Hawker Nimrod (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

The Hawker Nimrod was a British carrier-based fighter which entered service in 1933, but had already been replaced by a naval version of the Gloster Gladiator by the time World War Two began.   With a top speed of 195 miles per hour, the Nimrod was faster than its predecessors, but it still harkened back to aircraft from World War One, with its biplane layout, fixed undercarriage, open cockpit and armament of only two .303 inch machine guns which fired through the propeller arc.

The Nimrod was designed by Sydney Camm, one of the greatestBritish aircraft designers, who was also responsible for wartime fighters like the Hurricane, Typhoon, Tempest, and Sea Fury and, after the war, jets like the Hunter and an experimental vertical takeoff aircraft called the Kestrel, which was developed further and became the Harrier "jump jet".