About Tony Buttler

For twenty years Tony worked as a metallurgist at High Duty Alloys (part of the Hawker Siddeley Group) analysing and testing aluminium and titanium forgings for the aircraft and defence industries. In 1994 he took a Master's Degree in Information Science and Archives at Loughborough University and since 1996 he has been a full-time aviation historian and author.

Since then he has written 41 major books, numerous titles in the Warpaint series of modeller's books and well over a hundred articles for all the important historical aviation magazines. He also presents lectures to branches of the Royal Aeronautical Society and to other aviation bodies and groups His foremost area of interest and research has always been the design and development of military aircraft covering the period from the mid-1930s to the 1980s.

In 2017 Tony became a member of the Aeronautical Society's Historical Group Committee, and in November 2022 he received the Society's Aeronautical Heritage Specialist Group Award for that year in recognition of his contribution to aviation history.

A Summary of what the Talk Will Cover.

In his talk Tony will look at some one-off prototypes - Hawker P.1052 and P.1081 for example - but in the main he will review production airframes kitted out as test beds. Numerous examples of the Hawker Typhoon, Tempest, 1940s Fury, Fury, P.1040 Sea Hawk and the Hunter will be described after having been fitted out with different engines or powerplants, different radars, different weapons or, in a couple of cases, different fittings that would affect the aeroplane's aerodynamics. Altogether this is an element of Hawker Aircraft history that is in general not very well known.