May sound a bit strange but, in several hundred hours in the Hurricane, I never gave thought to the 'breakout panel'.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rupert_brun/4718735346/ . What about the crossbar??
I suppose it as at one time explained to me, but I dom't recall the brief!
The hatch had a jemmy clipped to it, did it not?
No problem to enter the cockpit. Usually by a flying vault, rather like this Me109 chap -
= Tim