With only 114 built and a rather irrelevant combat record, the Whirlwind may at first glance seem a bizarre candidate for the title of ‘greatest fighter of the Second World War’. Has the recent sunshine cooked my brain and left me vulnerable to wild ‘hot takes’? Well, maybe, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a real case to be made here.

The Westland Whirlwind is the Velvet Underground of World War II aircraft: unpopular, ahead of its time, and far more influential than sales units alone* might suggest. The Whirlwind was the fastest fighter in the world when it first flew in 1938, and the best armed, with a nose toting more firepower than a libertarian barn-dance. Whereas most other fighters of the time did all they could to obscure the pilot’s view, Whirlwind designer Teddy Petter generously blessed the aircraft with a fully transparent canopy, as Matt Bearman pointed out in his Hush-Kit article “Drawings for Westland Aircraft Co’s proposed P-9 from early 1937 show a perfectly smooth, teardrop-shaped and fully transparent canopy. This was extraordinarily ambitious – as the technique and tooling to manufacture such a large acrylic bubble didn’t yet exist. It was as though Petter assumed it would be invented before he had to build a prototype.”

The Whirlwind embraced much of the latest thinking in aircraft design and construction, and was a generation ahead of the handful of Spitfire Mk Is then in service with the Royal Air Force. To stand as the ‘greatest’ we must fend off the predictable claims from supporters of the likes of the Spitfire, Mustang and the other ‘A-listers’. In doing so, we must look at the vital issue of legacy in terms of both sales and design influence on later aircraft. The legacy of the A-listers we have all heard of, is striking in its absence: as can be seen from Supermarine’s woeful attempts at early jets, the Spitfire was a design cul de sac; the Messerschmitt Bf 109, slats aside, even more so; and it is even the case for the Mustang.

The Whirlwind on the other hand was a jet aircraft just waiting for a jet. When Gloster created the Meteor, the first Allied jet fighter, it didn’t lean to heavily on its own design history but instead created a design far more redolent of the Whirlwind. With four nose-mounted cannons, bubble canopy (of later variants) and cruciform tail with acorn and twin engines on the wings, it is very much a jet Whirlwind. Even more directly related to the Whirlwind is the English Electric Canberra, which started as a jet replacement for the Mosquito based on the Westland Welkin (essentially a high-altitude Whirlwind).

The Meteor and Canberra were categorically the most successful British post-war aircraft. The Meteor started the jet age for the Allies, and a total of 3,947 were built by the time production ceased in 1955. The Canberra was the highest-flying and most agile bomber of its generation, and 949 were built in the UK and Australia. It was so good, in fact, that even the US wanted some and created over 400 as the Martin B-57.

The Velvet Underground did not outsell The Beatles nor make as much money, but their stylistic influence on future music, as David Bowie explains below, was far more significant. Likewise, the Whirlwind did not shoot down more aircraft than the Spitfire, nor sell as many units, but as an aircraft design, its legacy is more significant.

Descendents of the Mustang did not fight in Vietnam or provide vital military intelligence in Afghanistan and around India in the 21st century – or still serve with NASA today for that matter. To appreciate the Whirlwind you have to look at the big picture (something the reconnaissance Canberra excelled at) and when you zoom out enough, it is clear the Westland Whirlwind was indeed the greatest fighter of World War II, winning not the present but far out into the future.

*Though the VU were selling more than apocryphal stories suggest.

The case for the Spitfire being the greatest fighter of the Second World War

The case for the P-47 Thunderbolt being the greatest fighter of the Second World War