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Spit- column

Discussion in 'Weapons & Technology in WWII' started by chromeboomerang, Sep 3, 2004.

  1. chromeboomerang

    chromeboomerang New Member

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    Would like to discuss lesser known data on Spit. Laminar flow wings on later version, turbulence probs experienced with bubble canopy on the MK 14, & any other interesting stuff anyone had to share.


    As a Spit fan I have wondered why it was not a great diving plane. J Johnson said it could not be dived at as steep an angle as the 109 & when a 190 went into a dive, he never bothered to follow.

    Have just come across some data from Canadian Spit pilot Bill Mcrae that is sheds some light in this area, he said,

    ;There were disturbing rumors going around about Spitfires shedding ailerons in the dive. We were told that, at extremely high speeds, the trailing edge of both ailerons tended to lift, not differentially as they were designed to do for normal control, but both together. Travel beyond a certain limit would tear them off, with drastic results. To provide us with a means of determining this failure point, white & yellow lines were painted on the inboard chord of the ailerons. With the the control column centred, the white line would usually appear during the dive. If the yellow line appeared we were in the danger zone, and should reduce speed. At the same time we were supposed to keep on target - and make sure we didn't fly into the ground!

    He also mentioned effects high speeds had on elevator controls which created dive pullout probs, but managed to solve this by using different dive procedure.

    Also learned that, low back Spifire MK XVI's were not delivered til oct 44.

    So any lesser known data or stories to add? laminar flow wing performance?
     
  2. TA152

    TA152 Ace

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    I saw on a TV show that the Spitfire cost twice as much to build as a Hurricane and almost did not get a contract because of this and the performance of the Mark I was not that much better than a Hurricane, so they figured twice as many Hurricanes would be a better buy than the Spitfire. Of course they did not use this logic when they built death traps like Fairey Battles.
     
  3. redcoat

    redcoat Ace

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    Never heard this before :confused: While the Spitfire was indeed more expensive to build, the performace of the Mk I was far better than the Hurricane (ie 360mph against 320mph)
    The only reason that twice as many Hurricanes were built in the pre-war build-up as Spitfires is that the tooling up of the production line and the actual building of Spitfires took longer.
    The RAF always knew that the Spitfire was a far better aircraft than the Hurricane.
     
  4. Tony Williams

    Tony Williams Member

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    It's true that the 'kill ratio' of the Hurricane was as good as the Spitfire's in the BoB, although the loss rate was significantly higher, but it had far less potential for development and was effectively obsolete as a pure fighter by 1941, whereas the Spit carried on getting better. And even in the BoB, a shortage of pilots was as much a problem as a shortage of aircraft, so having more planes wouldn't necessarily have helped.

    I recall reading an account of a postwar PR Spitfire which was dived so fast from high altitude that the wing skin was found to have become rippled - they reckoned it must have been getting close to Mach 1.

    Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum
     
  5. chromeboomerang

    chromeboomerang New Member

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    Yes, the latter Spit hit the highest mach # of any ww2 fighter in the dive, so somwhere along the way, its dive probs were solved, the question is where? MK 9b, Mk 14 or later than that. Will work on it. Mcrae was flying either a MK 5 or a 9.

    Have heard the same thing about Spit almost not going into production. Can you imagine the BoB without it, or WW2 in general for that matter. It was the perfect foil for the 109 & later on the 190. Another what if.

    Nother thing that doesn't get much print is that the wheels on the Spit were closer together than the 109 wheels were.

    I have read that the Hurricane actually could outturn a Spit, which if true illustrates that the turning circle was not the end all - be all of air manoevers.
     
  6. TA152

    TA152 Ace

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    With the invasion of Norway in 1940 someone got the idea of putting floats on Spitfires to use in the fjords. The project was called Narvik Nightmare.
    The Folland Co. built 12 sets of floats but the policy changed to using aircraft carriers instead of floatplanes to fight in areas of water. The floats were tried on Mark 5B and Mark 9 Spitfires and worked OK. Max speed at sea leval for the Mark 9 was 316mph and 377 at 19,700 feet.
     
  7. Stefan

    Stefan Cavalry Rupert

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    There was an account I read about Douglas Bader going into a dive, his aircraft had steel ailerons which were less prone to coming off, the rest of his flight had unmodified aircraft and his wingman described sending a message over the radio along the lines of 'slow down, we don't all have steel ailerons'!
     
  8. chromeboomerang

    chromeboomerang New Member

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    Here is the dive data. It doesn't say which Mk of Spit hit this Mach mark. & Also interesting is that the 47 came off worst. The 47 is legendary for being the best dive fighter of ETO. I suppose it was, til it hit 0.73. Don't know exactly how fast that is, but here the data is....


    The Me 109 was dived to Mach 0.79 in instrumented tests. Slightly modified, it was even dived to Mach 0.80, and the problems experimented there weren't due to compressility, but due to aileron overbalancing. Compare this to Supermarine Spitfire, which achieved dive speeds well above those of any other WW2 fighter, getting to Mach 0.89 on one occasion. P-51 and Fw 190 achieved about Mach 0.80. The P-47 had the lowest permissible Mach number of these aircraft. Test pilot Eric Brown observed it became uncontrollable at Mach 0.73, and "analysis showed that a dive to M=0.74 would almost certainly be a 'graveyard dive'."
    - Source: Radinger/Otto/Schick: "Messerschmitt Me 109", volumes 1 and 2, Eric Brown: "Testing for Combat

    Last thoughts. I did once read that Rabbitski dove his 109 to 590 mph, & wrinkled wings. & have also read that 190 could be dived safely to 580 mph.
     
  9. chromeboomerang

    chromeboomerang New Member

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    Also on this subject, the Mustang C could outdive the D with ease as it was a razorback.
     
  10. chromeboomerang

    chromeboomerang New Member

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    Just finished reading Gabreskis book. he said the Mk 9 spit did everything well except dive. Perhaps the 14 Spit got the dive probs solved.

    He also mentioned the 47 had a heated cockpit. The Spit would frost over in a dive, but not the 47.
     
  11. chromeboomerang

    chromeboomerang New Member

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    Well, speaking of the Spit, Stanford Tuck has been credited with another 109. This particular 109 was discovered sometime recently & found to have been shot down by him, raising his score from 29 to 30.
     
  12. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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  13. chromeboomerang

    chromeboomerang New Member

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    That was cool. Tuck was always my favorite British ace. His book was great. The trim tab on the tail is pretty big compared to some other fighters.

    The MK 14 spit debuted Jan 1 44, but did not arrive in squadron strength to front line units til Oct 44. seems like a long time, but then, the 1st K 109 was finished June 43, & didn't make combat debut til Sept 44. Normal I suppose. Clostermann said the Mk 9 Spits flying in 44 were being outclassed by faster 109's. The G-6 AS arrived April 44. According to some could hit 445 mph on boost. Never have gotten accurate speeds for G-14 & G-14 As. I would imagine The G-14 AS would be near same as G-6 AS.

    Tuck was in on the great escape, but he was transferred to another camp a day or 2 before the breakout.He was one of the smart ones. The germans made a habit of transferring the smart ones to different camps to disrupt prisoner organization. A good thing as most of those guys were rounded up & shot.
     
  14. redcoat

    redcoat Ace

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    The problem with the Spitfire and its diving is in the inital stages of the dive. Where the shape of the wings slowed the dive, but after the intital stage it was one of the fastest divers in WW2
    Thats because the Spitfire was one of (if not the) easiest of the high-powered WW2 fighters to land and take off in. So accidents on take off and landing were never a problem.
    This is correct. Though it was the only thing that it was better at than the Spitfire
    ;)
     
  15. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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    Well, not quite the only thing....

    The Hurri was a more stable gun platform - easier to maintain on the aim, particularly for novice fighter pilots ( and quite a number of BofB pilots were just that ). The wider-stance undercarriage made it easier to land on rough ground, and also the Hurricane's construction made it capable of absorbing greater levels of punishment ( cynics would say it needed to be able to, of course ;) )
     
  16. Stefan

    Stefan Cavalry Rupert

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    Any aircraft that you can fix with fabric and glue has to be a winner!
     
  17. chromeboomerang

    chromeboomerang New Member

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    The problem with the Spitfire and its diving is in the inital stages of the dive. Where the shape of the wings slowed the dive, but after the intital stage it was one of the fastest divers in WW2

    Well, again johnny Johnson said he never bothered to follow a 190 in a dive. Mentioned also that the Spit could not be dived as steeply as the 109.
     
  18. chromeboomerang

    chromeboomerang New Member

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    Also, the Spit 14 "was" a bear on takeoff. perhaps not a 9 or a Mk 5, but the 14 was not easy to take off in.
     
  19. chromeboomerang

    chromeboomerang New Member

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    Correction on Oct as being combat debut of 14 Spit. It arrived in one unit complete in spring 44,April? But Mk 9 still was predominate Spit til end of war.

    The comparison of the performance of these 109G types to the MkXIV is interesting, but highly academic : even half a year after their official introduction, the Mk XIVs presented only a fraction of the RAF`s fighter forces - dominated by the Mk IXs at that time - with no more than 6 Squadrons using them, compared to 34 of the Mk IX Squadrons immidiately supporting D-Day, and another 22 of the IX Squadrons being responsible for the defence of the British Isles(SS4), organized into the ADGB (Air Defence Great Britain) - a total of 56 of the Mk IX Squadrons around compared toa mere 6 using the Mk XIV... this situation did not change even until V-E day, as no more but one XIV Squadrons were created in the meantime.

    Galland said; The best thing about the MK 14 Spit was that there were so few of them.
     
  20. chromeboomerang

    chromeboomerang New Member

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    the existance of a handful of modern MkXIVs was barely noticed either by the RAF or Luftwaffe. The vast majority of RAF squadrons flew the old Mk IXs until the cease of hostilities, and certainly they felt that 40-50 mph speed differenence between their Mk IX rides and the Luftwaffe G-14/AS, G-10s, K-4s and D-9s.
     

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