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Spitfire!!

@Vinny @AV8 Do you seriously think that or are you doing some troll fishing?

No idea what you are talking about. But just to clarify -

Super-sonic commercial passenger airliners that are/were safe? One, ever, Concorde. Built to satisfy a market that never came about. HUGE technological achievement - the might of Russia failed to make a safe one, only ever used for freight.
Merlin engine/Spitfire - so good, so out-classed anything else at the time, that the USA mass-produced both.
Hurricane - FAR more important than the Spitfire in WW2.
Vulcan - a technological monstrosity that served very little practical purpose.

What else are you on about?
 
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Hurricane - FAR more important than the Spitfire in WW2.
My 98(?) year old and still very much alive uncle flew various versions of the Hawker Hurricane in WW2 but was too young to be in the Battle of Britain. Apparently, what pissed him and fellow Hurricane pilots off was the number of kills denied to them because captured German pilots were reluctant to admit to having been bagged by a Hurricane if they could claim it was a Spitfire. I'm not sure if this is true!
 
The Hurricane. Please expand on what you've said, especially how you judge 'importance'.
I don't know what Vinny had in mind, but there were more Hurricanes than Spitfires in service in WW2, including more ground attack versions, and they accounted for more kills, in the air and on the ground, so you could argue that they were more important military assets than Spitfires, even though they were slower and generally regarded as obsolete by the end of the war.
 
Which was more important, the plane that took on the enemy fighters or the plane that shot down the bombers.

As the Spitfire could climb higher, it would take on the high-flying escorts. It could turn tighter but it wasn't as stable when firing and needed more skill and experience to fly well. It was also harder to build and repair.

I think that if the Spitfire didn't exist then the Battle of Britain would have been a lot closer. More Hurricanes would be shot down or damaged because of the height advantage 109s enjoyed. This could be offset because of the easier build and repair.

I don't think that you can simply say that the Hurricane was more important because it shot down more planes during the battle. Maybe it only got the chance to because the Spitfires took on the 109s. I think they complimented each other pretty well in the Battle of Britain.

As the war went on the Spitfire was modified almost out of recognition so it could still take on faster 109s and possibly 190s. The Hurricane stayed the same, it became a work horse.

Maybe it's neither, maybe it's the Lancaster or the Blenheim that sank many U boats.

You judge it, I find it too complicated to call with any conviction.
 
The flyable Spitfires are from the end of the war, you can see the 20mm guns.
Hurricane production peaked earlier finished in 1944, so fewer survive
 
Hurricane engine? Where would that have been without the Hurricane? Where would that have left Spitfire development?

History is constantly being re-written, but I have been told through TV and radio (non-fiction), innumerable times over the years, that the Hurricane was a bigger and more significant contributor to WW2 than the Spitfire. Arguably, it was less important in the Battle of Britain than in WW2 in total, if for no other reason than it was easy to get Hurricane "kits" all over the world, to places where it was far more difficult to get a Spitfire to.

Over 20,000 Spitfires were built in numerous variants, and it was in service, somewhere, until the 1960's. The last Hurricane left service 20 years previously.

As ever, treat with caution, but the Wiki page for the Hurricane is quite eye-opening as it explains the several significant advantages of the Hurricane, and the few disadvantages, compared to the Spitfire,
 
I was surprised when I saw a Hurricane for the first time in Duxford. It looks so light and fragile!
 
Hurricane engine? Where would that have been without the Hurricane? Where would that have left Spitfire development?

History is constantly being re-written, but I have been told through TV and radio (non-fiction), innumerable times over the years, that the Hurricane was a bigger and more significant contributor to WW2 than the Spitfire. Arguably, it was less important in the Battle of Britain than in WW2 in total, if for no other reason than it was easy to get Hurricane "kits" all over the world, to places where it was far more difficult to get a Spitfire to.

Over 20,000 Spitfires were built in numerous variants, and it was in service, somewhere, until the 1960's. The last Hurricane left service 20 years previously.

As ever, treat with caution, but the Wiki page for the Hurricane is quite eye-opening as it explains the several significant advantages of the Hurricane, and the few disadvantages, compared to the Spitfire,
If I remember correctly the Fairey Swordfish was a well regarded and effective machine dispite appearances. Ceased production around the same time as the Hurricane too I believe
 
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Hurricane - FAR more important than the Spitfire in WW2.

The Hurricane. Please expand on what you've said, especially how you judge 'importance'.

I think he's referring to the numbers of both available for the battle of Britain, for example? That is my perception, anyway - there were more Hurricane Squadrons that Spitfire ones.

Now, did someone mention the Mosquito? What a plane! How fast??? My favourite of that war.
 
"It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that? There is nothing the British do not have. They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops."-Goering.

Not sure if this is true, but makes me smile anyway.
 
Judging by the above timings the Spitfire won't have long to do more than a few passes.
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Or more accurately only one pass, when you know the distances involved. Notty toNewark, 15 miles, 6 minutes.
Lincoln to Louth, 35 miles, 10 minutes.
Louth to Grimsby, 15 miles, 3 minutes.
You aren't doing any laps even at 250 mph.
 


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