returned to the United Kingdom in 2003 and restored to flying condition , with the civil registration " G - CBZP " . It made its first post - restoration flight in July 2012 .