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Spitfire!!

The Swordfish ended it's days providing anti-submarine cover for the Atlantic and Arctic convoys. It was well suited to the role being easy to deck land in poor weather conditions. I don't however envy the crews in the open cockpits in the appalling weather they faced and the German air cover round the North Cape.
I vaguely remember that, then they took off from Ark Royal for the attack that crippled the Bismarck, the end of the deck was rising and falling 60 feet.
 
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.

I think there might have been some confusion in this exchange earlier between 'the war' and the Battle of Britain. There were certainly more Hurricane's deployed in the BoB than there were Spitfires, and former accounted for more German aircraft than the latter, though as someone else pointed out, the Hurricanes were deployed against the slower and more vulnerable bombers, whist the Spitfires took on the agile Me109s and 110s. But given that there were 20 odd thousand Spitfires built to the 14,000 Hurricanes, I should be very surprised if they accounted for fewer aircraft across the entire war. The Hurricane was increasinly obsolescent, whilst the Spitfire was continually evolved to counter the various improvements in the Me109/FW190.

Someone posted that Spitfires were built in the US. I'm sure they weren't, though they were made in Canada (as was the Hurricane). Packard built various iterations of the Merlin engine under licence, and it ultimately went into the P51 Mustang, a design that was tendered by the British government but which eventually became a game-changer in the USAAF, as it was able to escort the vulnerable 8th AF heavy bombers all the way into Germany, and together with the P47 Thunderbolt was to a significant extent responsible for the progressive degradation of the German fighter interceptor force.

The outcome of the Battle of Britain could have been very different if the Spitfire and Hurricane had only had 4 guns like the Gladiator which preceded them.

In a story that has just surfaced it appears that the calculations that established that the Spitfire and Hurricane would be able to carry 8 rather than just 4 Browning .303 machine guns were carried out by a 13 year old schoolgirl, Hazel Hill, on her mother's kitchen table. She went onto a career in the NHS, with rather completes the circle which revitalised this thread on Friday.

A Spitfire legend up there with Miss Shilling's Orifice.

A documentary about Hazel Hill is apparently to be reshown on the BBC News channel in 5 minutes time.
 
Our locally based Spitfire has just flown low overhead, mis-firing badly. Hopefully it will either clear its throat or make it back home pronto. It was following a Harvard trainer, the latter's harsh engine note emphasizing the carthorse/thoroughbred contrast.

Despite its rugged effectiveness and the hundreds of thousands built, the basic design of the radial always seemed to me one of the most inelegant machines ever conceived.
 
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
The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight operate a 1940 vintage Spitfire. FWIW.

I think the Hurricane was obsolescent by 1940 and Hawker were already well on the way to production of successors like the Typhoon.
 
Our locally based Spitfire has just flown low overhead, mis-firing badly. Hopefully it will either clear its throat or make it back home pronto.
Probably one that my mum had a hand in building. With all due respect to her - obviously I love her deeply - I really wouldn’t want to trust my life to a plane that she had helped to wire up. Apparently that was her job - she got shoved into the nose as she was one of the few that could fit in.
 
Someone posted that Spitfires were built in the US

As far as I can tell all Spitfires were built in the UK. 14 RCAF squadrons operated the Spitfire. Around 600 Spitfires were used by the USAAF during the war starting with Eagle squadrons transferred from the RAF.
 
The strategy of Spitfires engaging 109's and Hurricanes engaging the bombers turned out a bit of a fallacy.Pilots themselves are on record as saying once the the enemy was engaged that strategy went out the window.A lot of pilots preferred the Hurricane as it was a lot more stable as a gun platform.Interestingly enough a lot of German pilots rated the 109 as better than the Spitfire.They were faster and they could lose them in a dive,go into a long curve and get behind to attack.The 109 had a 20mm cannon firing through the nose spinner as well as machine guns and firing flat out had 50+ seconds of ammunition compared to 13 seconds .303 machine gun fire in the Spitfire Most Luftwaffe pilots were more afraid of running out of fuel and ditching in the channel,they only had fuel for 10+ minutes fighting over England
 
Interesting point was the Polish pilots who were especially fearless ,almost to the point of foolhardy,had a strategy of breaking up the bomber stream by diving vertically through it .I think more German aircraft were shot down by foreign pilots than by "Brylcream Boys"
 
.Interestingly enough a lot of German pilots rated the 109 as better than the Spitfire.They were faster and they could lose them in dive,go into a long curve and get behind to attack.
The Immelmann turn, for anyone who has read Biggles, which is of course all of us. This turn relies on the fact that any propeller aircraft turns faster one way than the other because of the torque reaction of the engine.
 
Probably one that my mum had a hand in building.

:) They came back about ten minutes later: the Spit is one of the (two?) twin cockpit versions (were they 're-creations' or genuine rebuilds with an extra bubble?) Anyway, still sounding rough so I'm guessing the problem is keeping the revs low enough to stay behind the Harvard and the mixture being out of whack. He gives joyrides at £3,000 a pop, so presumably knows what he's doing.
 
Interesting point was the Polish pilots who were especially fearless ,almost to the point of foolhardy,had a strategy of breaking up the bomber stream by diving vertically through it .I think more German aircraft were shot down by foreign pilots than by "Brylcream Boys"

 
One thing I've missed so far in this lockdown year is the sound of those guys flying low over our house on their way to various displays.

We live not too far away from Duxford and we get free air displays from Shuttleworth just about on our doorstep

That Merlin engine sound. Can recognise it from miles away.. Such a glorious noise.

PS. If anyone ever wanted to build a plastic model of a Spitfire and wanted it be right? there is only one man to Google. Edgar Brooks. RIP.
 
As far as I can tell all Spitfires were built in the UK. 14 RCAF squadrons operated the Spitfire. Around 600 Spitfires were used by the USAAF during the war starting with Eagle squadrons transferred from the RAF.

I recall reading that Merlin (and later, Griffon) engines were built under licence by Packard (in USA).
 
The 109s engine was fitted with fuel injection which could supply full power in all attitudes. The early Merlin engines had a carburettor which could cut out if you pushed the stick forward creating negative g. Pilots learned to roll on their back to pursue a diving 109, this kept the fuel in the correct part of the carb.

Later the carburettor was modified to work in all attitudes.
 
In 1970ish at Doncaster airfield I witnessed a low level Mustang flypast. I’m still proud of the fact that I didn’t wet myself.
 
I recall reading that Merlin (and later, Griffon) engines were built under licence by Packard (in USA).

The Packard Merlins were generally used in North American built aircraft, Mustangs, P40s, Canadian built Lancasters and Hurricanes. The parts were not interchangeable with British engines, so the engines were kept for specific Marks of each aircraft type.

This is the engine that transformed the Mustang into the superb fighting machine it become. The Mustang was ordered by the RAF purchasing commission off the drawing board.
 
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