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)
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.
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.
“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...:)
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.
I watch the Battle of Britain every chance I get. Don’t even care about the “love angle†of the movie. I watch to see the Hurricanes and Spitfires in action.But even above them I think the Mustang was the sexiest and best aircraft of WW2.
...The nearest the non-pilot will ever get to what it felt like to sit alone in the cockpit of a Spit is a poem by John Gillespie Magee, a Scots-Irish American who came to Britain in 1941 to fight the Nazis:
“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth;
“And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
“Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth;
“Of sun-lit clouds - and done a hundred things;
“You have not dreamed of…
“And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod;
“The high untrespassed sanctity of space;
“Put out my hand and touched the face of God.”
On 11 December, 1941, Magee was killed when his parachute failed to open. He was 19. At a time when the RAF is being cut to shreds, we should remember the Spit. But we should also remember the men and women who built it and flew it.
It’s funny that a Griffon engined Spitfire is part of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
While the spit was good, the P51 was better. Also, the last model of the spit had a square wing tip not elliptical as the original had. Also spits alone couldn’t have won the Battle of Britain, without the Hurricanes they would have been SOL.
The other British fighter, the Hurricane, should get some credit for saving Britain as well. Pilots in Hurricanes shot down a good share of those German bombers and fighters.