[DFG]

Dominic Salvatore "Don" Gentile had 26 kills in WWII. He was killed in 1951 in a T-33 crash.

[Puppage]

A real hero. RIP.

[Big Red Badger]

Old War Birds,
Love It!

[Snickering Hound]

Soviets got some too but they were too delicate for their airfields.

[farming pharmer]

I know there’s no market, but it would be cool to bring back a few of these plane models with modern engines, metallurgy and production methods.

[Enchante]

WOW, I love all of these photos, thanks!!

[mozarky2]

Step-dad was in Stalag 13 near Nuremberg. Told me that the Spitfires were taking out entire city blocks. Woke up one morning and the guards were gone.

[Karl Spooner]

The Last Flight of Don Gentile

[Blood of Tyrants]

My best friend’s dad was a Spitfire pilot during the Battle of Britain. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1211005/posts

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Interesting story about his last flight: The Last Flight of Don Gentile

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Wow...a caption from the linked article at the Daily Mail:

“New Yorker Richard Hurd was the last pilot to ‘make ace’ - a term for a person who has shot down several enemy targets”

That is real troubling. Couldn’t the writer even bother to look up the WW II definition of “ace”? Are writers that lazy? That stupid? That uninformed about history? That incurious? That beaten down by the mohammadens?

[ColdOne]

Thank you for posting this.

[jim_trent]

The Spitfires during this time were using 1650 cu in Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. Two or 2-1/2 years later, the Mustang used the same 1650 cu in engine made by Packard (of course, both engines had a lot of improvements done in that time). At the time the Merlin Mustang was introduced, it greatly out performed the Spitfire.

So, the Spitfire was upgraded to a 2230 cu in Griffin engine. With that, the Spitfire was able to keep up with the Mustang. So it took a 1/3 larger engine for the Spitfire to match the Mustang. That shows the difference between a 1936 design and a 1941 design.

There have only been a few Mustangs fitted with the Griffin engine (all that I know of have been Reno racing planes) and all have crashed. It was have been very interesting if the engineers who designed the Mustang had been given permission to fit a Griffin to the Mustang with proper stress analysis and design.

[ontap]

I’m full blooded American born and raised but a Spitfire is one of the most beautiful aircraft ever!!

[JoeFromSidney]

Credit the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (predecessor of NASA) for the success of the Mustang. During the 1930's they had the best wind tunnels in the world.

[Waverunner]

Here is a good article on US use of Spits during ww2.

For Overlord the Navy even used them as fire support spotters with pilots from BB’s and CA’s trained to fly the Spit instead of their normal SOC’s. The better to dodge ME109’s and FW190’s

https://warisboring.com/americas-spitfires/

[Jim Noble]

Handsome dudes!

Helps us to understand “One Yank and they’re off” (referring to British girls’ knickers).

[EveningStar]

Aviation and Aerospace ping

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[Fiddlstix]

Bookmark

[PAR35]

I question some of those copyright claims. One of the pictures was obviously taken by a Nazi soldier.

[The Westerner]

“The Story of the Spitfire” starring the great Leslie Howard is one of my favorite movies. It has been uploaded on youtube so if it is still there, please enjoy!

There is an unforgettable scene of the Spitfire’s designer having dinner in Germany with Hitler’s men— years before WWII.

David Niven plays the test pilot.