Sweet. I fly one in War Thunder.
Posted on 08/18/2015 12:02:35 PM PDT by DFG
The skies above southern Britain echoed to the sound of massed Spitfires and Hurricanes today as the iconic aircraft took to the skies over south-east England to commemorate 75 years since the heaviest day of fighting during the Battle of Britain. The famous planes patrolled the skies once again after what was known as The Hardest Day, when the Luftwaffe launched a major offensive in a bid to wipe out RAF fighter command and achieve aerial superiority over the Channel. Just 600 RAF and Fleet Air Arm air crew managed to fly 927 sorties in an effort to stop 2,200 Germans who flew 850 missions on August 18, 1940. By nightfall, the RAF and Fleet Air Arm had lost 68 aircraft, with 31 shot down during air-to-air combat, while the Germans had 69 aircraft destroyed or written off. The act of defiance, while incredibly costly to the RAF, was not the decisive blow intended by Hitler, which would have allowed him to launch Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain. Earlier today, 18 Spitfires and five Hurricanes took off from Biggin Hill and patrolled the south coast of England, a quarter-of-a-century since The Hardest Day.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Looks like more Spit’s than Messies survived the war.
awesome pics at the site!! thanks for posting
Flying fighting artwork.
The thing that amazes me about those airplanes is how big their props are compared to the rest of the airframe.
I always loved the beauty of the Spitfire along with the ME-109; the Navy’s F-4U; the Japanese Zero and the Wildcat. WWII planes were often things of beauty.
P-51 Mustangs are beautiful, too
My gosh, beautiful photography on some beautiful aircraft! The Spit has always been my favorite non-U.S. aircraft of WWII. Thanks for posting!!
Who would have thought that many Hurricanes and Spitfire survived?
It is worth visiting the article for pictures!
“These three Spitfires patrolled the skies over the south coast 75 years to the day when the Nazi's tried to wipe out RAF Fighter Command”
One of the Spitfires is actually a Royal Navy Seafire and is marked with late WWII Pacific theater insignia. It was probably marked as one of the British Pacific Fleet that was forming to assist the invasion of Japan.
A quick check with any WWII aircraft historian would have found that and identified markings that were used half way around the globe from the South coast of England.
You can count on 1 hand the number of flying Bf-109’s with a Daimler Benz powerplant although there are several more Spanish HA-1112’s which use Merlins.
Sweet. I fly one in War Thunder.
But to get there the Germans would have to go through the Royal Navy with their almost nonexistent surface navy.
So, the only way they could have pulled it off was if they could establish air supremacy over the Channel and Southern England to keep the Royal Navy at bay. It all came down to the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots to win that battle.
Thus: "Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few."
Churchill spoke those famous words after witnessing the battle on August 16 from the Operations Room of Number 11 Group.
Thanks for a grand post. Tons of great photos.
927 sorties in one day, one helluva quick turn around time. Hard, hard men.
I’m in my sixties. In the early 1970s I worked with a machinery engineer who had been a senior mechanic in the RAF in the Battle of Britain. His stories of that era were incredible and he told them well.
Hurricanes carried the day.
Found the long version of the AIRSHOW here on YT (hour plus)
ENjoy..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L9FHjoXCVc
I read somewhere that Harley Earl, who was a designer at GM, based a lot of his automotive designs on WWII aircraft shapes. That's probably why certain cars are so appealing.
search term " GM Dream cars 1950s" for many more waaaay cool.
That was a 1959 Cadillac Cyclone concept car.
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