I Love Spitfires

.....just got to love the Spitfire, awesome sound, spine tingling, thought I'd share this......

 

I love Spitfires too ... and my dearly departed father flew them as he had his pilot's license before he had his driver's license and became a race driver ... and besides that he was born in Maymo, Burma ...

 

Slightly unrelated, but my grandad's brother was a member of a Lancaster Bomber crew that got shot down over Cologne in Germany, that's where his memorial is.......he was just 17 years old at the time.....

My grandad was in the Army and served under Montgomery as part of the 21st Army group...

 

I think they are forming another expedition to find the Burma buried Spitfires. There are 36 Spitfires allegedly !

When the Southport airshow is on , the flight of Spitfires and Hurricanes always seem to fly over our house - Its a stunning site as they are in formation at about 2000ft They must use the Manchester - Southport railway line for Navigation.

Post Script : Just read Johns post a litle slower ! Have they actually located the Spitfires now ?

 

My story isn't as good as everyone else's, but I made a model Spitfire at school when I was a kid

I also learnt some interesting info, but I'm not sure I've remembered the details right so maybe someone more knowledgeable might fill in the details.

Apparently one weakness of the Spitfire was that it would stall in a vertical climb, due to it having carburettors for fueling (carbs rely on gravity to regulator fuel pressure in a little reservoir, so they have to spend most of the their time the right way up, otherwise the engine runs lean then stalls). Meschersmitz didn't have this weakness, and our chaps (and chapesses) wanted to know how come. Then one day a Meschersmitz was shot down over Britain (not far from me as it happens, just outside of Scarborough I think). Naturally our engineers were straight onto it, and they found instead of carbs, it had mechanical fuel injection (a primitive form of the fuelling mechanism now standard on all cars). As fuel injection systems feature a pump that keeps the fuel pressure right regardless, and don't rely on gravity to regulate the pressure, it works fine regardless of orientation, hence the Meschersmitz ability to maintain a vertical climb without stalling (the duration of the climb was still limited by the amount of power in the engine, but at least the engine wouldn't stall, giving it a manuevrabily advantage in a dog fight).

Once our people had figured this out, Spitfires were retro fitted with fuel injection systems asap, and so the tables were turned. Merschersmitz only had one advantage of the Spitfire, and that advantage had just been removed. Now the Spitfire was superior in every respect.

If I understand the history correctly, this little advantage played a key role in the Battle of Britain. The luftwaffer had figure they could could attack from above, knowing that the Spitfire had to climb in a wide arc to retailiate, taking vital time. Now the Spitfires could climb steeply and shoot the Meschersmitz in the belly, a manuevre the germans just weren't expecting at all.

Well that's my understanding of what I read/was taught. Even if I've got some of the details wrong, it still goes to show what geniuses we had in Britain back then. We built a better aircraft than our technologically superior enemy did, and we plugged its one weakness by reversing engineering the work of our enemy, effectively using their own technology against them and beating them at their own game.

 

That's great sound, but it looks like one of the later marks to me, invasion markings and all
I could well be wrong but it could have the larger Griffon engine, rather than the nice sounding Merlin.

I'm sure someone with more knowledge than me about the RAF could sort it out.

 

From what I've read there aren't any problems now about digging them up (contracts signed in October/November to excavate 3 sites) or the ownership of them, experts are also quite confident that they may be flown again if decent condition but it will be costly to restore them..........it will be interesting though. I'll have to keep an eye on this one

 

Great photos Armandii. All linded up according to age.
I remember being very young in the early 60s and being taken to my first Farnbourough.
Its all a bit hazy now but remember the black arrows, I think.
Also seeing a squadron of lightnings doing a display, those were the days.
We are lucky to see just one modern jet at an airshow these days.

 

Great pictures and an interesting read Armandii.

 

Great pics Armandii !!!