Contest: A Spitfire from the Royal Air Force Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and a 3 Squadron Typhoon fly in formation over Lincolnshire (from the Daily Mail)
Posted on 03/06/2011 7:12:13 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
The Spitfire - - an appreciation
By George Kerevan
75 years ago today, as darkness loomed across Europe, an achingly beautiful aircraft soared into the heavens on its maiden flight. The plane would become both an eight-gunned instrument of freedom and a near-spiritual symbol of it. The Spitfire was born.
AT 4:35pm on the afternoon of 5 March, 1936, a pilot called Joseph 'Mutt' Summers walked across the grass of Southampton Airport - currently a hub for Flybe. Summers had spent a tiring day testing a new RAF bomber. Now, he had to squeeze in the first flight of a new fighter called the "Spitfire". A plane that would become a legend and - arguably - hold the pass in 1940 long enough to save us from fascism.
But in 1936, the conventional wisdom in Britain was that "the bomber would always get through". Many considered new fighter planes like the Spitfire a waste of money.
Mutt Summers pressed the starter button and the Spitfire took to the air for the first time. Unlike the wood and canvass biplanes then serving as the RAF's frontline fighters, the Spit was a monoplane of all-metal construction. It had a retractable undercarriage and a fantastic speed of over 350mph. In combat it would be armed with eight machine guns. At last, here was something that would stop any bomber.
The Spitfire was the inspired creation of a true engineering genius, Reginald Joseph Mitchell. He was born in 1895, the son of two Stoke-on-Trent primary school teachers. His poor background precluded university, so he began an
(Excerpt) Read more at living.scotsman.com ...
Contest: A Spitfire from the Royal Air Force Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and a 3 Squadron Typhoon fly in formation over Lincolnshire (from the Daily Mail)
Thats really close. I would be a bit worried.
I don’t have any scientific evidence, but am absolutely convinced
that hearing a Merlin engine fly by increases testosterone production.
Perspective compression caused by telephoto lense.
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
Winston "Obama hates me" Churchill, 20 August 1940.
Beautiful picture.
I’ve been fortunate to see as many as 13 Spitfires in the air at one time, at Goodwood in West Sussex. To make it even more dramatic, Goodwood was known as RAF Westhampnett during the Battle of Britain, so I actually saw the planes in their natural environment. It was soul-stirring.
I’m partial to the B-24 Liberator.
I’m surprised they were able to get off the ground considering the collective weight of the stones it took to fly a mission over Europe in one.
“THE prototype weighed 5,250lbs loaded and had a speed of 349mph. When production ended in November 1945, the final version of the Spit, the Mk 24, weighed twice as much and flew 200mph faster.”
A wonderful and historic and graceful airplane by any standard, but I don’t think prop planes can fly 550 mph because propellers either cavitate or break the sound barrier or both at those speeds. I don’t think even turbo-prop planes can fly 550 mph. I think the author means “100 mph” faster.
As a kid, I incessantly drew Spitfires (and Phantoms) while in school. I think it had much to do with my poor grades...
What at beautiful, beautiful aircraft. A hot rod of the sky...:)
Wow! That’s got to be a large percentage of those still flying.
Exactly. I would give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was a simple typo, but...one never knows!
I always thought the Spitfire was the most beautiful aircraft ever made.
From reading books from both sides I don’t think the Spitfire was really superior to the Messerschmidt. Each had their strong points but it was basically a tie.
GREAT article! Thanks for posting it.
My father worked in the B-24 Liberator factory before being drafted. He was put together the training for women to show them how to properly rivet the structures. I still have his training manual he created.
The F-4U Corsiar is my favorite WWII bird, Spitfire would be 2nd.
I don’t have the url but youtube has footage of
a Merlin engine running a cut down prop on an
engine stand.
Just awesome.
I used to have a record of the german “Ring” racers,
what a sound those early engines had.
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