IMPORTANT: Since some people seem to think that I am 'ignoring' Miss Shillings orifice. I am not, the orifice is mentioned at 2:43. I am using the official name ('Miss Shillings orifice' is not the official designation but more of a homage). Small correction, the first and last visual scene are actually from Battle of Kuban, the second scene from Cliffs of Dover. Not that it matters. Now go ahead and point it out again even though this comment is pinned ;)
I like the Spitfire, it’s my favourite vintage aircraft, but it’s a sad thing that very few seem to highlight the role that Joseph Smith, R.J. Mitchell’s assistant, who took over responsibility for the design after Mitchell’s death, played in the development of the Spitfire. The aircraft designed by Mitchell was brilliant but it was Smith who kept updating the design to meet newer threats and should have, in my opinion, been given more credit than he was.
Good point. Also the two main Spitfire test pilots, one named Quill (sp?) who did much to progress the design/performance of each mark that came out...
And of course Mutt Summers who made the maiden test flight of just about every Vickers group aircraft type and Eric Winkle Brown who dived it within a wisker of the speed of sound.
A pity Smith's Spiteful and Attacker were so poor because of the wing, they could have reverted to the last version of the Spitfire wing on the Attacker. The the less said about Swift the better and the Scimitar ........
Kudos to Joseph Smith and his team. I did not know his name either. And he did one hell of a job. So many variants of the Spitfire with ever increasing capabilities. Interim solutions proved to match and even outperform Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulf fighters. I think Rolls Royce should be mentioned too for the incredible increase of power of the Merlin and the development of the Griffin. Praise for the guys that created the propellor as well? The Spitfire prototype started with a fixed pitch two bladed unit. Went to variable three bladed unit. Then four bladed, five bladed and even a contra rotating 6 bladed unit. Amazing they got it done in such a short time and tooled up to make thousands of units.
I joined the RAF in 1979, after all the training I did on modern aircraft the first thing I ended up working on was a Spitfire from our museum flight, it kindled a fascination for the aircraft that I still have to this day.
Hi biz. When the plane was pushed in negative G, it didn't seize the engine but rather starved it of fuel as the carb had a bowl with fuel in it that was forced away from the pick up due to the G maneuver. Flying inverted was only dodgy if it was sustained. As long as the plane was pulling positive G, even inverted, it was fine. reat video series btw.
Once they sorted out the jamming problem of the Hispanos it became an excellent weapon with enormous hitting power. Here's something not many know, after the initial BoB combat experience it became obvious that the eight .303s had inadequate "hitting power" (ie destructive penetration) against armoured aircraft with 'self sealing' fuel tanks. Although the eight guns between them fired no fewer than 160 rounds per second, they were initially adjusted to concentrate their fire at the long range of 365 m which led to the hits being spread across the target at shorter ranges, this was no good because the .303 needed concentration of hits to penetrate or destroy. As German aircraft equipped with self-sealing fuel tanks and armour were now the norm not the rarity, it proved necessary to concentrate fire at much closer ranges, hence the aircraft had to close much closer and were susceptable to enemy defence fire. Because of the lack of destructive force against self sealing tanks, .303 incendiary rounds were required to ignite the tanks, but, due to a type shortage, usually only one or two of the eight guns could be loaded with incendiary ammunition. A series of ground tests carried out by the British, firing at a redundant Bristol Blenheim from 180m to the rear (dangerously close in a-a combat) revealed that the .303 incendiary B Mk VI bullets would set light to a Blenheim wing tank with only one hit out of five! Hence, the Brits quickly looked at the Mitchell designed Spitifre variant Type 312 wing which had room for four Browning .50 cal's, but, and this is so typical of the Brits, the weapon was considered "under-developed" by the Air Ministry and was placed aside, and besides, they had millions of .303 ammunition stockpiled so continued with that despite knowing it was inadequate
Both the spitfire and skyline had there problems The spitfire mk1 had a carburetor and skyline r32 had a electronic injection the problem with skyline years later the early 1989-1991 models r32 gtr rb26dett it had a fuel pump which was problems on earlier gtr models
I may be wrong but I seem to remember that in one of the early scenes in "The Battle of Britain" they show Spitfires taking off from a runway in France. Apparently that didn't happen.
Perhaps the biggest misconception was that RAF Fighter Command was winning its battle vs Luftwaffe fighters, it was not. The RAF lost 1,220 fighters, (753 Hurricanes & 467 Spitfires) to the Luftwaffe's 812, (569 Bf.109 & 243 Bf.110). It was the additional 822 Luftwaffe bomber losses that made the battle unsustainable for Germany. Hardly mentioned or given mention, were the RAF's Bomber & Coastal Commands' loss of 524 aircraft during the same course of the battle! Losses given for the time period between 10th. July and 31st. October.
Spitfires are more famous as they made a larger impact where it mattered, which was later in the war. For example, notice how few people mention Dunkirk, and will readily speak of the Normandy Landings. Hurricanes did a lot, but did that lot in much less visible way.
Cameron McAllister I'm sorry to say you are quite incorrect. The Hurricane was influential in the defeat of Rommel in North Affrica. The MkIId fitted with the 2X40mm vickers AT gun helped slow the Africa Corps. The Spitfire MkVc (tropical) was more often grounded and was hampered by the huge tropical intake. The Hurricane was replaced by the Typhoon in 1943 which had a much bigger impact over Normandy than Spitfires during operation overlord. The MkXII spitfires only able to do minimal damage to ground forces compared to the Typhoons. over Europe the spitfire became an almost obsolete aircraft as Typhoons, Tempests and Mosquitos knocked out the supply lines for the luftwaffer. The MkIXHFe being used to knock out recon aircraft (until the Mk.XIV) and the Mk.IXLFe engaging the fighters though by late 1944 the tempest was causing havoc to the FW190 squadrons and harrying Me262.
+edmundscycles1 - Both Typhoon and Hurricane (to a lesser degree) were cases of a "failed" fighter turned ground-pounder. Spitfires could do those jobs just as badly, if they really needed to. Tempests were better, but it took lots of time to figure out this new engine/airframe combination. To the point that it became unnecessary before it entered service, and a known stop-gap measure for most of the time it was actually used. At least it actually worked, unlike Saber in Typhoons.
bakters the Typhoon was always designed as an attack aircraft. From the inception it was to carry 2000lb of bombs or 12 24lb rockets. It was to be low level fighter bomber. Hence the low level performance.
Under primitive airfield conditions, the Hurricane would enjoy a greater serviceability rate as well. Repairs to the Hurricane could often be done without the specialized facilities and training needed to keep a more modern, stress-skin design in the air. War on the frontiers also tends to have fewer cameramen and journalists, as well...
I saw that happen in real life: The IMAX at Chichester. I did groan a bit during that scene, but otherwise found the movie extremely compelling, especially in IMAX.
The Rolls Royce built Merlin engine is universally acknowledged as one of the finest piston engines that has ever been manufactured. Remarkably, over 50 years have elapsed since the last Merlin engine rolled off the production line, yet it is still in widespread daily use in warbird aircraft, including the P-51 Mustang. Just as North American Aviation would never have envisioned their Mustangs would still be flying, Rolls Royce probably never considered that their beautiful Merlin power plant would still be in "front line service" in the 21st Century.
Seize is really the wrong word, stall or cut-out would be more appropriate. I understand hesitancy to say stall as we like to save that word for the wings but in this case it would apply
engine floods , float in carb opens up under negative G, float bowl in the carbs fill with fuel , engine floods with fuel and cuts out due to over rich mixture ...Is that right ?
Jonathan Vogel the float floats on top of the fuel at the now bottom of the carburettor chamber due to it being under negative G. This opens up the fuel chamber to the fuel pump’s pressure, and when it fills, the full pressure of the pumps is being injected into the engine, resulting in a massively rich mixture and flooding. The fuel pump’s job is only to keep the fuel chamber of the carburettor topped off. The quick fix solution, suggested by a female engineer, was to simple restrict the rate at which the fuel pumps could top off the carburettors fuel chamber to the same flow rate as the engines would require at max power. That means that when the same thing happened, the pumps would only be forcing fuel through the carburettor’s needle at the rate they’d be being pulled in naturally anyway, providing the engine was at full power. You’re only really going to be doing those manoeuvres at full power anyway, so it was good enough. You see a lot of half answers about this from people that clearly don’t know what the problem or solution was and how they worked, but they know it’s ‘something’ to do with flooding/stalling, and the fix was ‘something’ to do with a small hole to restrict the fuel somehow. All you need to know is that how carburettors introduce fuel into the engine, is a separate system entirely to how fuel pumps feed a carburettor’s own separate little ‘tank’ that it works with. Carburettors are constantly sipping from a cup, and the main pumps periodically top up that cup very quickly. When the carburettor is ‘erroneously’ demanding to be filled up, but it’s already full, because it’s way of measuring how full it is is inverted, then it effectively links the two systems together and now the high pressure, high volume ‘topping up’ pumps are working at full duty, straight into the engine. Using the teapot, teacup analogy, the fix was to put a restrictor plate on the end of the teapot, so that it could only pour as fast as a teacup would be drunk from when someone is really gagging for a brew. So it could still flood when inverted/neg-G at part-throttle, but never during full beans.
cf re: your id photo What is that strange handgun? It looks like it might be a single action blow back .380 (9mm kurtz). However, it has an extended backstrap that seems like it should be a hand grip safety but does not seem to be a hand grip safety. Just wild guessing on my part.
Nice video! Some nice compliments from the Luftwaffe were Adolph Gallands comment, and the "Spitfire snobbery" that hurricane pilots complained about (germans shot down ALWAYS saying it was a spit that got them). In the Battle, the Bf 109s were hamstrung by Goering/Hitlers poor grand tactics, whilst Dowding got his right ... but the RAF still only just survived.
yes indeed. The kill ratios of the Me110 and 109 were much better than the old Hurricane (worst kill ratio). Had the LW not changed strategic targets / tactics and the RAF not been fighting over their own land, imagine how much worse the pilot attrition would have been.
it just trapped some fuel around the main carb jet when negative G was applied. previously the fuel would shoot up to the top of the carb leaving the main jet dry and the motor would loose power drastically..climbing turns were also an issue if the pilot really hauled on it... a pressurised fuel system helped dramatically in later models before fule injection
It wasn’t a simple washer. It was engineered fairly precisely. And the main problem wasn’t the fuel flying up when the aircraft dived. But at the bottom of the dive all that fuel would flood the carb and that was actually the more serious problem. And no one would have dared refer to it as Miss Shilling’s Orifice to her face. It was probably ground crew, and not the pilots.
Her solution needed modification (stand pipe, etc) to be more effective. A good first effort, but not a final solution and not during the Battle of Britain. She was just one minor engineer among many.
I didn't have any of these misconceptions. But then I am 47, paid attention in history lessons, and grew up in the south east of England, and my grandads brother flew both Hurricanes and Spits during the Battle of Britain, and could be persuaded, on occasion,( when slightly drunk!) to tell a wide eyed young lad about his (according to him) decidedly unheroic exploits. But he ended the war alive and sporting a DFC and a DSO, so I think he underplayed his part in it.
I see no soaringtractor comments slating the spit and claiming that the yanks invented the merlin! Whats going on he comment's on every spitfire video on RUclips is it because bismarck knows what he talking about?
What's amazing about the video, which is very accurate and well explained, is the debate which follows. Some really good stuff about engines, the pro's and con's of carburetors versus injection, about weaponry, the muzzle velocity of .303 vs 20mm cannon. What is absolutely astounding is how some people talk about aircraft characteristics based on their experience in flight simulators, which have all the difficulties in the world trying to accurately replicate flight models and engine performance of the real aircraft and where game editors have often taken liberties with the true historical characteristics in order to improve gameplay. I had a good laugh with the "revisionist" post about the Hurricane being superior to the Spitfire, using arguments about the Spitfire that are simply not true. This is a pity as the Hurricane was a good aircraft with many advantages, a stable gun platform, an airframe that could take more punishment than the Spitfire, which was present in far greater numbers than the Spitfire during the Battle of Britain and being the preferred mount of many fighter pilots at that time. I am sure there are many more worthy arguments about the development of the Hurricane, but it became progressively outclassed as a front line fighter, a role for which Hawkers successfully developed new types of aircraft.
It's become a common practice to measure gun effectiveness to measure weight of fire in a one second burst. The 303 not so good. Many an RAF pilot lost kill credits as the enemy aircraft was out of sight when it finally went down.
Initial design idea behind both Bf109 and Spifire was the most practical amount of firepower in smallest practical airframe and as both were only thinking of 'local' warfare range was not much of an issue. If I recall properly I think an early prototype Bf109 had some type of RR engine in it. Most very early prototypes had Jumos. Interestingly some of the last operational Bf109 airframe operational were built in Spain and used RR Merlin engines and were what we saw in movie "Battle of Britain".
It might not seem important to your most interesting video on the Spit but in actual fact the early Mark 1 Spitfire hardly if at all featured in the Battle of Britain but this duty was given over to the Mark 1a, with it's 3 bladed prop and other major improvements over the Mark 1.
In my totally uneducated thoughts if one were to study the Spitfire and Bf109 I think you would find just how similar their timeframes of development and improvements paralleled each other.
If you are interested, I highly recommend Sir Stanley Hooker's book 'Not Much of an Engineer'. He goes into an additional dimension of why the early Spitfires were carbureted: 'Let me now add that the Germans paid a large penalty for their fuel injection. When the fuel is fed before the supercharger, as on the Merlin, it evaporates and cools the air by 25° C. This cooling enhances the performance of the supercharger, and increases the power of the engine, with a corresponding increase in aircraft speed, particularly at high altitude.' (p. 62) The Spitfires could run their superchargers at higher boost, and this put them in a place to take best advantage of the 100 octane gas coming from America. Hooker claims they were able to get 2000 HP out of a Merlin as a result of this. Combined with the weight and cost savings, carburation seems like a perfectly valid design choice under the circumstances.
The 2000 HP Merlin engines came later but yes, carburetors did allow the British and Americans to always have more horsepower from their engines than German fuel injection. And by 1942 they had pressurised carburetors in Spitfires and Mustangs that completely eliminated the negative G engine cut out. The main reason carburetors have mostly died out in engines these days is because of the requirements to use catalytic converters to reduce the amount of pollution released and catalytic converts require a very precise mix of fuel and air that you can only really achieve with fuel injection.
It is often ignored that the BF-109 had a bigger engine not as big as the Griffon but considerably more swept volume than the Merlin. Having worked on car with the early German mechanical gasoline injection Rolls-Royce were very wise to stick with the carburetor produced by SU (nb. not an SU Carburetor) then go to pressure carburetor / single point injection The 30/70 glycol water coolant of the Spitfire of the Merlin II also allowed a specific power increase.
It should also be noted that Stanley Hooker designed the 2 stage supercharger with an intercooler, aftercooler and backfire screens which allowed the optimum performance of 2 stages. The Allison, by comparison was never designed properly to take their auxilliary supercharger, relying only on water injection to prevent detonation - it wasn't effective. NAA knew this and railed against such a project by Allison because it wouldn't be easily fit into the Mustang, and NAA immediately started looking at alternative engines (Merlin XX) in Mar 1941 for the Mustang. The Merlin was eventually tested for WEP bursts of 2640 HP, but jet engines were on the way by 1944.
Just being pedantic. The early Mk Merlion engines did not seize momentarily, they spluttered/cut-out due to fuel STARVATION (not fuel flooding as you stated) due to the carb being gravity fed with a normal float type inlet valve. Negative G's or flying inverted caused the float to close the fuel inlet stopping fuel flow into the carb.
captmack007 Siezed is what I hear but it could also be interpreted as ceased. In the meaning of stopped. That would be closer to what happened. Siezed would mean engine totally locked which might happen if coolant stopped or otherwise. No longer capabel to resume providing power. Both words sound very similar. Or would this not be an option for native speakers?
Thanks for an interesting video. One minor observation: I'm pretty sure your graphic of the .303 MG is upside down. I can't speak about the aircraft version of this gun specifically, but I know from personal experience that the standard land-based version couldn't operate for very long in this orientation as it relies upon gravity to remove the spent cartridges downwards once they have been pushed clear of the "T" slot on the face of the bolt. If fired upside down, spent cartridges would quickly accumulate at the (now upward-facing) bottom of the bolt and eventually fowl its operation. Again, I'm assuming what would apply in this case to a land-based .30 cal would also apply to an aero .303 MG.
You're right, the Browning graphic is inverted. However, the Browning has an ejector which flips empty cases forcibly out through the bottom of the gun. It will do this even inverted.
carroj9 still they were made of aluminium. PD: A6M5 got CO2 automatic extinguishers and by pilots reports "Zeke's are harder to shot down than ever" pulling out fires and such.
The DH Mossie was made of plywood - And it was brilliant. The trick is what you DO with the wood (design and build tech) and whther you have access to great engines.
I quite agree that visibility is critical in combat.On our side the "Hun in the sun" was a major problem in both world wars. I believe the modern expression with regards to being in combat stresses the importance of "situational awareness". With regards to tanks even in combat German tank commanders were willing to stick their head out of the turret as the first to spot their opponent usually got off the first round & with German 75-88 m.m. canon that was usually enough to win.
@@jimlyon7276 SA was not easily learned back then at the limited OTU training. Most RAF aces were shot down several times and luckily survived before learning SA. Ginger Lacey shot down 9 times, and he already had 1000 hrs pre RAF stick time.
Very very good stuff. However Re the Hurricane: it was a very usefull fighter and did shoot down a fair share of 109's and most of the bombers in the battle of Britain. It was certainly capable and in fact considered more powerful than the 109 at up to medium altitudes and only lost out at higher altitudes due to the supercharger tuning of both fighters (cant have it both ways with a single stage) .. Hurricane development was essentially stopped because the Spitfire was deemed to have more potential at high altitude where the 109 was lurking and where a fighter needed to be to respond quickly to raids . It also competed with the Spitfire and other bomber aircraft for Merlin engines. The new Hawker Typhoon was well on the way and would need manufacturing space . That new fighter would not use a Merlin engine. Interestingly this is the same rational for Kurt Tanks Fw 190 a previous reject getting a second chance. The Luftwaffe wanted a fighter that would not use the DB 605 engine. It used the BMW radial and it turned out a great fighter as well. Then of course came the great Hawker Tempest as the improved Typhoon was called. But at the time of the Battle of France the Hurricane was a good unit.
The Hurricane was produce for far too long, production ending in 1944, but it was already obsolete as a front line day fighter by the fall of 1940 or earlier. The MB 3 should have replaced it but that was delayed far too long and the prototype crashed during failure of the bloody Napier Sabre killing the pilot/company partner (Baker).
Was at the Great Warbirds Airshow at Duxford a few years back when they had 21 Spitfires lined up on the flight line and had a fly past with 18 of them, the sound of that mix of Merlin and Griffon engines was absolutely awesome.
Absolutely amazing! I was there this September and it literally felt like going back in time. To see these beautiful machines on the ground, taking off and then in mass formation in the air was utterly thrilling!
Carb vs injection. Carb was bad at *sustained* negative G. Spitfire pilots learned to roll inverted to follow a 109 into a dive. RR preferred the carburetted engine as it was able to deliver more power, due to charge cooling at the carb. Alleviated by a fuel restrictor (developed by pioneering female engineer Tilly Shilling, and so called Miss Shilling's Orifice) and fixed by the introduction of, first, pressure carburetion, and then injection into the supercharger inlet, both dispensing with the float chamber. All-20mm cannon armament was the aim for the RAF, but was not reliably usable in the wings of single engined fighters until a new feed mechanism was developed (belt vs drum) RAF cannon-armed fighters were not a factor in the Battle of Britain. The cannon worked well in the nose of the Whirlwind, but the decision to stop Peregrine development meant that this rather impressive single seat twin engined fighter was never developed or employed in large numbers. The US were sent Hhispano cannon in the hope that they could produce them in large numbers. Unfortunately they made changes to the weapon that meant it was never reliable, suffering stoppages unrelated to those found in RAF service, and leading the USAAF to stick with the .5 Browning long after everyone else was fitting cannon as standard. Kudos for referencing Tony Williams, whose works on guns and ammunition (with Emmanuel Gustin) are concise, accurate, well written and a good read.
Actually the US Hispanos were not less reliable on American planes because American planes that used them like the P-38 had cocking levers the pilot could use to clear gun jams in flight as opposed to spitfires that didn't have them.
The US had decided that they knew best, and stubbornly ignored the suggestions from the British about chamber length in particular. This, despite the overwhelming evidence that the British-made guns worked in British aircraft and American M2's did not work in US aircraft. The P-38 gun was nose-mounted, making provision of a recocking mechanism simpler. The USN was desperate to move to all-20mm gun fit, but American guns did not meet their requirements for usability. Tony Williams has a good summary of the sorry story, taken from "The Machine Gun", written by George M. Chinn, a retired USMC Colonel, in the early 1950s. www.quarryhs.co.uk/US404.htm
I mentioned pressure carburetion, which was performed using the Bendix-Stromberg carburettor. First applied to the Merlin 66 which powered the Spitfire Mk.IX. The pressure carburettor is a device that replaces the float chamber, from which fuel is drawn by depression in the throttle venturi, with a pneumatic air metering device that controls the fuel quantity injected. This does away with the float, but is in other respects still looks like a carburettor. It is, in effect, a single-point injector. The Bendix-Stromberg was later replaced by an SU injection carburettor, a further-developed form of mechanical fuel injection that again injected at a single point, into the supercharger inlet. So the Merlin *did* adopt fuel injection, but in single-point rather than multi-point form. This was quite deliberate on the part of Rolls-Royce, who made use of the charge cooling to increase the density of intake charge and develop more power.
Your videos are always worth watching, both informative and entertaining, but I think you missed one important difference between the Spitfire and the ME 109 : the armour plating on the ME 109 was thicker than the ultra-light aluminium skin of the Spitfire, which made it far less vulnerable to machine gun bullets, whereas one single hit from the 109's cannon would destroy the Spitfire. Spitfire pilots (during the Battle of Britain, when they only had machine guns) would have to get closer to their targets than their enemy had to, in order to guarantee hitting the target and causing notable damage.
I'm of the opinion that had the Whirlwind been ready and available in the summer of 1940 the losses of Luftwaffe bombers over Southern England would have been far worse. The Spit was an incredible design for it's time. It's one fault lay in its construction time. It took many more man hours to build than other types.
Had Westland stuck with the original propellers of the prototypes, they may have had more support from the Air Ministry/RAF as a bomber destroyer; however, RR simply didn't have the manpower or capacity to refine and produce both the Merlin and Perigrine engines.
Hi, nice video and good points on the spit, no criticism there, although i do feel obliged to point out that you accidentally called a 30 cal. a 50 cal. at 3:20 in the video while looking at the armaments. Cheers!
The RAF reconnaissance Spitfires were really clever. The photos they took were actually in 3D which allows the intelligence staff analysing them so much more information and detail that they wouldn't have with normal photos. They could tell exactly how tall structures and defences were for planning attacks including the dam busters raid. They also allowed them to find the V2 rockets being developed, with normal photos a V2 would just appear as a tiny round circle on the ground but with their 3D photos British intelligence was able to see exactly what they were and even their exact height so air raids could be launched at the V-2 research centre and delay their development.
Evidensinsania: Not only Spitfires; the predominant PR aircraft in the RAF was the Mosquito. The British had pioneered the use of stereo pair photography in WW1, and made extensive use of the technique in WW2. It was therefore well-known to all sides in WW2, yet the Luftaufklärung units did not make any great use of it. Perhaps worse is the fact that the Wehrmacht had no central specialist reconnaissance organisation like the PIU at Medmenham, and that most reconnaissance was tactical in nature. The measurement of ground features using Swiss Wild Heerbrugg stereoautograph machines allowed for the construction of accurate models of ground features to prepare for critical missions (the Dam Busters mission is the one everyone remembers - and those models were made at Medmenham) as well as accurate sizing of items like the V1 and V2 prototypes.
I spoke to an old gentleman from NZ some years ago who favoured the Hurricane above the Spitfire, for some of the reasons already mentioned, like being a better gun platform. He also mentioned that the Spitfires landing gear was actually quite narrow and less robust than the Hurricanes, can anyone verify this?
Hurricanes were better than Spits because they were harder to shoot down. A German pilot had to hit the engine, the pilot, or the gas tank to bring down a Hurricane, a much smaller target than the Spit. Bullets would tear the metal skin of the Spit to shreds, downing it, or putting it out of action. The fabric skin of the Hurricane made the Hurricane plane itself almost impervious to bullets - they just punched little holes that had no real effect. So, the Hurricane was more survivable, less fragile, and therefore, more dangerous to German pilots. After all, Hurricanes did destroy more German planes in the Battle of Britain than the vaunted Spitfire. When I hear the Hurricanes getting disrespected, it makes me so mad, I just spit fire. (pun intended, :-)
According to "Fighter" by Len Deighton, the older armorers and fitters who maintained Fighter Command's aircraft had plenty of experience working with wooden frames covered with fabric, and many damaged Hurricanes were easily repaired right at the satellite air strips. The Spitfires had to be flown or hauled to more extensive facilities. That said, a thirty caliber bullet punches the same size hole in aluminum that it does in canvas. IMO this didn't make the Hurricane "almost impervious" to bullets, (especially exploding cannon shells). It just made them easier to repair, assuming they survived. As to Hurricanes downing more enemy a/c during the BoB, it was because the RAF had a lot more Hurricanes than Spitfires at the time. And German pilots, both fighter and bomber, had a serious case of "Spitfire snobbery". Captured German aircrew would insist they had been shot down by Spitfires when there no Spits anywhere near. The Hurricane earned its place in history, right beside the elegant Spitfire.
German fighters were using 20mm cannon firing explosive shells*. These shells were designed to detonate on impact with the hull of an opposing aircraft. This worked fine against Spitfires, with their (mostly) metal covering** but not so well against the fabric skinned Hurricane as the detonators simply didn't activate on hitting the skin. To be effective the shells had to hit something more solid. There is a reported case from a Hurricane pilot in 1940 who was jumped by a 109, only realising this when he felt a massive 'bang' right behind him. His fighter was damaged enough to force him to return to base. On landing he required help from the ground crew to exit the aircraft, discovering that he couldn't get out of his seat once on the ground. A 20mm shell had entered the back of the plane, passed right down most of the length of the fuselarge before hitting and detonating on the armour plating behind the pilots seat and blowing a hole in both of them. The torn metal around the exit hole hooked into the pilots parachute, pinning him in place. * There were explosive rounds for rifle caliber rounds but these quickly fell out of favour. The RAF, for example, developed and issued such rounds in (British) .303 for aircraft in the mid 1930's. But discontinued their use less than two years later. ** The early model Spitfires were not actually all metal construction as the control surfaces were fabric covered. This caused problems during high speed dives as those surfaces would balloon up making it very difficult for pilots to pull out of a dive. (I seem to recall one pilot actually bent the control yoke trying to pull out of such a dive)
Yes, lets clear something up...The use of Carbs gave a useful charge cooling effect which gave the Merlin similar power to the injected DB 605, despite having almost 9 litres less capacity!
The carburettor problem was solved by Mrs Shilling during the Battle of Britain, and very quickly, with planes being retrofitted. Stanley Hooker's 2-stage, 2-speed supercharger on the RR Merlin gave the Spitfire an extra 70mph and 10,000 foot of height. All was done automatically by the pilots joystick. The pilot just went where he wanted without worry. The same engine was used in the Mustang. The Spitfire could pull out of dives that would rip the wings off a Bf 109.
Stanley Hookers book "Not much of an engineer" refered to "Mr. Royces" comment when Hooker was set a task of , could he improve "Mr, Royces" design of impellers on the superchargers "honed to a fine pitch/tune" by the great man. Hooker at this time still not fully engaged in the war effort that he so dearly wanted to take part in, thought he'd look at the calculations and graph curves, air speeds and compression within the supercharger unit and rework the figures, which he found could be possible and far more efficient. At this point it must be said that Royce had his canny engineering skills and "feel" for what would and would not be successful in his "aims" and when he achieved this in practice not the "theory" and was achieved, moved onto something else. Hooker on the other hand was of the "new school" where things where worked on paper i.e. theory, then down to the "tool shop" and discussed with the engineer on the practical side , i.e. materials and how it was to be achieved following Hookers design and drawings. At this point the mechanical engineer in the said tool shop pointed out to Hooker that "the old man " Royce wouldn't be happy that Hooker had been "messing" with "his" s/charger design. When Hooker approached Royce with his projected calcs. and drawings on how he could not just improve the performance of the s/charger but by a considerable amount, at which point Royce pointed out that this was just on paper and that real engineers where very aware that theory and practice hardly if ever went hand in hand with each other. Hooker now more than ever wanted to prove that his "paper figures" would work in practice and with very few alterations he managed to improve the performance by such a vast performance that so nearly tallied with his theory figures, on one of those very few occasions that it actually happened. When sharing with Royce that he (hooker) was very pleased that he managed to help the "war effort" in this way, Royce said "not much of an engineer" to take another chaps design and only improve on it, rather than start from scratch as indeed he Royce had done. And of course indeed the great man Royce had that ability to think and do what was needed to overcome or rethink a given situation or problem, then actually have that engineers skill to know what material to use and how to create what he had in his mind, and bring to fruition . Truly a great man and engineer.
The tool is only as good as the individual using it. Being honest the merlin engine sounds wonderful and the design of the aircraft was excellent but so were so many aeroplanes of that era. It will always be held high esteem due to its use during the Battle of Britain and the turning point of the 2nd WW. Thanks for your video.
I note several misconceptions developing here. First, the performance of the aircraft is relatively unimportant, its pilot skill as pointed out by Galland, but more importantly being in the right place, and in this respect the RAF had the advantage. The early warning system set up by Dowding and so expertly used by Parks was the key to the RAF success. The RAF could fight on its terms, and not those dictated by Goering. Second , as the efficiency of a engine is defined by the Carnot principle. Carburated engines are more efficient because the fuel entering the engine is so much colder, hence a 27lt merlin produced the same or more power as the 38lt Daimler. UK also had access to 100 octan fuel which also allows significant improvements to be made throughout the war, but its not unlit the war is nearly over that Germany starts to introduce the improved fuels. Third, cannons do little damage to Hurricanes unless it hits the engine, and in Hurricane to 109 encounters the Hurricane is a competitive match. Forth, as Sailor Milan pointed out , a damaged aircraft returning with badly injured crew has an even bigger negative effect on moral, than not returning at all, so kills are not the whole story.
Hurricanes had less performance and therefore were more vulnerable than the Spitfire. Each had the same vital points (engine, oil system, coolant system, pilot) except that the Hurricane's header tank was not protected (causing many Hurri pilots to be burned) and its wing tanks made for a larger target and the doped fabric/wood rear fuselage was flamable. It wasn't normally competitive and had the worst kill ratio of the Battle.
Re. the Bf109 being fuel-injected "from the first". The earliest Bf 109's, the A and B series, used the carburetted Junkers Jumo 210 B and D engines The Bf 109B saw action in the Spanish Civil War. The Bf 109C was the first to get injection, with the Jumo 210G
You didn’t mention that the Spitfire was also used in the 1940s in Earth orbit, there is even footage of them in action look for victory of the Daleks on u tube 😉
Good stuff! I have made the same point elsewhere about the direct injection of the Me 109. It was new technology with huge development potential but carbs were mature "state-of-the art" and with considerable scope for further development. Their problems are generally overstated and were, in fact soon sorted.
@@garyseeseverything8615 Hi garydoesn'tseeenough. Your assertions are absolutely not backed up by history, Mechanical petrol injection was soon matched by carbs. Petrol fuel injection, like common rail diesel injection, had to wait for electronics to fulfil its potential.
Something not many people realize the airfields in Britain were just that...large fields...so the planes could take off into the wind. To that effect, the locking tail wheel was only late introduced to the British fighters. As my father discovered at Yakima some years ago...a free tailwheel on a fixed runway can get you into trouble as he ground looped his Hurricane...damaging the Starboard wing on a landing light.
perhaps initially, but runways were built as aerodromes became congested and marston mats and asphalt were laid down for better year round operations. Everyone flew off runways then and the warbirds continue to do so today. Go easy on the throttle and quick on the feet.
Big problem with the Mkiib cannon spit was wing warping during high turns. The wing would bend, jamming the feed system of the 20mm cannon. The Mkvb had a new wing ( retrofitted to Mkiib as the wing became available) this cured most of the issues. After October 1941 the 'E' wing (universal) became available. This wing could be clipped, have multiple gun setups such as ; 8 X. 303, 2 X 20mm + 4 X. 303 or 4 X 20mm. The later Mkv could also carry a single 250lb bomb in the center line. The Mk ix became a answer to the Fw 190. with the merlin xx engine and the 'E' wing as standard. Of not is the new wing again fitted to the Mkix and Mkviii after several accidents while dive bombing.
The Australian Sqns fighting the Japanese were begging to replace their cannon with 50 cal browning's which the US were willing to donate. They were so frustrated with the cannons jamming. The RAAF of course refused. At the same time their two speed propellers were also freezing in low gear causing the motors to over rev and the aircraft to fly slow and run out of fuel causing more crashes through fuel than battle damage. Very unhappy campers. The USAF was doing better with it's P40's than the RAAF with its tropicalized Mark 5's with jammed guns and oil frozen props. Got it sorted in the end apparently.
mrjockt no the e was the universal hence the Mk ix Lfe and Hfe the Mk ix Lfe could be fitted with 2×20mm 4×.303 or 4×20mm or 2×20mm and 2×.50 . The Mk.viii also having the e wing as standard
The early "B" wings also, iirc, suffered from very high stick forces at high speeds and the Spit was never able to match some other fighters for high speed rate of roll.
edmundscycles1 The E wing couldn’t carry the outboard .303 machine guns, the compartments were there but there were no gun ports, ejection ports or case deflectors fitted to the wing, and the Mk.VIII was only ever fitted with the C wing in operational service, the Mk.IX, XIV, XVI and XVIII were the ones with the E wing.
To design an aeroplane (an particularly a wing) that retains fine handling characteristics at such a wide range of speeds - bare in mind the Spitfire had the highest tactical mach number of any piston fighter - that man's brainchild is an engineering gift.
Very interesting and well done! I've read multiple books on the Spitfire and usually find several mistakes in most videos on the Spitfire. Good to see an accurate one!
As a research historian, I suggest requesting access to the war diaries of the squadrons involved as well as the technical manuals. The difference is night and day between fact, someone's opinion, and of course know it all gamers.
Speaking of accuracy the Dowding quote is pretty strange considering the 109 had only one hub cannon or hub cannon and two cannon gondolas. Where did he pull the 2 cannon 109 from?
@theminecartgaming Eh, I'd place that at a second or third. @OlliePOV Aus I don't think anyone would argue that "P-51D" is a particularly flattering name. "Mustang" is excellent, but it's no Spitfire.
Spitfire Misconception? EVERY movie you've seen is wrong. A Spitfire had at maximum, 14 seconds of gun fire. That's is. 14 seconds. Now think about the dogfight scenes you've seen in movies ESPECIALLY Dunkirk. Total nonsense.
Seen that film many times. Pretty good. But it is a fact that the Hurricanes took on the bombers and the spits took on the 109's. 109 was just too good for the Hurricane in an outright dogfight. Cheers
Hurricanes took on the bombers because their speed and climb rate caused them to be late for the intercept. When the LW ordered their fighters to stay with bombers, then the Hurricanes were given more opportunity to mix it up with the handcuffed 110s and 109s.
@@bobsakamanos4469 109s shot down more Hurricanes than Spitfires during the BoB. The Hurricane with a top pilot could match the 109, but as the RAF was a bit low on top pilots, the Hurricane suffered.
@@BatMan-oe2gh in a war of attrition, you can't expect pipeline replacement pilots to succeed in Hurricanes. That's just cannon fodder mentality of people like Trenchard. Even Ginger Lacey was shot down 9 times. The LW tactics were peck and zoom and both the 109 and 110 did well in that role, ... until Goering ordeded them to stay with bombers. Even so, the 110 still had the best kill ratio of the BoB - and that was from shooting down fighters (Hurricanes) not bombers.
The misconception about cannons during the battle of Britain and also the use of Spits in France might be partly from the TV series Piece of Cake. It's overall quite excellent, and well worth watching for anyone who hasn't, but some historical inaccuracies were unavoidable. The book which was the basis of the TV series used Hurricanes, but at the time it was made (1989) there were not enough airworthy Hurricanes available to allow for filming of the flying scenes, so Spitfires were substituted. Furthermore, the aircraft that were available had mostly been built later in the war, and so had the cannon armament. In some scenes aircraft even have the enlarged tail that was not introduced until very late in the war. These are not cases of filmmakers overlooking historical details, simply a matter of the difficulty of finding enough airworthy aircraft to make filming possible at all.
Moggie would be proud. Ref the book, I have a copy of the original story written in 1941 IIRC and it uses actual pilots names. "Fighter Pilot" by WComd Paul Richey.
Fantastic Aeroplane.. looks and sounds brilliant ,an engineering marvel ... along with the not quite so , beautiful,Hurricane helped alot to win ww2 for us
There are two major factors that helped the Spirfire (and Hurricane) over the 109 during the battle of Britain: 1) Benign stall characteristics in a tight turn, a Spitfire had benign stall characteristics in a turn. When a pilot got close to a stall situation the stick would start to judder warning of an impending stall. The 109 on the other hand would give no warning and would depart violently. Ironically the 109 with its combat slats could out turn a Spitfire but it required a highly experienced pilot to take advantage of it. For the Spitfire (and Hurricane) a new pilot could perform tight turns without fear of stalling the aircraft. 2) Fuel, arguably the biggest advantage the RAF had, operating out of home bases RAF fighters had more fuel available for combat whilst a 109 was limited to a few minutes.
Even with combat slats the 109 could not out turn a Spitfire, especially at faster speeds where it was literally impossible to turn a Bf 109 but the Spitfire elevators were still very light. The Mk II Spitfire pilot manual actually specifically says it was well within the pilots ability to pull 10G's and to therefore treat the controls with respect. And the bf 109 slats were an absolute disaster anyway. They could often deploy asymmetrically and get stuck ruining the stability of the plane. If the Bf 109 was behind a plane then the slats could also be deployed simply from the slipstream of the leading plane and when the slats were open they caused aileron snatching making aiming impossible. There is a reason why Kurt Tank didn't include those awful slats in his much superior Fw 190.
The RAF switching over to 100 octane fuel between the Battle of France and the start of the Battle of Britain gave the Luftwaffe quite a shock. The Luftwaffe weren't too impressed by the performance of the Hurricanes and Spitfires they captured in the Battle of France and were expecting the same thing in the Battle of Britain but instead the 100 octane fuel allowed the Merlin engines to run at 12 lbs boost instead of 6 and they were all fitted with much more efficient propellers. The fact that most of the RAF in the Battle of Britain were made up of brand new recruits who had only received 10-20 hours of training before being sent into battle consistently outperformed their Luftwaffe opponents, most of whom had gained a lot of experience fighting in Spain, Poland and France, is a real testament to the quality of the Hurricane and Spitfire.
I remember watching a BBC documentary about the Spitfire V Bf 109, where they got engineers and current fighter pilots to compare them. As machines they came out as equals. But the Spitfire won on ergonomics (more room for pilots elbows and better laid out cockpit), visibility (better canopy) and survivability (Spitfire had an armoured cockpit). IE: As a pilot it was easier to get the best out of the Spitfire and if you were shot down , the chances were that you would liv to have another go.
Some of it was obtained from the USA - Britain actually developed its own 100 Octane blend in the early 30's and had significant UK based production capacity. Britain had stockpiled 100 Octane starting from before WW2 but didn't deploy its use until it was required for home defense ie it wasn't used in France. The British actually ended the Battle of Britain with 500,000 tonnes still in reserve such was the reserve they had stockpiled in advance.
ISTR Shell did a lot of the high octane fuel research --- ISTR 100 Octane was also produced at BP Isle of Grain, Kent refinery which must have been a bit to close to France for comfort . The vital glycol for the cooling system initially exclusively came fro the USA.
It’s a great plane but one misconception is that it was always superior to the Me-109 (battle of Britain as reference). It’s not widely known that in the israeli war of independence 1948/49 the israeli me-109 defeated the Arab spitfires in every encounter. So the score between the two planes is 1-1. Will you make a video about it?
'so galland what in luftwaffe funf would most help you shoot down the enemy",herr general,, I should like a squadron of spitfires' ]dammit galland I never,,,stompstompstompstomp
After the liberation of France, there were lots of hangers found with unused aircraft, including ones sent by the British. It’s almost as if the French politicians wanted someone to blame for the defeat more than they actually wanted to fight. Sending more fighters, as Churchill wanted to do, would have made no difference to France, and a significant difference in the Battle of Britain.
France had some excellent fighter designs available, only the heads of the military and politicians didn't realize how badly they were needed. They were well able to match the 109 and might have changed history, had they been available in numbers.
Well the sad fact is that they did have plenty of good planes... only the pilots (and their officers) were hot-legging it to Normandy or just giving up. That's why Churchill & co were reluctant to send many of our planes over (incl Spits) and just placated the French generals with some Hurricanes and Lysanders etc.
Possibly, but from what i understand there was a shortage of pilots. This was bad planning of course but it took several years for the allies to get there act together. E.g.Crete, Hong Kong, Singapore, Russia, Pearl Harbour. France was the first major power to face the German forces.
iv'e never managed to find or estimate the spitfires total kill count of ww2....they seem to have them for the p 51 and 47 but i don't know about the spit.
@55s you say the engine would "momentarily seize". I understand why you would want to avoid the word "stall" but I think seize is misleading as it implies the engine stops rotating. "Misfire" or "lose power" might be more informative.
I have always argued that the Spitfire is the best fighter if the war simply because it remained a very serious opponent from the first day of the war to the last. Many of the other "greats" weren't around from the start, and those that were weren't nearly as competitive by the end of the war. No matter what fighter an opponent was flying, including the Me 262, an engagement with a Spitfire was a deadly serious matter.
I think I read that the German supply problems with raw materials was one of the main reasons that they struggled to keep pace with British advances in metallergy. Sure, the Germans had the ideas, they just struggled with raw materials not that they weren't inventive.
The US kept the P-38 in production before firing and after, the P-40 as well. You can argue they were niche fighters, but the P-40 excelled at simple field maintenance, ruggedness, and cheap to build. Outfought me 109s low to medium level; turned tighter and rolled faster. 8 50 cals hit hard enough. Ease of maintenance keeps them in service. Guess my point is that no one machine did it all. Range of a Spitfire, 423 miles, range of a P38, 1325 miles. Lose an engine; keep flying. Nose mounted canon / macine guns, effective to 1,000 yards, no need to synchronize the bullet hose. Spit as others, pick your yardage for gun synch. No one design was head and shoulders above another in all essential aspects. The Spit was comparatively a short range weapon.
one used to be kept at the airbase at colerne up until last year, it was a pleasure to see it fly, the way it would defy gravity in loops and rolls and the sound of its engine was superb. I saw a p51 owned by the same guy come in to land there too. Privileged to have seen them in real life.
A 8 x 303 B 4 x 303 & 2 x 20mm Hispano C As above, or 4 x 20mm Hispano* *performance penalty There was a bet between vickers supermarine engineers and the RAF as to whether the Hispano could be fitted into the S7 FI mk V wing. £100. The Supermarine guys won, and they got their money after a quiet chat with RAF senior command staff.
It's my understanding the RR Merlin could accumulate only 100 hours of flight time during those years before it was required to be replaced with a new engine. Removed engines could only be overhauled once, and were limited to 50 hours of flight time before replacement.
Overboosting an engine doesn't permit a long life and they don't want pilots going into battle with an engine that's clapped out. At least the Merlin was capable of being highly boosted, unlike the Allison time bomb.
"A" wing was all guns only. "B" wing was a mix. "C" wing was 4 cannons. "E" wing could be done in any configuration. Prior to the "B" wing there was a short period with 2 cannons only. Once the wing was beefed up, it could handle both cannons and guns. The wings with a bulge underneath, or a pair of bulges were for cannons. The "A" wing had no bulges. Note, the photo recon spits had a much larger wing in length and width that allowed it a much longer range, speed, and altitude. The PR spit used the empty gun spaces for extra fuel, thus giving it a Berlin range. Unarmed.
It is important to understand that having the fuel introduced by a carburettor before the supercharger cooled the air by about 25C (due to the evaporation of the fuel) and thus increased the density of the charge entering the cylinders and increasing the power output of the engine compared to a direct injection system where the evaporation occurs too late to increase the charge density and this is the reason Rolls Royce continued with various forms of carburettor (Bendix-Stromberg pressure carb. and then SU injection carb.) for all the Merlin engines.
"Bromwich" is pronounced BROMMITCH, but don't change, because I like your accent. English town names are a minefield for foreigners (especially Americans). You have great production values, and you are very succinct and accurate.
By the last 12 months of WW2 in Europe, Spitfire operations were curtailed in great part due to the more capable, versatile and numerous P-38 and P-51 aircraft. The Spitfire had fulfilled its role and the more plentiful and powerful American planes finished off the Germany from the West as the Soviets did from the East.
As a very young kid I experienced the appearance of the Me262. Jg7 under Nowotny It messed up the Allies real badly. The lack of fuel saved the day for us. Nowotny himself had over 100 kills, a lot of them P51 and P47. . Once the Me262 appeared all other fighter planes became obsolete over night. We got lucky with the Me262 and the U-boot Type 21. Not so lucky with the Panther, Tiger, Mg42 and the Sturmgewehr. I forgot the Panzerfaust. A Reichsmark 200 weapon knocking off US$ 75,000 tanks. The U.S. lost 7,000 tanks in WWII mostly in France and mostly Shermans. The Germans called them "bunsenburners" . I do not know British losses, but those were very substantial too.
@tecdessus they weren't retired but Spitfire's supply price and lack of range for 1944 france missons paved the way for the american range fighters and Tempest/Typhoon alternatives. They werent retired but they werent that active like in 1940
You missed single external difference between a MkII and a MkI on your visuals with the Coffnman starter on the starboard side of the fuselage, no? Great video though again ;)
Bismarck I should have noticed that! Just had to point out a little thing, was meant in jest more than anything else. Keep it up, hope you have recovered from your absence
Really great and informative video, free from any emotion or sentimentalism. Would you be able to do a similar explanation on the comparison between the Spitfire and the P-51 Mustang? I have asked this question online before and was hoping to get sensible comments - what I got was ridiculous comments from the Brits about how the Americans were late for the war and equally unhelpful remarks from Americans about how they 'saved our asses'! In particular, was it just the Mustang's range that made it better, or was it a collection of things resulting from a newer design? Keep it up. I have subscribed!
The 109E having a squared off wing design is a more significant shortcoming than the early spitfires using a non-pressurized fuel solution. Furthermore, the 109E used circular 20mm magazines in the wings forcing the designers to include a bulge in the wings, causing aerodynamic drag. The spitfire used guns in the wings as well, however the magazines could fit into the wings without the inclusion of a bulge. The 109F model, would rectify the major issues with the E model. Model F1 through F3 would utilize an oval wing design, while the model F4 and forward would use the Daimler 601E engine, as opposed to the 601A and 601N used in the 109E and the early 109F models. From the model 109G and forward, the Luftwaffe would use the 605 engine, with several variations depending on intended altitude. Armament would also change depending on intended target, using up to 30mm auto cannons for bomber hunting. However, when the Royal Air Force started using the Rolls Royce Griffon engine. There was no longer a contest.
Talking about top speeds of the Bf 109 G and K is laughable. Sure they managed to push them to decent enough speeds under ideal test flight conditions (still less than Griffon Spits and Mustangs) but it was impossible to actually manoeuvre the bf 109 at those speeds, all the pilots who flew them consider the Bf 109 to have the worst high speed handling of all the main fighters. Adolf Galland actually wanted their production to be completely scrapped in 1943 because of how hopelessly outdated the design had become.
From everything I've heard, the MkXII was an absolute beast at low altitude, but that's because its single-stage Griffon was rated for down low. The XIV, XXI, etc were optimised for high altitude, but that was rapidly becoming no longer the place for piston-engined aircraft.
Hi, Andre. I recently found an old letter I wrote about this topic some years ago so I hope you don't mind the length. I edited it a bit to address some of your points but it's largely intact. It's more of a reminiscence than a lecture so I'll dive right in. The only solid advantage the Spit had over the 109E during the BoB was range. Head to head it, as always, just mattered who took advantage of his relative strengths. The DB 601 was a bit too much engine for an airframe that was essentially the same as the prototypes that flew on 650hp but the wing tips were not a big factor. They were used to make maximum use of the wing slats to keep the low speed handling a bit less terrifying. They also provided a generally good rate of roll but the ailerons would get stiff at high speeds, just like the Spit, because the bigger engines pushed the speed above the original design parameters. The rounded tips on the 109F and later were to reduce the high speed stiffness and to reduce the flight loads on the new wing spar. They really didn't change the handling all that much. The 109 could be treacherous if handled roughly, had some flaws, and demanded a skilled pilot but it wasn't dangerous or inherently difficult to fly. It's biggest flaw was the landing gear which has been described as "even worse than a Spit!" After the landing gear; the wing slats were a mixed blessing. An inexperienced pilot who got into a condition where one or both slats would pop in and out could cause a fatal spin. But, once the plane was in a low speed configuration with both slats firmly out it wasn't any more treacherous than most any other similar fighter. Better training would have helped a lot but I'll get back to that. Having flown RC scale models of several Spits and 109s I can attest that a Spit's inherent wing design is more treacherous than the 109 but the difference in scale means that a model 109 will almost always have a lighter wing loading than a Spit of the same scale which, of course, is the opposite of the "real" aircraft. But, just like the real aircraft, the 109 flies like it's on rails while the Spit will "swap ends" as fast as you can think it and both will bite if you try to drag them through a low speed turn without power. After the Winter of 43-44 it didn't matter much what the Allies were flying. All Allied fighters were scoring better than 1-1 by then. That includes some rather dodgy Soviet fighters and the P-39's they flew after the U.S. gave up on them. By this stage of the war the average Allied pilot was well trained in the use of his fighter and taught tactics that took advantage of it's strengths. If he spotted an enemy in a "superior" aircraft he didn't look to hide; he looked to use his training and equipment to shoot it down. The Germans and other Axis pilots simply couldn't measure up despite flying some fighters that, when they had gas and maybe some nitrous, appeared to be able to out perform their counterparts. And that doesn't include the Me262. The axis powers were defeated in the air by logistics; especially the logistics of training. They depended on a short war and expended their most talented pilots in a battle of attrition instead of preserving them to train the next wave. And that one thing is arguably the single greatest factor in the turn of the air war. The Germans could produce a large number of very capable planes but they squandered the ability to train skilled pilots. The Japanese even managed to produce a surprising number of potentially good planes, to a low standard of quality, but they were so warped that they were sending out skilled pilots as kamikazis because there were no more unskilled pilots left! If you read biographies of the aces from both sides you will see this difference clearly. The Britain and the U.S. used a very fluid system that spread talent within a fighter wing/group that would start with a cadre of experienced leaders that were often on a kind of TDY to serve until the newer element leaders were ready to lead a flight, squadron, etc. They would also rest their pilots, though there's some argument about how restful it was, by assigning them to operational training units. This resulted in the strange phenomenon of frequently reuniting with old comrades in new posts and forging bonds with new comrades. The Axis accounts, on the other hand, are a dirge of loss. Old comrades simply dwindle until they don't return. BTW. The old biographies are great to learn about tactics and personalities but take anything presented as "technical data" with a grain of salt. There are a lot of reasons, most of them honest, why somewhat dubious data ends up in biographies. Cheers!
I haven’t read all of the comments but you say that the early spits would flood or seize in negative g maneuvers but actually i believe that they would lean out, and definitely not seize, correct me if i’m Wrong Thanks for the great video
The biggest misconception of the which is better 109 Vs spitfire in early war i would say the 109 had a slight advantage over all ..Speed Armor Weapons One missing factor was the use of American octane 100+ vs German octane which became more and more lower octane into the war down to 87 Add in you have a great fuel injection system in the 109 Which would out preform the spitfire had it had the same octane Even give the 109 a few extra mins of fighting time Many 109's had to run lean and climb slowly to England Then 100% power to dog fight for 5 to 10 mins before having to turn and head back to France Which was a lot of wear and tear on the Engines Now with 87 octane on a abused engine Your dumping more fuel and getting less power The Spitfire was designed for speed first Then machine guns ..having these odd thin wings Designers after the fact had to see what pre made machine guns would fit ..303. won 20mm cannons were a bad design and bad method of feeding the cannon itself Hurricanes were fast but lacked the grace of the spitfire Thus more gun power and ammo went after the bombers Spits after the 109's Had the major role been reversed the out come would of been a huge loss And yes Hurricane did in fact shoot down 109's and spits on bombers ..But engagements of these favored the enemy The English loved Variants Tempest, Typhoon, Mosquito Lancaster But not only it's planes But also its weapon types and loads example The Mosquito in my eyes was the most versatile aircraft of the war Here you have Not just a Fighter / Bomber / Recon But it was made of wood Mostly cut down from western Canada Giving the guys at the metal works one less strain of production. Carpenters, Cabinet makers now had war effort jobs In Canada and England The "Mossie" flew at some of the fastest speeds and could fly long distances Had a wide range of bombs Some of which a normal 4 engine bomber could not handle Bouncing bomb, Cookies, Rockets, And some where equip with a 57mm auto firing Cannon in the nose or 4 machine guns in the nose There was a attempt to copy it by the Germans however they could not get the glue right and the prototypes crashed on take off due to cracking and breaking
An almost unknown detail. Originally, the Spitfire's engine was intended to be steam cooled. Steam cooling in theory has several advantages , the principal ones being that boiling the coolant rejects (transfers) much more heat than simply heating it; the second is that you don't need a drag-producing external radiator which, together with its coolant lines, can bring the plane down if a single rifle-caliber bullet strikes part of the setup. Because of this, Reginal Mitchell had the wing designed with a hollow leading edge where the stream would be condensed, which also functioned as the leading edge spar. The steam cooling was one of Rolls-Royce's few failures, so the aircraft was produced with conventional external oil and engine coolant rads. and what would have been the condensers remained empty, with m/gs and cannon barrels going through. However, they were put to use as extra internal fuel tanks for the unarmed photo-reconnaisance versions. Later in the war, using these and also an extra fuel tank behind the pilot, the photorecce. Spit had a range of 1,700 miles, some 200 more than the famously long-legged P-501D Mustang.
I keep trying to add a reply and failing, fourth time lucky. During the early 1930s R J Mitchell designed a fighter around the RR Goshawk engine and it had evaporative (steam) cooling. That machine, the Supermarine 224 had an inverted gull wing and a fixed undercarriage, the cooling surfaces, pretty much radiators, were faired into the fat spats around the undercarriage. It flew but was NOT a success, however Mitchell credited it with providing a number of key lessons which significantly informed his design for a rather better known low wing monoplane fighter. The irony is that the spec he was working on was for a replacement for the Gloster Gauntlet and in the end the Ministry went with the Gladiator - air cooled engines I believe. Who knows what sort of machine the RAF would have fielded in the end if Mitchell hadn't worked on the Type 224. He knew that evaporative cooling worked in principle, but the then working examples were relatively slow biplanes some placing the cooling surface on the top plane. The obvious exception was the S5/S6/S6B series, the S6B anyway, more Mitchell designs, made the corrugated fuselage the cooling surface to maximise the surface area. That's too big a target to use in fighter. I wonder when he ditched steam cooling for the Spit, or was that driven by RR ? He also designed the Walrus, with its air cooled radial - or flying gas ring - nothing if not versatile that man.
Excellent production, Bismarck. Another problem about the early cannon firing Spitfires had to do with the way the cannons were placed. As not to interfere with Mitchell's wing design, the cannons were placed on their side, and the ammunition feed was placed laterally, that feed following a non-linear direction. The guns were not meant to fire this way, but they were tucked in the wing without interfering with the wing design and construction. Designer Joseph Smith deviated from Reginald Mitchell's design by introducing the now famous tear drop bubbles on the wings, allowing for a proper ammunition feed. Then there is the rather bizarre story of Douglas Bader and his criticism of adding cannons. He believed that the .303 machine guns were better as it encouraged the pilot to close in on the enemy. He spent the rest of his combat duty flying a Spitfire Va, a Mk. V with the traditional eight .303 guns. Well after the war, he admitted to being wrong on that point.
IMPORTANT: Since some people seem to think that I am 'ignoring' Miss Shillings orifice. I am not, the orifice is mentioned at 2:43. I am using the official name ('Miss Shillings orifice' is not the official designation but more of a homage).
Small correction, the first and last visual scene are actually from Battle of Kuban, the second scene from Cliffs of Dover. Not that it matters. Now go ahead and point it out again even though this comment is pinned ;)
Bismarck cool
Actually, the first and last visual scene are actually from Battle of Kuban, the second scene from Cliffs of Dover.... silly Bis
Bismarck do ypu have a doscord server? if not i highly suggest making one :D
Did the early Spits flood during neg Gs and inverts, or were the starved? I always thought the engines were starved out - gravity.
It's no fun if you point it out...
I like the Spitfire, it’s my favourite vintage aircraft, but it’s a sad thing that very few seem to highlight the role that Joseph Smith, R.J. Mitchell’s assistant, who took over responsibility for the design after Mitchell’s death, played in the development of the Spitfire. The aircraft designed by Mitchell was brilliant but it was Smith who kept updating the design to meet newer threats and should have, in my opinion, been given more credit than he was.
Good point. Also the two main Spitfire test pilots, one named Quill (sp?) who did much to progress the design/performance of each mark that came out...
And of course Mutt Summers who made the maiden test flight of just about every Vickers group aircraft type and Eric Winkle Brown who dived it within a wisker of the speed of sound.
A pity Smith's Spiteful and Attacker were so poor because of the wing, they could have reverted to the last version of the Spitfire wing on the Attacker. The the less said about Swift the better and the Scimitar ........
Would have been cool to see the 4 engine bomber Mitchell designed come to fruition.
Kudos to Joseph Smith and his team. I did not know his name either. And he did one hell of a job. So many variants of the Spitfire with ever increasing capabilities. Interim solutions proved to match and even outperform Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulf fighters. I think Rolls Royce should be mentioned too for the incredible increase of power of the Merlin and the development of the Griffin. Praise for the guys that created the propellor as well? The Spitfire prototype started with a fixed pitch two bladed unit. Went to variable three bladed unit. Then four bladed, five bladed and even a contra rotating 6 bladed unit. Amazing they got it done in such a short time and tooled up to make thousands of units.
A Spitfire flew over my house just last week
Im always looking up when im outside, in hopes to see one flying over. Ur lucky!
I had one fly over too a few months ago, sadly i missed it. FML
I have just been reminded two spits flew past together last month. I'm on a flight path so there are a few classic planes come over on regular bases
Over the last few days I've seen and heard (DROOL) about 5 or 6. Probably an Air Show somewhere near me. Also saw a P-47 Thunderbolt :)
I joined the RAF in 1979, after all the training I did on modern aircraft the first thing I ended up working on was a Spitfire from our museum flight, it kindled a fascination for the aircraft that I still have to this day.
Hi biz. When the plane was pushed in negative G, it didn't seize the engine but rather starved it of fuel as the carb had a bowl with fuel in it that was forced away from the pick up due to the G maneuver. Flying inverted was only dodgy if it was sustained. As long as the plane was pulling positive G, even inverted, it was fine.
reat video series btw.
I’m almost positive the correct term is “flood” or “”stall” not “”seize” and if not correct then certainly more accurate :-) Keep up the good work!
Once they sorted out the jamming problem of the Hispanos it became an excellent weapon with enormous hitting power. Here's something not many know, after the initial BoB combat experience it became obvious that the eight .303s had inadequate "hitting power" (ie destructive penetration) against armoured aircraft with 'self sealing' fuel tanks. Although the eight guns between them fired no fewer than 160 rounds per second, they were initially adjusted to concentrate their fire at the long range of 365 m which led to the hits being spread across the target at shorter ranges, this was no good because the .303 needed concentration of hits to penetrate or destroy. As German aircraft equipped with self-sealing fuel tanks and armour were now the norm not the rarity, it proved necessary to concentrate fire at much closer ranges, hence the aircraft had to close much closer and were susceptable to enemy defence fire. Because of the lack of destructive force against self sealing tanks, .303 incendiary rounds were required to ignite the tanks, but, due to a type shortage, usually only one or two of the eight guns could be loaded with incendiary ammunition. A series of ground tests carried out by the British, firing at a redundant Bristol Blenheim from 180m to the rear (dangerously close in a-a combat) revealed that the .303 incendiary B Mk VI bullets would set light to a Blenheim wing tank with only one hit out of five! Hence, the Brits quickly looked at the Mitchell designed Spitifre variant Type 312 wing which had room for four Browning .50 cal's, but, and this is so typical of the Brits, the weapon was considered "under-developed" by the Air Ministry and was placed aside, and besides, they had millions of .303 ammunition stockpiled so continued with that despite knowing it was inadequate
Both the spitfire and skyline had there problems
The spitfire mk1 had a carburetor and skyline r32 had a electronic injection the problem with skyline years later the early 1989-1991 models r32 gtr rb26dett it had a fuel pump which was problems on earlier gtr models
I may be wrong but I seem to remember that in one of the early scenes in "The Battle of Britain" they show Spitfires taking off from a runway in France. Apparently that didn't happen.
I think that scene was in the battle of france section predating the BoB
As far as I recall, in the film The Battle of Britain, all the Battle of France bits correctly show Hurricanes.
Perhaps the biggest misconception was that RAF Fighter Command was winning its battle vs Luftwaffe fighters, it was not. The RAF lost 1,220 fighters, (753 Hurricanes & 467 Spitfires) to the Luftwaffe's 812, (569 Bf.109 & 243 Bf.110). It was the additional 822 Luftwaffe bomber losses that made the battle unsustainable for Germany. Hardly mentioned or given mention, were the RAF's Bomber & Coastal Commands' loss of 524 aircraft during the same course of the battle! Losses given for the time period between 10th. July and 31st. October.
Interweb? That's a misconception right there!
The same thing happened in cars in the fuel systems.
Hey, notification squad! Nice vid btw
question, do you use trackIR?
Poor hurricanes, spits always getting the spotlight...
Spitfires are more famous as they made a larger impact where it mattered, which was later in the war. For example, notice how few people mention Dunkirk, and will readily speak of the Normandy Landings.
Hurricanes did a lot, but did that lot in much less visible way.
Cameron McAllister I'm sorry to say you are quite incorrect. The Hurricane was influential in the defeat of Rommel in North Affrica. The MkIId fitted with the 2X40mm vickers AT gun helped slow the Africa Corps. The Spitfire MkVc (tropical) was more often grounded and was hampered by the huge tropical intake. The Hurricane was replaced by the Typhoon in 1943 which had a much bigger impact over Normandy than Spitfires during operation overlord. The MkXII spitfires only able to do minimal damage to ground forces compared to the Typhoons. over Europe the spitfire became an almost obsolete aircraft as Typhoons, Tempests and Mosquitos knocked out the supply lines for the luftwaffer. The MkIXHFe being used to knock out recon aircraft (until the Mk.XIV) and the Mk.IXLFe engaging the fighters though by late 1944 the tempest was causing havoc to the FW190 squadrons and harrying Me262.
+edmundscycles1 - Both Typhoon and Hurricane (to a lesser degree) were cases of a "failed" fighter turned ground-pounder. Spitfires could do those jobs just as badly, if they really needed to. Tempests were better, but it took lots of time to figure out this new engine/airframe combination. To the point that it became unnecessary before it entered service, and a known stop-gap measure for most of the time it was actually used.
At least it actually worked, unlike Saber in Typhoons.
bakters the Typhoon was always designed as an attack aircraft. From the inception it was to carry 2000lb of bombs or 12 24lb rockets. It was to be low level fighter bomber. Hence the low level performance.
Under primitive airfield conditions, the Hurricane would enjoy a greater serviceability rate as well. Repairs to the Hurricane could often be done without the specialized facilities and training needed to keep a more modern, stress-skin design in the air. War on the frontiers also tends to have fewer cameramen and journalists, as well...
Just a little FYI: Castle Bromwich is pronounced “brommitch” - it’s still a factory nowadays making Jaguar cars!
You mean JAGWAARS ?
Love that Brummie accent.😂😂😂
My grandad was involved with making the wings at Castle Bromwich
When I've heard Brummies say it it always sounded loik Kessle Brommidge.
The Americans were so impressed with Castle Bromwich that 1st Lady Mrs Roosevelt paid a visit to see that British miracle
You forgot to mention that a spitfire with an engine failure may glide indefinitely until it shoots down a Ju87.
Even when its out of ammo. With its looks. P51 Mustangs kill your airplane in a dogfight. Spitfires kill your SOUL.
So! We have a 10 year old 'Merikan' posting do we?
mikeythebold tv agreed, I think Bismarck called it "British Flag waving." It was much like the love story in Titanic, it didn't need it.
DEEREMEYER1 no spitfire can dogfight
I saw that happen in real life: The IMAX at Chichester. I did groan a bit during that scene, but otherwise found the movie extremely compelling, especially in IMAX.
The Rolls Royce built Merlin engine is universally acknowledged as one of the finest piston engines that has ever been manufactured. Remarkably, over 50 years have elapsed since the last Merlin engine rolled off the production line, yet it is still in widespread daily use in warbird aircraft, including the P-51 Mustang. Just as North American Aviation would never have envisioned their Mustangs would still be flying, Rolls Royce probably never considered that their beautiful Merlin power plant would still be in "front line service" in the 21st Century.
Seize is really the wrong word, stall or cut-out would be more appropriate. I understand hesitancy to say stall as we like to save that word for the wings but in this case it would apply
TTMR1986 hes German so he gets to mess up
He is Austrian actually not German... easily mistaken though :)
Does gentle norwegian get to mess up cause he's Norwegian?
engine floods , float in carb opens up under negative G, float bowl in the carbs fill with fuel , engine floods with fuel and cuts out due to over rich mixture ...Is that right ?
Jonathan Vogel the float floats on top of the fuel at the now bottom of the carburettor chamber due to it being under negative G.
This opens up the fuel chamber to the fuel pump’s pressure, and when it fills, the full pressure of the pumps is being injected into the engine, resulting in a massively rich mixture and flooding.
The fuel pump’s job is only to keep the fuel chamber of the carburettor topped off.
The quick fix solution, suggested by a female engineer, was to simple restrict the rate at which the fuel pumps could top off the carburettors fuel chamber to the same flow rate as the engines would require at max power.
That means that when the same thing happened, the pumps would only be forcing fuel through the carburettor’s needle at the rate they’d be being pulled in naturally anyway, providing the engine was at full power.
You’re only really going to be doing those manoeuvres at full power anyway, so it was good enough.
You see a lot of half answers about this from people that clearly don’t know what the problem or solution was and how they worked, but they know it’s ‘something’ to do with flooding/stalling, and the fix was ‘something’ to do with a small hole to restrict the fuel somehow.
All you need to know is that how carburettors introduce fuel into the engine, is a separate system entirely to how fuel pumps feed a carburettor’s own separate little ‘tank’ that it works with.
Carburettors are constantly sipping from a cup, and the main pumps periodically top up that cup very quickly.
When the carburettor is ‘erroneously’ demanding to be filled up, but it’s already full, because it’s way of measuring how full it is is inverted, then it effectively links the two systems together and now the high pressure, high volume ‘topping up’ pumps are working at full duty, straight into the engine.
Using the teapot, teacup analogy, the fix was to put a restrictor plate on the end of the teapot, so that it could only pour as fast as a teacup would be drunk from when someone is really gagging for a brew.
So it could still flood when inverted/neg-G at part-throttle, but never during full beans.
Waking up to a Bismarck video is a wonderful way to start off the day. Great video. Nice to see that the Austrian has not seized power.
MrStoneycool69
Wtf? Are you talking about?
MrStoneycool69 quit projecting you fucking loon. Your the one who didn't get the original subject correct
Yes how very dire, not like in the middle east where we're wondering if our homes are going to bombed in the name of "Freedom"
cf re: your id photo
What is that strange handgun? It looks like it might be a single action blow back .380 (9mm kurtz). However, it has an extended backstrap that seems like it should be a hand grip safety but does not seem to be a hand grip safety. Just wild guessing on my part.
Nice video! Some nice compliments from the Luftwaffe were Adolph Gallands comment, and the "Spitfire snobbery" that hurricane pilots complained about (germans shot down ALWAYS saying it was a spit that got them). In the Battle, the Bf 109s were hamstrung by Goering/Hitlers poor grand tactics, whilst Dowding got his right ... but the RAF still only just survived.
yes indeed. The kill ratios of the Me110 and 109 were much better than the old Hurricane (worst kill ratio). Had the LW not changed strategic targets / tactics and the RAF not been fighting over their own land, imagine how much worse the pilot attrition would have been.
A lady called Beatrice Shilling invented that restrictor, and it was just a simple ring which would give the Spitfire a bit more time in the fight!
it just trapped some fuel around the main carb jet when negative G was applied. previously the fuel would shoot up to the top of the carb leaving the main jet dry and the motor would loose power drastically..climbing turns were also an issue if the pilot really hauled on it... a pressurised fuel system helped dramatically in later models before fule injection
It wasn’t a simple washer. It was engineered fairly precisely.
And the main problem wasn’t the fuel flying up when the aircraft dived. But at the bottom of the dive all that fuel would flood the carb and that was actually the more serious problem.
And no one would have dared refer to it as Miss Shilling’s Orifice to her face. It was probably ground crew, and not the pilots.
@@davidmarshland3709 I just wanted to share her name. Calm down
Her solution needed modification (stand pipe, etc) to be more effective. A good first effort, but not a final solution and not during the Battle of Britain. She was just one minor engineer among many.
I didn't have any of these misconceptions. But then I am 47, paid attention in history lessons, and grew up in the south east of England, and my grandads brother flew both Hurricanes and Spits during the Battle of Britain, and could be persuaded, on occasion,( when slightly drunk!) to tell a wide eyed young lad about his (according to him) decidedly unheroic exploits. But he ended the war alive and sporting a DFC and a DSO, so I think he underplayed his part in it.
Spud Gunn I ran into a friend of an uncle who was a Spitfire pilot in Singapore. But I was too young to ask him about it.
I love how he talks about a British aircraft and he has a German accent
Und was?
Many current reproduction parts for restoration and reproduction of spitfires are made in Germany
Why?
Za plane vos a masterpiece.
You love that?
It's good to love something I guess.
I see new Bismarck video. I click. I watch. I have good day
I see no soaringtractor comments slating the spit and claiming that the yanks invented the merlin! Whats going on he comment's on every spitfire video on RUclips is it because bismarck knows what he talking about?
What's amazing about the video, which is very accurate and well explained, is the debate which follows. Some really good stuff about engines, the pro's and con's of carburetors versus injection, about weaponry, the muzzle velocity of .303 vs 20mm cannon. What is absolutely astounding is how some people talk about aircraft characteristics based on their experience in flight simulators, which have all the difficulties in the world trying to accurately replicate flight models and engine performance of the real aircraft and where game editors have often taken liberties with the true historical characteristics in order to improve gameplay. I had a good laugh with the "revisionist" post about the Hurricane being superior to the Spitfire, using arguments about the Spitfire that are simply not true. This is a pity as the Hurricane was a good aircraft with many advantages, a stable gun platform, an airframe that could take more punishment than the Spitfire, which was present in far greater numbers than the Spitfire during the Battle of Britain and being the preferred mount of many fighter pilots at that time. I am sure there are many more worthy arguments about the development of the Hurricane, but it became progressively outclassed as a front line fighter, a role for which Hawkers successfully developed new types of aircraft.
It proved a good platform for ground attack too and was a stepping stone to the tempest and typhoon.
It's become a common practice to measure gun effectiveness to measure weight of fire in a one second burst. The 303 not so good. Many an RAF pilot lost kill credits as the enemy aircraft was out of sight when it finally went down.
Initial design idea behind both Bf109 and Spifire was the most practical amount of firepower in smallest practical airframe and as both were only thinking of 'local' warfare range was not much of an issue. If I recall properly I think an early prototype Bf109 had some type of RR engine in it. Most very early prototypes had Jumos. Interestingly some of the last operational Bf109 airframe operational were built in Spain and used RR Merlin engines and were what we saw in movie "Battle of Britain".
I sat in a mk II spitfire last week at a museum. A life long dream. Beautiful!
It might not seem important to your most interesting video on the Spit but in actual fact the early Mark 1 Spitfire hardly if at all featured in the Battle of Britain but this duty was given over to the Mark 1a, with it's 3 bladed prop and other major improvements over the Mark 1.
In my totally uneducated thoughts if one were to study the Spitfire and Bf109 I think you would find just how similar their timeframes of development and improvements paralleled each other.
If you are interested, I highly recommend Sir Stanley Hooker's book 'Not Much of an Engineer'. He goes into an additional dimension of why the early Spitfires were carbureted:
'Let me now add that the Germans paid a large penalty for their fuel injection. When the fuel is fed before the supercharger, as on the Merlin, it evaporates and cools the air by 25° C. This cooling enhances the performance of the supercharger, and increases the power of the engine, with a corresponding increase in aircraft speed, particularly at high altitude.' (p. 62)
The Spitfires could run their superchargers at higher boost, and this put them in a place to take best advantage of the 100 octane gas coming from America. Hooker claims they were able to get 2000 HP out of a Merlin as a result of this. Combined with the weight and cost savings, carburation seems like a perfectly valid design choice under the circumstances.
The 2000 HP Merlin engines came later but yes, carburetors did allow the British and Americans to always have more horsepower from their engines than German fuel injection. And by 1942 they had pressurised carburetors in Spitfires and Mustangs that completely eliminated the negative G engine cut out. The main reason carburetors have mostly died out in engines these days is because of the requirements to use catalytic converters to reduce the amount of pollution released and catalytic converts require a very precise mix of fuel and air that you can only really achieve with fuel injection.
It is often ignored that the BF-109 had a bigger engine not as big as the Griffon but considerably more swept volume than the Merlin. Having worked on car with the early German mechanical gasoline injection Rolls-Royce were very wise to stick with the carburetor produced by SU (nb. not an SU Carburetor) then go to pressure carburetor / single point injection
The 30/70 glycol water coolant of the Spitfire of the Merlin II also allowed a specific power increase.
It should also be noted that Stanley Hooker designed the 2 stage supercharger with an intercooler, aftercooler and backfire screens which allowed the optimum performance of 2 stages. The Allison, by comparison was never designed properly to take their auxilliary supercharger, relying only on water injection to prevent detonation - it wasn't effective. NAA knew this and railed against such a project by Allison because it wouldn't be easily fit into the Mustang, and NAA immediately started looking at alternative engines (Merlin XX) in Mar 1941 for the Mustang.
The Merlin was eventually tested for WEP bursts of 2640 HP, but jet engines were on the way by 1944.
Just being pedantic. The early Mk Merlion engines did not seize momentarily, they spluttered/cut-out due to fuel STARVATION (not fuel flooding as you stated) due to the carb being gravity fed with a normal float type inlet valve. Negative G's or flying inverted caused the float to close the fuel inlet stopping fuel flow into the carb.
Also, I believe that when normal flight was resumed, THEN there could be a sudden flooding of the engine, making things further complicated
I agree and for him to say siezed, displays a fundamental ignorance of engines. Siezed engine..haha
captmack007 Siezed is what I hear but it could also be interpreted as ceased. In the meaning of stopped. That would be closer to what happened. Siezed would mean engine totally locked which might happen if coolant stopped or otherwise. No longer capabel to resume providing power. Both words sound very similar. Or would this not be an option for native speakers?
@@cf6282
Very good, as USA people rarely use that word. I'd have to listen again, to decide. I do not think I will , though.
Steve Wayne: the first cure was to go into a half roll and dive
Thanks for an interesting video. One minor observation: I'm pretty sure your graphic of the .303 MG is upside down. I can't speak about the aircraft version of this gun specifically, but I know from personal experience that the standard land-based version couldn't operate for very long in this orientation as it relies upon gravity to remove the spent cartridges downwards once they have been pushed clear of the "T" slot on the face of the bolt. If fired upside down, spent cartridges would quickly accumulate at the (now upward-facing) bottom of the bolt and eventually fowl its operation. Again, I'm assuming what would apply in this case to a land-based .30 cal would also apply to an aero .303 MG.
You're right, the Browning graphic is inverted. However, the Browning has an ejector which flips empty cases forcibly out through the bottom of the gun. It will do this even inverted.
Make a similar video about the Zero. Each time I read that they were made of wood I cry.
They were made of steel sheets folded and hammered 1000 times
carroj9 still they were made of aluminium.
PD: A6M5 got CO2 automatic extinguishers and by pilots reports "Zeke's are harder to shot down than ever" pulling out fires and such.
Everyone knows they were made of origami.
I'm not going to argue with that elink - I fold.
The DH Mossie was made of plywood - And it was brilliant.
The trick is what you DO with the wood (design and build tech) and whther you have access to great engines.
The spitfire pilot had better visibility due to the blown canopy. That is crucial in a dogfight.
I quite agree that visibility is critical in combat.On our side the "Hun in the sun" was a major problem in both world wars. I believe the modern expression with regards to being in combat stresses the importance of "situational awareness". With regards to tanks even in combat German tank commanders were willing to stick their head out of the turret as the first to spot their opponent usually got off the first round & with German 75-88 m.m. canon that was usually enough to win.
@@jimlyon7276 SA was not easily learned back then at the limited OTU training. Most RAF aces were shot down several times and luckily survived before learning SA. Ginger Lacey shot down 9 times, and he already had 1000 hrs pre RAF stick time.
Very very good stuff. However Re the Hurricane: it was a very usefull fighter and did shoot down a fair share of 109's and most of the bombers in the battle of Britain. It was certainly capable and in fact considered more powerful than the 109 at up to medium altitudes and only lost out at higher altitudes due to the supercharger tuning of both fighters (cant have it both ways with a single stage) ..
Hurricane development was essentially stopped because the Spitfire was deemed to have more potential at high altitude where the 109 was lurking and where a fighter needed to be to respond quickly to raids . It also competed with the Spitfire and other bomber aircraft for Merlin engines.
The new Hawker Typhoon was well on the way and would need manufacturing space . That new fighter would not use a Merlin engine. Interestingly this is the same rational for Kurt Tanks Fw 190 a previous reject getting a second chance. The Luftwaffe wanted a fighter that would not use the DB 605 engine. It used the BMW radial and it turned out a great fighter as well.
Then of course came the great Hawker Tempest as the improved Typhoon was called. But at the time of the Battle of France the Hurricane was a good unit.
The Hurricane was produce for far too long, production ending in 1944, but it was already obsolete as a front line day fighter by the fall of 1940 or earlier.
The MB 3 should have replaced it but that was delayed far too long and the prototype crashed during failure of the bloody Napier Sabre killing the pilot/company partner (Baker).
Was at the Great Warbirds Airshow at Duxford a few years back when they had 21 Spitfires lined up on the flight line and had a fly past with 18 of them, the sound of that mix of Merlin and Griffon engines was absolutely awesome.
Absolutely amazing! I was there this September and it literally felt like going back in time. To see these beautiful machines on the ground, taking off and then in mass formation in the air was utterly thrilling!
Before: Gun enthusiasts
Now: Aviation enthusiast
Carb vs injection. Carb was bad at *sustained* negative G. Spitfire pilots learned to roll inverted to follow a 109 into a dive. RR preferred the carburetted engine as it was able to deliver more power, due to charge cooling at the carb. Alleviated by a fuel restrictor (developed by pioneering female engineer Tilly Shilling, and so called Miss Shilling's Orifice) and fixed by the introduction of, first, pressure carburetion, and then injection into the supercharger inlet, both dispensing with the float chamber.
All-20mm cannon armament was the aim for the RAF, but was not reliably usable in the wings of single engined fighters until a new feed mechanism was developed (belt vs drum) RAF cannon-armed fighters were not a factor in the Battle of Britain. The cannon worked well in the nose of the Whirlwind, but the decision to stop Peregrine development meant that this rather impressive single seat twin engined fighter was never developed or employed in large numbers. The US were sent Hhispano cannon in the hope that they could produce them in large numbers. Unfortunately they made changes to the weapon that meant it was never reliable, suffering stoppages unrelated to those found in RAF service, and leading the USAAF to stick with the .5 Browning long after everyone else was fitting cannon as standard.
Kudos for referencing Tony Williams, whose works on guns and ammunition (with Emmanuel Gustin) are concise, accurate, well written and a good read.
Actually the US Hispanos were not less reliable on American planes because American planes that used them like the P-38 had cocking levers the pilot could use to clear gun jams in flight as opposed to spitfires that didn't have them.
The US had decided that they knew best, and stubbornly ignored the suggestions from the British about chamber length in particular. This, despite the overwhelming evidence that the British-made guns worked in British aircraft and American M2's did not work in US aircraft.
The P-38 gun was nose-mounted, making provision of a recocking mechanism simpler. The USN was desperate to move to all-20mm gun fit, but American guns did not meet their requirements for usability.
Tony Williams has a good summary of the sorry story, taken from "The Machine Gun", written by George M. Chinn, a retired USMC Colonel, in the early 1950s.
www.quarryhs.co.uk/US404.htm
The AN/M2 was the one in US aircraft.
You forgot the contribution of Bendix-Stromberg to the carb problems.
I mentioned pressure carburetion, which was performed using the Bendix-Stromberg carburettor. First applied to the Merlin 66 which powered the Spitfire Mk.IX. The pressure carburettor is a device that replaces the float chamber, from which fuel is drawn by depression in the throttle venturi, with a pneumatic air metering device that controls the fuel quantity injected. This does away with the float, but is in other respects still looks like a carburettor. It is, in effect, a single-point injector. The Bendix-Stromberg was later replaced by an SU injection carburettor, a further-developed form of mechanical fuel injection that again injected at a single point, into the supercharger inlet.
So the Merlin *did* adopt fuel injection, but in single-point rather than multi-point form. This was quite deliberate on the part of Rolls-Royce, who made use of the charge cooling to increase the density of intake charge and develop more power.
Your videos are always worth watching, both informative and entertaining, but I think you missed one important difference between the Spitfire and the ME 109 : the armour plating on the ME 109 was thicker than the ultra-light aluminium skin of the Spitfire, which made it far less vulnerable to machine gun bullets, whereas one single hit from the 109's cannon would destroy the Spitfire. Spitfire pilots (during the Battle of Britain, when they only had machine guns) would have to get closer to their targets than their enemy had to, in order to guarantee hitting the target and causing notable damage.
I'm of the opinion that had the Whirlwind been ready and available in the summer of 1940 the losses of Luftwaffe bombers over Southern England would have been far worse. The Spit was an incredible design for it's time. It's one fault lay in its construction time. It took many more man hours to build than other types.
Had Westland stuck with the original propellers of the prototypes, they may have had more support from the Air Ministry/RAF as a bomber destroyer; however, RR simply didn't have the manpower or capacity to refine and produce both the Merlin and Perigrine engines.
Hi, nice video and good points on the spit, no criticism there, although i do feel obliged to point out that you accidentally called a 30 cal. a 50 cal. at 3:20 in the video while looking at the armaments. Cheers!
Video on spy, gun and reconnaissance cameras used and how they worked on aircraft in WW2? Attempt #4
I'd like to see that too!
and also their effort in the great war.
I too would like to see a video on this subject (and also contribute via Paetreon.).
The RAF reconnaissance Spitfires were really clever. The photos they took were actually in 3D which allows the intelligence staff analysing them so much more information and detail that they wouldn't have with normal photos. They could tell exactly how tall structures and defences were for planning attacks including the dam busters raid. They also allowed them to find the V2 rockets being developed, with normal photos a V2 would just appear as a tiny round circle on the ground but with their 3D photos British intelligence was able to see exactly what they were and even their exact height so air raids could be launched at the V-2 research centre and delay their development.
Evidensinsania: Not only Spitfires; the predominant PR aircraft in the RAF was the Mosquito.
The British had pioneered the use of stereo pair photography in WW1, and made extensive use of the technique in WW2. It was therefore well-known to all sides in WW2, yet the Luftaufklärung units did not make any great use of it. Perhaps worse is the fact that the Wehrmacht had no central specialist reconnaissance organisation like the PIU at Medmenham, and that most reconnaissance was tactical in nature.
The measurement of ground features using Swiss Wild Heerbrugg stereoautograph machines allowed for the construction of accurate models of ground features to prepare for critical missions (the Dam Busters mission is the one everyone remembers - and those models were made at Medmenham) as well as accurate sizing of items like the V1 and V2 prototypes.
I spoke to an old gentleman from NZ some years ago who favoured the Hurricane above the Spitfire, for some of the reasons already mentioned, like being a better gun platform. He also mentioned that the Spitfires landing gear was actually quite narrow and less robust than the Hurricanes, can anyone verify this?
Both true. From memory, Leo McKinstry's book on the Hurricane mentions both points.
Hurricanes were better than Spits because they were harder to shoot down. A German pilot had to hit the engine, the pilot, or the gas tank to bring down a Hurricane, a much smaller target than the Spit. Bullets would tear the metal skin of the Spit to shreds, downing it, or putting it out of action.
The fabric skin of the Hurricane made the Hurricane plane itself almost impervious to bullets - they just punched little holes that had no real effect. So, the Hurricane was more survivable, less fragile, and therefore, more dangerous to German pilots.
After all, Hurricanes did destroy more German planes in the Battle of Britain than the vaunted Spitfire.
When I hear the Hurricanes getting disrespected, it makes me so mad, I just spit fire. (pun intended, :-)
Better defense doesnt make it better, the spitfire was a more effective
According to "Fighter" by Len Deighton, the older armorers and fitters who maintained Fighter Command's aircraft had plenty of experience working with wooden frames covered with fabric, and many damaged Hurricanes were easily repaired right at the satellite air strips. The Spitfires had to be flown or hauled to more extensive facilities. That said, a thirty caliber bullet punches the same size hole in aluminum that it does in canvas. IMO this didn't make the Hurricane "almost impervious" to bullets, (especially exploding cannon shells). It just made them easier to repair, assuming they survived. As to Hurricanes downing more enemy a/c during the BoB, it was because the RAF had a lot more Hurricanes than Spitfires at the time. And German pilots, both fighter and bomber, had a serious case of "Spitfire snobbery". Captured German aircrew would insist they had been shot down by Spitfires when there no Spits anywhere near. The Hurricane earned its place in history, right beside the elegant Spitfire.
German fighters were using 20mm cannon firing explosive shells*. These shells were designed to detonate on impact with the hull of an opposing aircraft.
This worked fine against Spitfires, with their (mostly) metal covering** but not so well against the fabric skinned Hurricane as the detonators simply didn't activate on hitting the skin. To be effective the shells had to hit something more solid.
There is a reported case from a Hurricane pilot in 1940 who was jumped by a 109, only realising this when he felt a massive 'bang' right behind him. His fighter was damaged enough to force him to return to base. On landing he required help from the ground crew to exit the aircraft, discovering that he couldn't get out of his seat once on the ground. A 20mm shell had entered the back of the plane, passed right down most of the length of the fuselarge before hitting and detonating on the armour plating behind the pilots seat and blowing a hole in both of them. The torn metal around the exit hole hooked into the pilots parachute, pinning him in place.
* There were explosive rounds for rifle caliber rounds but these quickly fell out of favour. The RAF, for example, developed and issued such rounds in (British) .303 for aircraft in the mid 1930's. But discontinued their use less than two years later.
** The early model Spitfires were not actually all metal construction as the control surfaces were fabric covered. This caused problems during high speed dives as those surfaces would balloon up making it very difficult for pilots to pull out of a dive. (I seem to recall one pilot actually bent the control yoke trying to pull out of such a dive)
The hurricanes only shot more planes down because there were so many more of them than spitfires!
Offensive flying is what matters for a fighter, not how many shells she can tank before plummeting to the ground.
Yes, lets clear something up...The use of Carbs gave a useful charge cooling effect which gave the Merlin similar power to the injected DB 605, despite having almost 9 litres less capacity!
Something critics of the Merlins carburettor tend to forget.
Good point, which you don't often see. Thanks!
WELL SAID. !! Me109 DB engine was 34L (DB 605 was 36L), but the Merlin was 27L and by the end of the war was bench tested WEP at 2640 HP.
The carburettor problem was solved by Mrs Shilling during the Battle of Britain, and very quickly, with planes being retrofitted. Stanley Hooker's 2-stage, 2-speed supercharger on the RR Merlin gave the Spitfire an extra 70mph and 10,000 foot of height. All was done automatically by the pilots joystick. The pilot just went where he wanted without worry. The same engine was used in the Mustang.
The Spitfire could pull out of dives that would rip the wings off a Bf 109.
RAF pilots originally called it "Miss Tilly's Orifice," rather than the ever-so-slightly more formal sounding "Miss Shilling's Orifice."
Stanley Hookers book "Not much of an engineer" refered to "Mr. Royces" comment when Hooker was set a task of , could he improve "Mr, Royces" design of impellers on the superchargers "honed to a fine pitch/tune" by the great man. Hooker at this time still not fully engaged in the war effort that he so dearly wanted to take part in, thought he'd look at the calculations and graph curves, air speeds and compression within the supercharger unit and rework the figures, which he found could be possible and far more efficient. At this point it must be said that Royce had his canny engineering skills and "feel" for what would and would not be successful in his "aims" and when he achieved this in practice not the "theory" and was achieved, moved onto something else. Hooker on the other hand was of the "new school" where things where worked on paper i.e. theory, then down to the "tool shop" and discussed with the engineer on the practical side , i.e. materials and how it was to be achieved following Hookers design and drawings. At this point the mechanical engineer in the said tool shop pointed out to Hooker that "the old man " Royce wouldn't be happy that Hooker had been "messing" with "his" s/charger design. When Hooker approached Royce with his projected calcs. and drawings on how he could not just improve the performance of the s/charger but by a considerable amount, at which point Royce pointed out that this was just on paper and that real engineers where very aware that theory and practice hardly if ever went hand in hand with each other. Hooker now more than ever wanted to prove that his "paper figures" would work in practice and with very few alterations he managed to improve the performance by such a vast performance that so nearly tallied with his theory figures, on one of those very few occasions that it actually happened. When sharing with Royce that he (hooker) was very pleased that he managed to help the "war effort" in this way, Royce said "not much of an engineer" to take another chaps design and only improve on it, rather than start from scratch as indeed he Royce had done. And of course indeed the great man Royce had that ability to think and do what was needed to overcome or rethink a given situation or problem, then actually have that engineers skill to know what material to use and how to create what he had in his mind, and bring to fruition . Truly a great man and engineer.
No, the RAE restrictor was not used during the BoBritain. Shilling was tasked to install the restrictors in early 1941.
@@bobsakamanos4469
You are so wrong.
@@johnburns4017 Implemented starting Jan 1941. BTW, superchargers have nothing to do with the control stick/spade grip (not joystick).
The tool is only as good as the individual using it.
Being honest the merlin engine sounds wonderful and the design of the aircraft was excellent but so were so many aeroplanes of that era.
It will always be held high esteem due to its use during the Battle of Britain and the turning point of the 2nd WW.
Thanks for your video.
I note several misconceptions developing here.
First, the performance of the aircraft is relatively unimportant, its pilot skill as pointed out by Galland, but more importantly being in the right place, and in this respect the RAF had the advantage. The early warning system set up by Dowding and so expertly used by Parks was the key to the RAF success. The RAF could fight on its terms, and not those dictated by Goering.
Second , as the efficiency of a engine is defined by the Carnot principle. Carburated engines are more efficient because the fuel entering the engine is so much colder, hence a 27lt merlin produced the same or more power as the 38lt Daimler. UK also had access to 100 octan fuel which also allows significant improvements to be made throughout the war, but its not unlit the war is nearly over that Germany starts to introduce the improved fuels.
Third, cannons do little damage to Hurricanes unless it hits the engine, and in Hurricane to 109 encounters the Hurricane is a competitive match.
Forth, as Sailor Milan pointed out , a damaged aircraft returning with badly injured crew has an even bigger negative effect on moral, than not returning at all, so kills are not the whole story.
Hurricanes had less performance and therefore were more vulnerable than the Spitfire. Each had the same vital points (engine, oil system, coolant system, pilot) except that the Hurricane's header tank was not protected (causing many Hurri pilots to be burned) and its wing tanks made for a larger target and the doped fabric/wood rear fuselage was flamable. It wasn't normally competitive and had the worst kill ratio of the Battle.
Re. the Bf109 being fuel-injected "from the first".
The earliest Bf 109's, the A and B series, used the carburetted Junkers Jumo 210 B and D engines The Bf 109B saw action in the Spanish Civil War. The Bf 109C was the first to get injection, with the Jumo 210G
2:33 Spitfire crashed into the He-111...
You didn’t mention that the Spitfire was also used in the 1940s in Earth orbit, there is even footage of them in action look for victory of the Daleks on u tube 😉
How could he forget such a vital piece of information!?
Good stuff! I have made the same point elsewhere about the direct injection of the Me 109. It was new technology with huge development potential but carbs were mature "state-of-the art" and with considerable scope for further development. Their problems are generally overstated and were, in fact soon sorted.
Pure rubbish carb really problem with history is liars like you infesting facts. Fuel injection was superior
@@garyseeseverything8615 Hi garydoesn'tseeenough. Your assertions are absolutely not backed up by history, Mechanical petrol injection was soon matched by carbs. Petrol fuel injection, like common rail diesel injection, had to wait for electronics to fulfil its potential.
Carberator problems invert before diving after BF 109 Spitfire mk9 was the answer to FW 190
Something not many people realize the airfields in Britain were just that...large fields...so the planes could take off into the wind. To that effect, the locking tail wheel was only late introduced to the British fighters. As my father discovered at Yakima some years ago...a free tailwheel on a fixed runway can get you into trouble as he ground looped his Hurricane...damaging the Starboard wing on a landing light.
perhaps initially, but runways were built as aerodromes became congested and marston mats and asphalt were laid down for better year round operations. Everyone flew off runways then and the warbirds continue to do so today. Go easy on the throttle and quick on the feet.
Big problem with the Mkiib cannon spit was wing warping during high turns. The wing would bend, jamming the feed system of the 20mm cannon. The Mkvb had a new wing ( retrofitted to Mkiib as the wing became available) this cured most of the issues. After October 1941 the 'E' wing (universal) became available. This wing could be clipped, have multiple gun setups such as ; 8 X. 303, 2 X 20mm + 4 X. 303 or 4 X 20mm. The later Mkv could also carry a single 250lb bomb in the center line. The Mk ix became a answer to the Fw 190. with the merlin xx engine and the 'E' wing as standard. Of not is the new wing again fitted to the Mkix and Mkviii after several accidents while dive bombing.
The Australian Sqns fighting the Japanese were begging to replace their cannon with 50 cal browning's which the US were willing to donate. They were so frustrated with the cannons jamming. The RAAF of course refused. At the same time their two speed propellers were also freezing in low gear causing the motors to over rev and the aircraft to fly slow and run out of fuel causing more crashes through fuel than battle damage. Very unhappy campers. The USAF was doing better with it's P40's than the RAAF with its tropicalized Mark 5's with jammed guns and oil frozen props. Got it sorted in the end apparently.
The Universal wing was the C wing, the E wing housed a 20mm cannon and a .50 mg.
mrjockt no the e was the universal hence the Mk ix Lfe and Hfe the Mk ix Lfe could be fitted with 2×20mm 4×.303 or 4×20mm or 2×20mm and 2×.50 . The Mk.viii also having the e wing as standard
The early "B" wings also, iirc, suffered from very high stick forces at high speeds and the Spit was never able to match some other fighters for high speed rate of roll.
edmundscycles1 The E wing couldn’t carry the outboard .303 machine guns, the compartments were there but there were no gun ports, ejection ports or case deflectors fitted to the wing, and the Mk.VIII was only ever fitted with the C wing in operational service, the Mk.IX, XIV, XVI and XVIII were the ones with the E wing.
To design an aeroplane (an particularly a wing) that retains fine handling characteristics at such a wide range of speeds - bare in mind the Spitfire had the highest tactical mach number of any piston fighter - that man's brainchild is an engineering gift.
That wing man was Beverley Shepstone. I believe a Canadian
Very interesting and well done! I've read multiple books on the Spitfire and usually find several mistakes in most videos on the Spitfire.
Good to see an accurate one!
As a research historian, I suggest requesting access to the war diaries of the squadrons involved as well as the technical manuals. The difference is night and day between fact, someone's opinion, and of course know it all gamers.
Speaking of accuracy the Dowding quote is pretty strange considering the 109 had only one hub cannon or hub cannon and two cannon gondolas. Where did he pull the 2 cannon 109 from?
The Supermarine Spitfire, possibly the best named airplane in the history of aeronautics.
"
Going to have to counter with "Avro Vulcan"
Oh, yes. She really did shake the sky.
Americans gonna whinge p51
@theminecartgaming
Eh, I'd place that at a second or third.
@OlliePOV Aus
I don't think anyone would argue that "P-51D" is a particularly flattering name. "Mustang" is excellent, but it's no Spitfire.
Most agree the other end of the scale is securely held by the Devastator.
Followed by Gorig's naming the Me110 Zerstorer [Destroyer].
Spitfire Misconception? EVERY movie you've seen is wrong. A Spitfire had at maximum, 14 seconds of gun fire. That's is. 14 seconds. Now think about the dogfight scenes you've seen in movies ESPECIALLY Dunkirk. Total nonsense.
I prefer the Hawker Hurricane. The hurricane is (imo) the workhorse, the spitfire is the designer purebred.
During the Battle of Britain, the Spit took on the ME 109 and the Hurricane took on the bombers. It was a good mix and worked well.
Seen that film many times. Pretty good. But it is a fact that the Hurricanes took on the bombers and the spits took on the 109's. 109 was just too good for the Hurricane in an outright dogfight. Cheers
Hurricanes took on the bombers because their speed and climb rate caused them to be late for the intercept. When the LW ordered their fighters to stay with bombers, then the Hurricanes were given more opportunity to mix it up with the handcuffed 110s and 109s.
@@bobsakamanos4469 109s shot down more Hurricanes than Spitfires during the BoB. The Hurricane with a top pilot could match the 109, but as the RAF was a bit low on top pilots, the Hurricane suffered.
@@BatMan-oe2gh in a war of attrition, you can't expect pipeline replacement pilots to succeed in Hurricanes. That's just cannon fodder mentality of people like Trenchard. Even Ginger Lacey was shot down 9 times. The LW tactics were peck and zoom and both the 109 and 110 did well in that role, ... until Goering ordeded them to stay with bombers. Even so, the 110 still had the best kill ratio of the BoB - and that was from shooting down fighters (Hurricanes) not bombers.
Very factual and accurate! This is helpful to historians and interested amateurs like me. Thank you!
Bismark if bohica flew a cannon spitfire he wouldn't even complain about the guns he would just complain about having no snacks in the plane.
The misconception about cannons during the battle of Britain and also the use of Spits in France might be partly from the TV series Piece of Cake. It's overall quite excellent, and well worth watching for anyone who hasn't, but some historical inaccuracies were unavoidable. The book which was the basis of the TV series used Hurricanes, but at the time it was made (1989) there were not enough airworthy Hurricanes available to allow for filming of the flying scenes, so Spitfires were substituted. Furthermore, the aircraft that were available had mostly been built later in the war, and so had the cannon armament. In some scenes aircraft even have the enlarged tail that was not introduced until very late in the war. These are not cases of filmmakers overlooking historical details, simply a matter of the difficulty of finding enough airworthy aircraft to make filming possible at all.
Moggie would be proud.
Ref the book, I have a copy of the original story written in 1941 IIRC and it uses actual pilots names. "Fighter Pilot" by WComd Paul Richey.
Fantastic Aeroplane.. looks and sounds brilliant ,an engineering marvel ... along with the not quite so , beautiful,Hurricane helped alot to win ww2 for us
There are two major factors that helped the Spirfire (and Hurricane) over the 109 during the battle of Britain:
1) Benign stall characteristics in a tight turn, a Spitfire had benign stall characteristics in a turn. When a pilot got close to a stall situation the stick would start to judder warning of an impending stall. The 109 on the other hand would give no warning and would depart violently. Ironically the 109 with its combat slats could out turn a Spitfire but it required a highly experienced pilot to take advantage of it. For the Spitfire (and Hurricane) a new pilot could perform tight turns without fear of stalling the aircraft.
2) Fuel, arguably the biggest advantage the RAF had, operating out of home bases RAF fighters had more fuel available for combat whilst a 109 was limited to a few minutes.
Even with combat slats the 109 could not out turn a Spitfire, especially at faster speeds where it was literally impossible to turn a Bf 109 but the Spitfire elevators were still very light. The Mk II Spitfire pilot manual actually specifically says it was well within the pilots ability to pull 10G's and to therefore treat the controls with respect. And the bf 109 slats were an absolute disaster anyway. They could often deploy asymmetrically and get stuck ruining the stability of the plane. If the Bf 109 was behind a plane then the slats could also be deployed simply from the slipstream of the leading plane and when the slats were open they caused aileron snatching making aiming impossible. There is a reason why Kurt Tank didn't include those awful slats in his much superior Fw 190.
The RAF switching over to 100 octane fuel between the Battle of France and the start of the Battle of Britain gave the Luftwaffe quite a shock. The Luftwaffe weren't too impressed by the performance of the Hurricanes and Spitfires they captured in the Battle of France and were expecting the same thing in the Battle of Britain but instead the 100 octane fuel allowed the Merlin engines to run at 12 lbs boost instead of 6 and they were all fitted with much more efficient propellers. The fact that most of the RAF in the Battle of Britain were made up of brand new recruits who had only received 10-20 hours of training before being sent into battle consistently outperformed their Luftwaffe opponents, most of whom had gained a lot of experience fighting in Spain, Poland and France, is a real testament to the quality of the Hurricane and Spitfire.
I remember watching a BBC documentary about the Spitfire V Bf 109, where they got engineers and current fighter pilots to compare them.
As machines they came out as equals.
But the Spitfire won on ergonomics (more room for pilots elbows and better laid out cockpit), visibility (better canopy) and survivability (Spitfire had an armoured cockpit).
IE: As a pilot it was easier to get the best out of the Spitfire and if you were shot down , the chances were that you would liv to have another go.
Some of it was obtained from the USA - Britain actually developed its own 100 Octane blend in the early 30's and had significant UK based production capacity. Britain had stockpiled 100 Octane starting from before WW2 but didn't deploy its use until it was required for home defense ie it wasn't used in France. The British actually ended the Battle of Britain with 500,000 tonnes still in reserve such was the reserve they had stockpiled in advance.
ISTR Shell did a lot of the high octane fuel research --- ISTR 100 Octane was also produced at BP Isle of Grain, Kent refinery which must have been a bit to close to France for comfort . The vital glycol for the cooling system initially exclusively came fro the USA.
It’s a great plane but one misconception is that it was always superior to the Me-109 (battle of Britain as reference). It’s not widely known that in the israeli war of independence 1948/49 the israeli me-109 defeated the Arab spitfires in every encounter. So the score between the two planes is 1-1. Will you make a video about it?
when a german ace pilot in the battle of Britain askes for a squadron of spitfires, what more is there to say. RIP Adolf Galland
'so galland what in luftwaffe funf would most help you shoot down the enemy",herr general,, I should like a squadron of spitfires' ]dammit galland I never,,,stompstompstompstomp
He was laughing at the spitfire it was a joke of a plane and stolen design from the German Heinkel company but your ignorant and don’t have a clue!
After the liberation of France, there were lots of hangers found with unused aircraft, including ones sent by the British.
It’s almost as if the French politicians wanted someone to blame for the defeat more than they actually wanted to fight.
Sending more fighters, as Churchill wanted to do, would have made no difference to France, and a significant difference in the Battle of Britain.
but just in the aviation section of the Operation Seelöwe/Battle of Britain...
France had some excellent fighter designs available, only the heads of the military and politicians didn't realize how badly they were needed. They were well able to match the 109 and might have changed history, had they been available in numbers.
Powered by excellent engine designs which the Russians used very effectively.
Well the sad fact is that they did have plenty of good planes... only the pilots (and their officers) were hot-legging it to Normandy or just giving up.
That's why Churchill & co were reluctant to send many of our planes over (incl Spits) and just placated the French generals with some Hurricanes and Lysanders etc.
Possibly, but from what i understand there was a shortage of pilots. This was bad planning of course but it took several years for the allies to get there act together. E.g.Crete, Hong Kong, Singapore, Russia, Pearl Harbour. France was the first major power to face the German forces.
I say, old chap you won't find any self-respecting RAF pilot calling a bandit a Kraut.
In fact the original term on the R/T was 'Snappers', soon to be replaced with the term 'Yellow nosed bastards'
spitfire did well in operation bodenplatter.
shot down at least 32 me109s and fw190s for 13 loses
iv'e never managed to find or estimate the spitfires total kill count of ww2....they seem to have them for the p 51 and 47 but i don't know about the spit.
Poor 190 Fw...Always Sidelined to the Bf-109.!~!
@55s you say the engine would "momentarily seize". I understand why you would want to avoid the word "stall" but I think seize is misleading as it implies the engine stops rotating. "Misfire" or "lose power" might be more informative.
The term is flood
@@dazaspc not exactly, the cut out is from fuel starvation, the flood happens after when returning to normal flight, which is what the orafice fixed.
I always thought hurricane was the main planes for the RAF
I have always argued that the Spitfire is the best fighter if the war simply because it remained a very serious opponent from the first day of the war to the last. Many of the other "greats" weren't around from the start, and those that were weren't nearly as competitive by the end of the war. No matter what fighter an opponent was flying, including the Me 262, an engagement with a Spitfire was a deadly serious matter.
I think I read that the German supply problems with raw materials was one of the main reasons that they struggled to keep pace with British advances in metallergy. Sure, the Germans had the ideas, they just struggled with raw materials not that they weren't inventive.
The US kept the P-38 in production before firing and after, the P-40 as well. You can argue they were niche fighters, but the P-40 excelled at simple field maintenance, ruggedness, and cheap to build. Outfought me 109s low to medium level; turned tighter and rolled faster. 8 50 cals hit hard enough. Ease of maintenance keeps them in service. Guess my point is that no one machine did it all. Range of a Spitfire, 423 miles, range of a P38, 1325 miles. Lose an engine; keep flying. Nose mounted canon / macine guns, effective to 1,000 yards, no need to synchronize the bullet hose. Spit as others, pick your yardage for gun synch. No one design was head and shoulders above another in all essential aspects. The Spit was comparatively a short range weapon.
Except the later war models were a lot different than the early war ones
That had at least as much to do with the training of RAF and Commonwealth pilots as anything else.
@@RemoteViewr1 the P-38 failed as a high altitude fighter. Allison never did make a successful high altitude engine, not even in the P-82.
one used to be kept at the airbase at colerne up until last year, it was a pleasure to see it fly, the way it would defy gravity in loops and rolls and the sound of its engine was superb. I saw a p51 owned by the same guy come in to land there too. Privileged to have seen them in real life.
The A, B and C wing configurations were the three most common.
A 8 x 303
B 4 x 303 & 2 x 20mm Hispano
C As above, or 4 x 20mm Hispano*
*performance penalty
There was a bet between vickers supermarine engineers and the RAF as to whether the Hispano could be fitted into the S7 FI mk V wing. £100. The Supermarine guys won, and they got their money after a quiet chat with RAF senior command staff.
It's my understanding the RR Merlin could accumulate only 100 hours of flight time during those years before it was required to be replaced with a new engine. Removed engines could only be overhauled once, and were limited to 50 hours of flight time before replacement.
WW2 engines and aircraft generally had only a short life between major servicings. However, those used in combat didn't often last that long.
Overboosting an engine doesn't permit a long life and they don't want pilots going into battle with an engine that's clapped out. At least the Merlin was capable of being highly boosted, unlike the Allison time bomb.
M2 Browning on IL2-CoD sounds like the most epic gun in the entire universe. The M2 Browning on War thunder sounds like someone shaking a rattle
Joe c download kiwi sound mod for wt
ShitThunder known for its accuracy, from the still secret documents that only Gaijin have access to. Hmmm.
DCS World FTW
"A" wing was all guns only. "B" wing was a mix. "C" wing was 4 cannons. "E" wing could be done in any configuration. Prior to the "B" wing there was a short period with 2 cannons only. Once the wing was beefed up, it could handle both cannons and guns. The wings with a bulge underneath, or a pair of bulges were for cannons. The "A" wing had no bulges. Note, the photo recon spits had a much larger wing in length and width that allowed it a much longer range, speed, and altitude. The PR spit used the empty gun spaces for extra fuel, thus giving it a Berlin range. Unarmed.
It is important to understand that having the fuel introduced by a carburettor before the supercharger cooled the air by about 25C (due to the evaporation of the fuel) and thus increased the density of the charge entering the cylinders and increasing the power output of the engine compared to a direct injection system where the evaporation occurs too late to increase the charge density and this is the reason Rolls Royce continued with various forms of carburettor (Bendix-Stromberg pressure carb. and then SU injection carb.) for all the Merlin engines.
You could save yourself alot of work by simply recommending people read Dr Alfred Price's book.
Good stuff!
Nice video dude
These subjects very often bring up debate, however i completely agree with everything you say in this video. Keep up the excellent work!
"Bromwich" is pronounced BROMMITCH, but don't change, because I like your accent. English town names are a minefield for foreigners (especially Americans). You have great production values, and you are very succinct and accurate.
Actually the pronunciation is more like “BROMMIDGE”
By the last 12 months of WW2 in Europe, Spitfire operations were curtailed in great part due to the more capable, versatile and numerous P-38 and P-51 aircraft. The Spitfire had fulfilled its role and the more plentiful and powerful American planes finished off the Germany from the West as the Soviets did from the East.
As a very young kid I experienced the appearance of the Me262. Jg7 under Nowotny It messed up the Allies real badly. The lack of fuel saved the day for us. Nowotny himself had over 100 kills, a lot of them P51 and P47. . Once the Me262 appeared all other fighter planes became obsolete over night. We got lucky with the Me262 and the U-boot Type 21. Not so lucky with the Panther, Tiger, Mg42 and the Sturmgewehr. I forgot the Panzerfaust. A Reichsmark 200 weapon knocking off US$ 75,000 tanks. The U.S. lost 7,000 tanks in WWII mostly in France and mostly Shermans. The Germans called them "bunsenburners" . I do not know British losses, but those were very substantial too.
@tecdessus, Thank you for the correction. The English made planes you noted did partake in finishing off Hitler's regime.
@tecdessus they weren't retired but Spitfire's supply price and lack of range for 1944 france missons paved the way for the american range fighters and Tempest/Typhoon alternatives. They werent retired but they werent that active like in 1940
You missed single external difference between a MkII and a MkI on your visuals with the Coffnman starter on the starboard side of the fuselage, no?
Great video though again ;)
The visuals are always made from the port side, and then just flipped for simplification.
Bismarck I should have noticed that! Just had to point out a little thing, was meant in jest more than anything else.
Keep it up, hope you have recovered from your absence
Another well researched and informative episode. Thank you very much Bismarck!
Really great and informative video, free from any emotion or sentimentalism. Would you be able to do a similar explanation on the comparison between the Spitfire and the P-51 Mustang? I have asked this question online before and was hoping to get sensible comments - what I got was ridiculous comments from the Brits about how the Americans were late for the war and equally unhelpful remarks from Americans about how they 'saved our asses'! In particular, was it just the Mustang's range that made it better, or was it a collection of things resulting from a newer design?
Keep it up. I have subscribed!
The 109E having a squared off wing design is a more significant shortcoming than the early spitfires using a non-pressurized fuel solution. Furthermore, the 109E used circular 20mm magazines in the wings forcing the designers to include a bulge in the wings, causing aerodynamic drag. The spitfire used guns in the wings as well, however the magazines could fit into the wings without the inclusion of a bulge.
The 109F model, would rectify the major issues with the E model. Model F1 through F3 would utilize an oval wing design, while the model F4 and forward would use the Daimler 601E engine, as opposed to the 601A and 601N used in the 109E and the early 109F models.
From the model 109G and forward, the Luftwaffe would use the 605 engine, with several variations depending on intended altitude. Armament would also change depending on intended target, using up to 30mm auto cannons for bomber hunting.
However, when the Royal Air Force started using the Rolls Royce Griffon engine. There was no longer a contest.
Not true go and have a look at the wings of a MK2b it has bulges to accommodate the 60 round 20mm magazines.
And those long cannons sticking out of the wings didnt cause drag and the Spitfire with the clipped wings for better roll rate at lower altitude.
Talking about top speeds of the Bf 109 G and K is laughable. Sure they managed to push them to decent enough speeds under ideal test flight conditions (still less than Griffon Spits and Mustangs) but it was impossible to actually manoeuvre the bf 109 at those speeds, all the pilots who flew them consider the Bf 109 to have the worst high speed handling of all the main fighters. Adolf Galland actually wanted their production to be completely scrapped in 1943 because of how hopelessly outdated the design had become.
From everything I've heard, the MkXII was an absolute beast at low altitude, but that's because its single-stage Griffon was rated for down low. The XIV, XXI, etc were optimised for high altitude, but that was rapidly becoming no longer the place for piston-engined aircraft.
Hi, Andre. I recently found an old letter I wrote about this topic some years ago so I hope you don't mind the length. I edited it a bit to address some of your points but it's largely intact. It's more of a reminiscence than a lecture so I'll dive right in.
The only solid advantage the Spit had over the 109E during the BoB was range. Head to head it, as always, just mattered who took advantage of his relative strengths. The DB 601 was a bit too much engine for an airframe that was essentially the same as the prototypes that flew on 650hp but the wing tips were not a big factor. They were used to make maximum use of the wing slats to keep the low speed handling a bit less terrifying. They also provided a generally good rate of roll but the ailerons would get stiff at high speeds, just like the Spit, because the bigger engines pushed the speed above the original design parameters.
The rounded tips on the 109F and later were to reduce the high speed stiffness and to reduce the flight loads on the new wing spar. They really didn't change the handling all that much. The 109 could be treacherous if handled roughly, had some flaws, and demanded a skilled pilot but it wasn't dangerous or inherently difficult to fly. It's biggest flaw was the landing gear which has been described as "even worse than a Spit!"
After the landing gear; the wing slats were a mixed blessing. An inexperienced pilot who got into a condition where one or both slats would pop in and out could cause a fatal spin. But, once the plane was in a low speed configuration with both slats firmly out it wasn't any more treacherous than most any other similar fighter. Better training would have helped a lot but I'll get back to that.
Having flown RC scale models of several Spits and 109s I can attest that a Spit's inherent wing design is more treacherous than the 109 but the difference in scale means that a model 109 will almost always have a lighter wing loading than a Spit of the same scale which, of course, is the opposite of the "real" aircraft. But, just like the real aircraft, the 109 flies like it's on rails while the Spit will "swap ends" as fast as you can think it and both will bite if you try to drag them through a low speed turn without power.
After the Winter of 43-44 it didn't matter much what the Allies were flying. All Allied fighters were scoring better than 1-1 by then. That includes some rather dodgy Soviet fighters and the P-39's they flew after the U.S. gave up on them. By this stage of the war the average Allied pilot was well trained in the use of his fighter and taught tactics that took advantage of it's strengths. If he spotted an enemy in a "superior" aircraft he didn't look to hide; he looked to use his training and equipment to shoot it down. The Germans and other Axis pilots simply couldn't measure up despite flying some fighters that, when they had gas and maybe some nitrous, appeared to be able to out perform their counterparts. And that doesn't include the Me262. The axis powers were defeated in the air by logistics; especially the logistics of training.
They depended on a short war and expended their most talented pilots in a battle of attrition instead of preserving them to train the next wave. And that one thing is arguably the single greatest factor in the turn of the air war. The Germans could produce a large number of very capable planes but they squandered the ability to train skilled pilots. The Japanese even managed to produce a surprising number of potentially good planes, to a low standard of quality, but they were so warped that they were sending out skilled pilots as kamikazis because there were no more unskilled pilots left!
If you read biographies of the aces from both sides you will see this difference clearly. The Britain and the U.S. used a very fluid system that spread talent within a fighter wing/group that would start with a cadre of experienced leaders that were often on a kind of TDY to serve until the newer element leaders were ready to lead a flight, squadron, etc. They would also rest their pilots, though there's some argument about how restful it was, by assigning them to operational training units. This resulted in the strange phenomenon of frequently reuniting with old comrades in new posts and forging bonds with new comrades. The Axis accounts, on the other hand, are a dirge of loss. Old comrades simply dwindle until they don't return.
BTW. The old biographies are great to learn about tactics and personalities but take anything presented as "technical data" with a grain of salt. There are a lot of reasons, most of them honest, why somewhat dubious data ends up in biographies.
Cheers!
I haven’t read all of the comments but you say that the early spits would flood or seize in negative g maneuvers but actually i believe that they would lean out, and definitely not seize, correct me if i’m Wrong
Thanks for the great video
Liked the pun at Real Engineering
its more an refference, not a pun at all
Anthony Smith oops my bad
The biggest misconception of the which is better 109 Vs spitfire in early war i would say the 109 had a slight advantage over all ..Speed Armor Weapons One missing factor was the use of American octane 100+ vs German octane which became more and more lower octane into the war down to 87 Add in you have a great fuel injection system in the 109 Which would out preform the spitfire had it had the same octane Even give the 109 a few extra mins of fighting time Many 109's had to run lean and climb slowly to England Then 100% power to dog fight for 5 to 10 mins before having to turn and head back to France Which was a lot of wear and tear on the Engines Now with 87 octane on a abused engine Your dumping more fuel and getting less power
The Spitfire was designed for speed first Then machine guns ..having these odd thin wings Designers after the fact had to see what pre made machine guns would fit ..303. won 20mm cannons were a bad design and bad method of feeding the cannon itself
Hurricanes were fast but lacked the grace of the spitfire Thus more gun power and ammo went after the bombers Spits after the 109's Had the major role been reversed the out come would of been a huge loss And yes Hurricane did in fact shoot down 109's and spits on bombers ..But engagements of these favored the enemy
The English loved Variants Tempest, Typhoon, Mosquito Lancaster But not only it's planes But also its weapon types and loads example The Mosquito in my eyes was the most versatile aircraft of the war Here you have Not just a Fighter / Bomber / Recon But it was made of wood Mostly cut down from western Canada Giving the guys at the metal works one less strain of production. Carpenters, Cabinet makers now had war effort jobs In Canada and England The "Mossie" flew at some of the fastest speeds and could fly long distances Had a wide range of bombs Some of which a normal 4 engine bomber could not handle Bouncing bomb, Cookies, Rockets, And some where equip with a 57mm auto firing Cannon in the nose or 4 machine guns in the nose
There was a attempt to copy it by the Germans however they could not get the glue right and the prototypes crashed on take off due to cracking and breaking
An almost unknown detail. Originally, the Spitfire's engine was intended to be steam cooled. Steam cooling in theory has several advantages , the principal ones being that boiling the coolant rejects (transfers) much more heat than simply heating it; the second is that you don't need a drag-producing external radiator which, together with its coolant lines, can bring the plane down if a single rifle-caliber bullet strikes part of the setup. Because of this, Reginal Mitchell had the wing designed with a hollow leading edge where the stream would be condensed, which also functioned as the leading edge spar. The steam cooling was one of Rolls-Royce's few failures, so the aircraft was produced with conventional external oil and engine coolant rads. and what would have been the condensers remained empty, with m/gs and cannon barrels going through.
However, they were put to use as extra internal fuel tanks for the unarmed photo-reconnaisance versions. Later in the war, using these and also an extra fuel tank behind the pilot, the photorecce. Spit had a range of 1,700 miles, some 200 more than the famously long-legged P-501D Mustang.
I keep trying to add a reply and failing, fourth time lucky. During the early 1930s R J Mitchell designed a fighter around the RR Goshawk engine and it had evaporative (steam) cooling. That machine, the Supermarine 224 had an inverted gull wing and a fixed undercarriage, the cooling surfaces, pretty much radiators, were faired into the fat spats around the undercarriage. It flew but was NOT a success, however Mitchell credited it with providing a number of key lessons which significantly informed his design for a rather better known low wing monoplane fighter. The irony is that the spec he was working on was for a replacement for the Gloster Gauntlet and in the end the Ministry went with the Gladiator - air cooled engines I believe. Who knows what sort of machine the RAF would have fielded in the end if Mitchell hadn't worked on the Type 224.
He knew that evaporative cooling worked in principle, but the then working examples were relatively slow biplanes some placing the cooling surface on the top plane. The obvious exception was the S5/S6/S6B series, the S6B anyway, more Mitchell designs, made the corrugated fuselage the cooling surface to maximise the surface area. That's too big a target to use in fighter. I wonder when he ditched steam cooling for the Spit, or was that driven by RR ?
He also designed the Walrus, with its air cooled radial - or flying gas ring - nothing if not versatile that man.
Excellent production, Bismarck. Another problem about the early cannon firing Spitfires had to do with the way the cannons were placed. As not to interfere with Mitchell's wing design, the cannons were placed on their side, and the ammunition feed was placed laterally, that feed following a non-linear direction. The guns were not meant to fire this way, but they were tucked in the wing without interfering with the wing design and construction. Designer Joseph Smith deviated from Reginald Mitchell's design by introducing the now famous tear drop bubbles on the wings, allowing for a proper ammunition feed. Then there is the rather bizarre story of Douglas Bader and his criticism of adding cannons. He believed that the .303 machine guns were better as it encouraged the pilot to close in on the enemy. He spent the rest of his combat duty flying a Spitfire Va, a Mk. V with the traditional eight .303 guns. Well after the war, he admitted to being wrong on that point.
In dubio pro reo [Latin] > "In doubt for the accused."
i think the sexiest plane of ww2 was the bf 109 f1
Thank you Bis !
Hey bismarck! I recently introduced my grandfather to you and your content, he and i absolutely love your channel!