I am reminded of the producer of “The Battle of Britain” who bought the entire fleet of Spanish Air Force Heinkels off Franco in order to make the movie.
I mean how cool was it to actually find flying Heinkels? Fantastic, he shot the phenomenal footage of fleets of Heinkel bombers once again flying over the Channel all in brilliant Technicolor.
And then viewers complained.
“Ah those are Mk VIIc Heinkels, with rear thrusting exhaust pipes that the Luftwaffe didn’t use until 1943, those are the wrong planes”.
I paraphrase their complaint.
I kinda feel the same about this, well yeah it’s a Spitfire alright, a sort of Spitfire, but it’s not, you know, a Battle of Britain Spitfire is it? It’s not a real Spitfire.
“And then viewers complained. “Ah those are Mk VIIc Heinkels, with rear thrusting exhaust pipes that the Luftwaffe didn’t use until 1943, those are the wrong planes”.
Not nearly as bad as the early 50’s movie “Flattop” about a carrier during WWII.
The carrier has Hellcat squadrons and when they go into battle scenes some of the planes are Corsairs. They also show a plane crash on the deck that starts out as a Corsair and ends up as a Hellcat.
Yes, but in the Battle of Britain movie you mention, two of the twelve flyable Spitfires were two-seaters. :^)
Wiki mentions how the two-seaters came about... none were RAF -
In the postwar era, the idea was revived by Supermarine and a number of two-seat Spitfires were built by converting old Mk IX airframes with a second "raised" cockpit featuring a bubble canopy. Ten of these TR9 variants were then sold to the Indian Air Force along with six to the Irish Air Corps, three to the Royal Netherlands Air Force and one for the Royal Egyptian Air Force.