My great Grandfather flew Typhoons in 1944-5 he said he first flew at a indicated 590mph in a Spitfire mk9 in 1943 whilst diving to escape three 109Fs and the Typhoon regularly exceeded 600mph indicated in a dive, he lived until he was 82years old despite two crash landings and being shot down three times between 1943-45
I new RAF ground crew who all through the war listed to their pilots tell them that they where moving so fast that they almost pulled the wings off their spit.
@General Melchett also interesting reading is the report from the RAF's speed test between a Typhoon, a captured Focke Wulf FW-190 and a Griffon-engined Spitfire. It was though that the fastest would be the Typhoon, followed by the Focke Wulfe, and the Spitfire would be bringing up the rear, but it turned out the Spitfire was the fastest (and considerably so), then the Typhoon and finally the Focke Wulf.
"I'm somehow back at 40000 feet, without an engine having blacked out and come out of a fatal dive. However, no need to bail out, I have these enormous balls of steel that will help me land the Spitfire Superglider safely". Respect.
According to Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown’s book ‘Wings On My Sleeve’, the dive undertaken by Tony Martindale that resulted in the loss of the prop & reduction gear which left the Spitfire with slightly swept wings was his second dive that day. The first reached M0.91 and he’d had to apply 80lb of force to the stick to recover from the manoeuvre. Brown stated that he’d had to use both hands to apply 60lb of pull in his own M0.86 dive and wouldn’t be able to exceed that so Martindale took it further as he was a much larger and stronger chap. Incidentally, it’s not surprising that Martindale passed out as his weight-reduced Spit hurtled back up to 40,000’ ~ he pulled 11G in doing so.
I've seen an old interview in which General Chuck Yeager himself said that he wasn't the first to break the sound barrier, he readily admitted that he was the first to break he sound barrier IN LEVEL FLIGHT. He absolutely agreed that a few pilots had indeed broken the sound barrier in souped up piston engine planes in steep dives before he did it in the X-1 on October 14, 1947.
I know that he agreed that "Wheaties" Welch exceeded Mach 1 in a shallow dive in a specially modified XP-86A before the X-1's Mach 1 flight, but the XP-86A wasn't a piston-engine plane but a swept-wing jet. It's physically impossible for a piston-engine plane to exceed Mach 1 because the propellers lose efficiency rapidly in the transonic regime. The RAE's recorded fastest piston-engine powered flight is Martindale's 1,000 km/h (Mach 0.92) dive in his Spitfire, and the FAI's accepted record is held by "Voodoo," a specially modified P-51 Mustang, at 533.53 miles per hour (855.41 km/h). The FAI record is for level flight over a specified course, and it's possible Voodoo could break Martindale's record if a diving flight were allowed under modern record-keeping.
@@Rudeljaeger yes, although since that was a rocket plane rather than a propeller plane, it would have likely had an easier time doing so without the drag of the propeller
This evening I watched the Antiques Roadshow. A gentleman on there displayed his Father's medals and log book with aerial reconnaisance photos from ww2. Apparently low level photos were only safely obtained by high speed dives. The aircraft had no armament. They were very brave.
I am not qualified to comment on the reliability of the airspeed readings but I can state categorically that there is no sound like a Rolls-Royce Merlin on song.
Yes, I'm so pleased your research was thorough. Someone else's earlier video never mentioned (beyonf Tobin) Martindale's M= 0.92 (p.50 in Capt.Brown's book 'The Miles M.52') and I also have known about Powle's 1952 incident. I do believe it because that version of the Spitfire wing was very suited to high speed - not the original shape nor the later Spiteful wing. In testing for the Miles M.52, a Miles Falcon was given a bi-convex wing, ultra thin ('the Gillette Falcon'), nearly elliptical, but with wing tips cut off diagonally along the line of the outer shock wave. Presumably, the elliptical wing of the Spitfire, though not solid was thin and was almost within the V-shaped shock wave from the aircraft's nose. PS. tests were later done on an all-moving tailplane for the M.52...on a Spitfire.
If it really reached that speed or not , what surley impresses me most is the bravery that those men showed by trying these trials, and considering the tech in those years it was really something.
I don’t really think it was all that brave considering the era. You just did what you had to do that was the culture. You felt safe as It was a state of the art aircraft and that’s just what you did back in those days. The world‘s become too soft today. Take NASA for example. I believe they’ve gone on record saying the risks that were taken in the Apollo missions would never be taken today.
@@Captndarty Anyone who climbs into an aircraft and tries to do what has never been done before is brave, no matter then or now. Stop rubbishing people just because you are the 8 billionth bravest person on the planet.
@@Captndarty I understand the ethos of your comment and whilst I don't flatly disagree; I think that these wonderfully skilled test-pilots, with a very good insight in to what they were provoking, were chosen for a reason. To battle against a Nazi airforce with matching performance is highly commendable whereby your fate is mostly decided by your own skill but to taunt the laws of physics is beyond reproach. As for NASA? What a bunch of cu~~s, risk assessment? They knew of the Morton Thiokol issue with the SR boosters and then later the 'likelihood 'of insulating foam debris damage, yet they still forged ahead. There was no wartime pressures or Presidential decrees to comply with with the Shuttle missions? 'The likelihood'? Is that the worst place to inhabit😆?
Almost, there was a strong feeling that more than 1 went through it & survived. My father flew a Mustang Mk111 for the RAF & the Spits were considerably faster in a dive. His whole plane was shaking so much he couldn’t read the instruments. More than 1 Spit literally broke apart too.
I am talking not by choice or maybe by choice. In the film with Ralph Richardson ( The Sound Barrier , yes I know it’s a film, but a good one the beginning from memory shows a pilot in a Spitfire with the plane vibrating heavily) There were a number of unexplained crashes involving Spits where the think they may have tore themselves apart with the compression limit. I am not saying it did happen but there are theories they got very close.
Notice in the photograph of Sq Lr Martindale and three others, the most famous test pilot of all time Captain Eric Melrose Brown RN who also received the AFC for his momentous work on aircraft carrier aviation, which included the first landing of a twin engined bomber onto a carrier, the Mosquito, and after the war the first landing, and take off of a jet propelled aircraft, and recorded some 2700 carrier landings in his illustrious career .
Supermarine developed an even faster model. Featuring an even higher performance version of the Griffin engine and the bubble canopy fuselage, this version - now known as the 'Spiteful' - featured a laminar-flow wing similar to that of the P-51 Mustang. This avoided the lack of rigidity that Mitchell's elliptical wing suffered at very high speed, and helped to reduce the problem of compressibility as speed approached the sound barrier. Sadly, with the onset of the jet age, very few were made.
The mk. 19 Spitfire had a stronger wing too, even though it was elliptical, and high speed roll rates were much improved as a result. The Spitfire wing got redesigned structurally multiple times, though, the first service version being later Vs, but also separately on the IV (not put into service) and the VII and VIII and derivatives (and some but not all VI).
@@baselhammond3317 no, it didn't. Based on testing on the Attacker, possibly a tiny amount lower, but it allowed for better performance 400-500mph, which was more important.
I live in Newmarket suffolk , nearby is the old RAF Duxford aerodrome and new museum , and have the privilege of hearing that merlin engine sound and seeing that beautiful R. J Mitchel designed aircraft regularly - and it stops me dead in my tracks every single time.
You may have seen my flight 3 years ago when my excellent pilot Barry Hughes allowed me to take control for a couple of minutes and I then realised why one of the ww2 pilots I had seen on television said that you didn't so much fly the spitfire as put it on like an overcoat and it flew itself. It's such a pity that Mr Mitchell died before he saw the results of his great invention.
The stripped photoreconisence Spitfire flight is recounted in Eric "Winkle" Brown's marvellous book "Sings on my Sleeve" A must read for any aviation enthusiast!
What many people do not understand is that the local Speed of Sound is dependant on Temperature. Air Density has almost no influence on S of S. At 40,000 ft, the air temp is likely to be in the vicinity of -40 degrees, so the S of S is lower than at ground level, (763MPH @ 15 degrees C). Therefore, for a given groundspeed, the Mach number will be higher at higher altitude, due to the lower S of S, which changes by about 1.3 MPH per degree C. At 40,000ft the local S of S is likely to be in the vicinity of 690MPH. If the plane descends at a constant airspeed, the Mach number will fall as the local temp and local S of S rise. Many pilots were saved from high speed compressibility in a dive as the Mach number fell with the rise in local S of S.
Great Movie ! Thanks. Your Northumberland / Durham accent reminds me that i fell a little bit in love with every girl who ever spoke with me using that lovely accent. Thanks for the memory.
I would call the Spitfire the Bradman of propellor flight. Both were the greatest of all time, both inspired their nations like no other and both had an average just under the magical number. Which is fitting for humble heroes.
Great video, well done. Such an amazing aircraft the Spitfire was- perhaps the greatest of them all. IMO more recognition should be awarded posthumously to its designer R J Mitchell who in fact sacrificed any prospects of his own recovery to ensure this masterpiece was conceived
The pilots notes on the Antiques Roadshow last weekend showed that his lightweight unarmed photo reconnaissance Spitfire reached close to 600mph in a dive. That means the airframe was better than nearly all the early jet aircraft. It certainly had a better limiting Mach number than the later P51 Mustang. The Spitfire was better than it had any right to be in this respect.
Indeed, the airframe *was* better than many early jet aircraft. Many years ago I knew a chap who'd been ground crew on the early Meteors and mentioned that an instruction to the pilots was "Don't turn too quickly or you'll find yourself doing 600mph without an aircraft".
@@jackwills7092 over Mach 1, given the wing profile, is highly unlikely. The IAS may have been high, but the pitot we wouldn't be calibrated for anything so fast. You'd only be likely to get a 109 to M1 if the wings came off first.
@@Kevin-mx1vi the Meteor had an issue at 0.84 meaning the wrong manoeuvre could result in something akin to an unrecoverable flat spin. It had a higher than desirable accident rate, some of which was due to having to send trainees up solo to qualify in single engine operation using a process that was unsafe. A lot of accidents were due to cold war issues and were things like pilots flying into terrain in bad weather. Overall the loss rate wasn't any worse than a lot of early jets and was actually better than some.
@@wbertie2604 Thankyou, I guess that explains why the pilots were told not to pull on the stick too hard. And the idea of sending a trainee up solo to fly on a single engine in an early jet makes my hair stand on end !
As a USN/USMC flight test engineer I think they made the correct decision. While aircraft flown out of Farnborough had precisely calibrated airspeed equipment a fleet aircraft would have a much more significant deviation in its equipment. Fleet instruments have no need to be precisely calibrated which would be beyond the capabilities of the local repair facilities. The .03 difference in Mach number is easily within the margin of error for fleet instruments IMHO.
As someone that absolutely loves the Spitfire and its history. I think you have done a fair job telling the story about the near mach speed. But to anyone that isn't aware of these events in history, I think it would have been nice to have heard you mention the other aircraft that were tested for the same purpose, but were concluded as not up to the job. One that stands out in my mind is the P51 Mustang. Always compared with the Spitfire due to it's Merlin engine. (British Specification, may I add) . I know you said very briefly about it towards the end. But the Spitfire proved more stable and the fact it could glide, speaks volumes for its design.
@@David-lb4te I think you will find most aircraft will fall out of the sky without propulsion. They need the right design. The space shuttle was purposely built that way.
@@rmstitanic8163 The Mustang went down like a brick. The wing which was one of the main reasons for its success also caused problems like what my father called the “Super Stall” & poor gilding performance. However at high levels it was in his terms “ the best” .
@@beagle7622 a 'Super Stall' cannot be performed by any of the aircraft in this story. For a super stall to occur, you need a very high tailplane, which these fighters didn't have...
@@julianneale6128 That’s what they called it in the squadrons evidently. The Mustangs one real vice as far as my father was concerned. The RAF Mustang pilots all had a few hundred hours, experienced guys. He had about 500 when he went onto Mustangs . It was a high speed stall I believe & he said that he learnt to recognise it . It killed a new pilot in his squadron when he was there. My dad was not as story teller. He never talked about Ops , but happily talked about the plane. Somebody sent me a summary of the missions he flew while in France. He flew a MKIV a few times but not on Ops. They had no stall warning so had to be careful.
A guy that I worked with had been in the RAF Regiment in the war, guarding air bases. At one base used by the USAAF, a Thunderbolt pilot was doing acrobatics, and put his aircraft into a steep dive; when he landed the wings had ripped out of the fuselage.
Maybe Colin means something had ruptured at the wing root or twisted but not detached. Thunderbolts were known to pile on speed very quickly compared to some contemporary aircraft in a dive.
@@veritasvincit2745 WW2 aircraft had wings that were bolted on, and the wing roots were faired in. If the wings had bent back a bit, then that fairing would be ripped open. That's probably what was being described. It'd be a nailbiting landing, as the pilot would be able to see this and be aware that the pickup points on the fuselage might also be bent so wing failure on landing would be very possible
If you look at other Reginal Mitchell designs you will wonder out of which hat he pulled the Spitfire. It's sad that he never knew just how good it turned out. It was about the only front line aircraft that stayed in the front line the entire duration of WW2.
*_"I think the Spit broke the supersonic barrier"_* Not possible. The energy created in a full throttle dive is simply not sufficient to overcome the massive drag increase as the aircraft approaches what used to be known as "the sound barrier". The clue is in the name.
My Grandfather was with 41 squadron when they were equipped with the Mk 12 spit, one of the tasks assigned to them was AA gunnery searchlight/ radar calibration, which involved flying straight and level at 20,000 feet for 20 minutes , after calibration had been completed (notified by radio), it was fun time. Full throttle, stand it on its nose and see how fast the 'blighter' would go , resulting in the ASI indicator needle hitting the stop. the control surfaces getting very heavy and after landing, a bo**ocking from the CO, " what the hell did you do to that aircraft, what was that noise" . My Grandfather was adamant the his colleagues told him they heard a bang or a boom, not that he did or that they would have known what it was. This little 'procedure' was banned after the odd "airscrew came off". Later in his career doing high speed dives in Meteors and Vampires my Grandfather noted and much later told me that the spit 12 was a damn sight nicer at those higher speeds. I always found it hard to believe that he broke the sound barrier in a Spit but did not wish to question him too much out of respect.
@@steveshoemaker6347 I'm glad you enjoyed it, 41 squadron at that time was an operational training unit , my grandfather and his fellow up and coming pilots new the 12's were coming and had got it into their heads that, "they were the cats whiskers", to be getting these new "Super Spits with their Griffon engines", they watched the first one come in and land, and were somewhat deflated when a little WAAF got out!
@@liverpoolscottish6430 Thanks for that, I was repeating the it as my Grandfather had told me, except I omitted the word 'tasty' between the word, a and little, and the fact she was then whisked of to the offices mess.
The Spitfire was a Design Classic, never was so much owed to one man, and that man was R. J. Mitchell, a crying shame that he died of Cancer before he ever saw his masterpiece fly in action.
A Yank here and I must say that the Bravery of these pilots is unmatched and it could not have been done with out the technicans and scientists on the group ! All of these people deserve medals too ! BYW Have any propeller aircraft ever broken the Sound Barrier ????
The Los Angelas times reported that an American P-47 Thunderbolt traveled over 700 MPH in the same test the Brits did on the Spitfire. They took the P-47 to 40k feet and then dove at 45degrees. The speed is disputed since they didn't use proper speed indicators.
@@TheNorthernHistorian have lost count how many ⏱⏰ l have watched "The Battle of Britain" wish l had the cha-ching 2 personally own a couple of Spitfires. Not 100% sure which Mks 9-12 Some research required. Definitely a counter rotation Griffon version. Also really appreciate the P51 Mustang. A aircraft that didnt come alive untill the mighty Rolls Royce Engine came 2 the rescue. Had the opportunity 2 purchase a beautifull framed Spitfire print very large about 10-12yrs back. Unfortunately did have the spare cash at the time.
Great video thank you. Reconnaissance version of the Spitfire reminds me of the great BBC documentary with Dan Snow about RAF Medmenhan and operation Crossbow.
As well as the advantage of thin wings, I've always thought that the design of the Spitfire fuselage produced natural area ruling that gave drag reduction at very high speed.
I think he managed that speed. Higher altitudes mean thinner atmosphere means less friction. I reckon he clocked that speed while still quite high up in his dive
'Winkle' brown and the RAE Test Pilots Tested the P-47,P-38 & P-51 at their Maximum dive speeds. So as to determine the Max Mach Number that could be used in operational conditions. The P-47 and P-38 had surprisingly low attainable Mach numbers. They Advised the USAAF to concentrate on P-51 production. and procurement.
Quite common for Tempest pilots to exceed 560mph in dives, but i find 690 very hard to swallow. 606 is hard enough considering the weight & power. Spits are just not strong enough, damn lucky the wings didn't tear off. I seem to remember Alex Henshaw saying he would put them into a 450 max speed dive, at which point they were out of control.
An addenda to the Alex Henshaw involvement. He test flew the first of 300 Lancasters built at Castle Bromwich . The factory mainly built Spitfires Marks V , IX & XVI . which Henshaw would have test flown. The more advanced Marks XII , XIV , XIX all Griffin powered were built at Southampton. Ace Johnny Johnson considered that the Griffin powered should have had a name change other then Spitfire as their handling characteristics were different.
With regards to the RAF Kai Tak Spitfire, it would be interesting to note whether the Speedometers where calibrated to National Standards and what was the accuracy and repeatability of them. If it was the case that the gauge was calibrated and the Spitfire had been just shipped from the factory we could say that this was indeed the new record. Usually certain gauges are classed accurate to +/- X mph or as a +/- percentage when manufactured, given the vibrations these aircraft would go through, gauge inaccuracy would increase over time!
We were walking in a field near the memorial arboretum when the bbmf spitfire flew low over us and round the arboretum, then the pilot circled us in the field as he’d seen us taking pictures as he passed, our own personal show, stunning plane and sound
According to german accounts a photo reconnaissance spitfire did hit the mach 1.0 barrier and it is assumed it was as fast as mach 1.01. The Spitfire came under attack from ME-109s over france and dived to escape, the ilot flew low enough to be fairly safe from most if not all of the area anit air defenses. A german officer had reported seeing the spitfire fly low into a canal, and infact flew under two bridges, having times in his report the times indicated that the spitfire had mach 1.0. The same spitfire actually broke appart with the pilot barely surviving but the pilot had managed to destroy much of his photo equimpent, and when taken into custody he was saluted and given extra good tratement by the luftwaffe for his "heroic speed" as they called it. I did read later that aviation experts have gone over the various reports at the time and found that the spirfire could not have travelled that fast, but they do belive it may have been as much as mach 0.75.
My dad was in a Spitfire squadron as part of the ground support crew. As an enthusiastic participant, dad was convinced they could touch the speed of sound in a dive, they were the best plane ever built as far as he was concerned. Perhaps the pilots mistook the mini-booms from the propeller as an indication of speed?
The Spitfire was not an especially durable aircraft. The P-47 not stripped down either for example, would go into compressibility in a frightening short period of time if the nose was put down as repeatedly recorded. But it never bent or broke. I don’t know how its possible to mention this and not mention both the P-47 and the P-38. If the special airspeed indicator was linked to air pressure as the standard A/S indicator is then its was not reliable in compressibility. And the Merlin had a reduction gear on the propellers to keep the propeller RPM down to avoid the tips and more of the prop going supersonic in normal flight. Its also dependent on temperature and altitude. AND once in compressibility its impossible to pull out until the aircraft got low enough that the air density increased to the point that the drag slowed the aircraft out of the compressibility range. It DID take a lot of guts to do this and a tip of the hat to the pilots. The reason Chuck Yeager was able to exceed the speed of sound and survive was the he and the engineers changed the horizontal stabilizer to a stabilator IE the entire airfoil moved like on a moder jest aircraft, even airliners. Without this mod super sonic flight was basically impossible. This gave the F86 in Korea an advantage over the conventionally tailed Mig15. Swept wings were not needed as shown by “Glamorous Glennis”, the F104the X-15 etc. But it DOES work better.
It is possible that he did reach that hi Mach number, but the Pitot tube was designed for the aircrafts normal speed range. It might have been influenced by super sonic air flows. Chuck Yeager, the second person to go super sonic. The first one was George Welsh in a prototype F86 three days before.
@Penelope Scott the F86 officially went supersonic only a few months later. If your interested have a read of a book called Mach 1, can't remember who wrote it.
I have a childhood memory of a film about these spitfire tests. In the film it was said that beyond the sound barrier the flight controls worked in reverse. The his would have been mid 60s, but I can't recall the title. Regarding the validity of speeds, a similar situation befell the GWR loco City of Truro in 1903. The guards timing log of the trains run show that it was certainly possible it surpassed 100mph, but it was discounted as an 'unofficial timing' !!
I seem to recall that they discovered control reversal at very high speed, and it was solved by reskinning the elevator with aluminium, rather than canvas?
"This research helped Chuck Yeager break the sound barrier in the Bell X1". That and the fact that we mysteriously cancelled our ready to go supersonic aircraft and then obligingly let the Americans look it over so that they could copy the tail plane!
And let's not even mention giving jet engine technology to the Soviets who promptly put it into the Mig 15 , which outperformed any Western fighters of the time.
The cancellation if the Miles Supersonic Test aircraft was decided upon by a solitary British Civil servant who decided, on his own, that test flying a potentially supersonic aircraft was: " too dangerous and likely to result in loss of life" which overlooked the fact that 2 pilots in the High-speed test unit had already crashed and died whilst flying and researching High-speed flight. Thus this particular fool of a man handed the prestige of cracking the sound-barrier to the Americans .The British public service have been known to take some stupid decisions at times and this was one of them. The Miles test aircraft was almost ready to fly and commence testing. What a stupid decision.
Powell's ASI was broken as a result of the high speed dive, so it's very difficult to discern if the recorded airspeed of 690 mph was accurate. Some machine the Spitfire!
That was extremely interesting. As the Mosquito was the fastest propeller plane during the war I believe it would have been considered for these tests as well. But considering it has an all wooden airframe there was possibly some doubts as to its strength. The conversations about all this at the air ministry would have been very interesting.
I don't think that that's true. There have been a couple which might have done (The Republic Thunderscreech and the 'Machbuster' racer) but didn't finish their flight testing
@Oxcart . In the early 90’s I was talking with a WW2 veteran who served in the RAAF . At the end of the war he was stationed in Japan & he told of a rear propeller plane which he believed was capable of the speed of sound . I think it could have been a Kyushu J7W1 but I have also seen illustrations of a flying wing in an aircraft book years ago . He said the Americans destroyed these planes after testing them & said the reason was the jet age was here .
One correction the Wright Brothers were not the first heavier than air powered flight. That had happened ten years prior by yet another French man Clermont Ader. It however had no control surfaces which the Wright flyer sort of did. They tried wing warping with some success but the idea was eventually abandoned.
I loved it when Thrust SSC broke the sound barrier on the ground. We need to push further and faster. It's what makes us move forward. We were always ground breakers in speed. Look at Concord utterly magnificent. What a plane to be proud of. 1 crash to be blamed on another planes debris on the runway. NOT CONCORDS FAULT.
The second Spitfire didn't reach anything near Mach 0.96. On board instruments were not made for that speed, and shown wild errors when nearing the speed of sound. Also the 980KM/h recorded by the Reggiane Re.2005 in July 1943 trials, by Cmdr. De Prato were not indicated by the on board instruments, but triangulated from the ground.
Thanks for an interesting post. I wonder how accurate the pitot probes were in providing true air speed in such conditions and how they were calibrated outside the normal flight envelope.
That was Sqn Ldr Tony Martindale attached to RAE Farnborough In a Spitfire MkXI He was testing transonic flight when his engine ran out of control He lost his spinner and he was flung all over the sky, passing out. When he came to he was at 40000ft no engine Wings Bent up and he then glided back 20 miles the Farnborough His Machmeter showed Mach 0.92
A lot of hot air here. Ignores the fact that the Spitfire was a poor diving aircraft. In fact German pilots used diving to break combat with Spits. I notice they spend a lot of time about the propeller, but no time on compressibility. Finally, all of these measurements on Indicated Air Speed depended on air pressure. Thing is, this results in wildly variable and unreliable measurements. No reliable, verifiable measurements exist for any of these claims. More than a few pilots even claimed to have broken the sound barrier during WW2 based on similar bogus measurements. ... Speaking of air pressure, Mach numbers are not absolute. They vary with altitude , air pressure, and air temperature. What may be Mach 0.89 at 30k or 40k is not nearly the same number as at 20k. These are some of the reasons post war speed records were based on performance over a closed course, using external measurements, not in a dive using unreliable IAS measurements.
@@riazhassan6570 Knowledge of the aircraft and it's capabilities. However, if you prefer, I think that it's more likely than not that the Spit did reach a speed of Mach 0.96
@@pierremainstone-mitchell8290 the most common flights at such high speeds was made with P47's during hunts for me 262's: the P47 was probably the fastest ww2 propeller aircraft in dive of all times, was able to fly FASTER in dive as a me 262 without damage (the me 262 was unable to fly faster than ~950km/h because deadly loss of control caused from a tail design fail... The Spit was never use in such conditions because was a low range aircraft...
@@leneanderthalien Whilst I take your point the question asked was whether viewers of the video thought that the Spit reached a speed of Mach 0.96. On that basis the performance/use of any other aircraft, whilst interesting, is, to be bluntly frank, not relevant to the question asked. As I wrote in my original comment - "I think that, on the balance of probabilities the Spit did reach a speed of Mach 0.96" and I stand by that observation!
The Thunderbolt could dive with both the P-38 and the Spitfire, but few remember according to the P-51 Flight Manual the never exceed absolute top speed limit in a Mustang was 505 mph...
The P47 was frequently use at very high speeds (probably close to 1000km/h) during hunt on Me 262's over germany (Spitfires was nevers use because had a low range) , and was able to fly FASTER in dive as a me 262 who was limited at ~950km/h from tail design defects who make this aircraft totaly uncontrolable in transsonic speeds...but "almost break the sound barrier" for the Spitfire is a false assertion: the sound speed (mach 1) is at 1224km/h at sea level and 1153km/h at 5000m altitude and the speedometer use on the WW2 aircrafts was unable to measure the real speed over 900km/h...i did use metric for the numbers because mph is not international allowed , but only Knots = nautical miles per hour (who is metric), or km/h) and mph are only use from Brits and US, never from continental europe countries...
nope, the P38 had tail problems (appears supersonic waves who destroy the tail this is Why the P38 had dive speedbreaks) at high speeds and was unable to fly such speed without desintegration in the air
@@leneanderthalien Mentioned its instruments weren't designed for such speeds, hence inaccurate (i.e. read high), read in 𝘓-1011 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘩𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 1973
@@autodidact537 ,,, because I am sure, that there is a high probability that the answer is unknown, and it would be more of a speculation or an opinion, that de Haviland broke the sound barrier, and I've never read anything that concurs along those lines .
Small bit of info - Seletar is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable and is more like Seleeter. Good video - lots of interesting information.
Great piece of work! The bit about how the prop is driven directly off the engine crankshaft is wrong and so is the phase "making so much power they were breaking the sound barrier"- power has little to do with it- the propeller blade tip speed, as it goes past the speed of sound, starts a rhythmic moving sonic boom that shakes through the entire craft. But work on the details- the presentation was A OK! FR
I think I’d be more confused as to why the third spitfire didn’t take damage like the one before. That alone would make me question the reliability of the speed and possibly the story.
probably a material difference between mk 11 and mk 19 not entirely sure but it's the only guess because dropping from 50,000 feet the mk 19 was also built with the griffon engine and so was designed better for the higher top speed so new engine and new fuselage and wing designs probably, sorry for the 1 year late reply you probably won't see this but if you do this might help a little.
No matter if the Spit. Reached these ridiculous speeds or not, still wonderful A/C. By the way, the Wright Bros. we’re NOT the first to achieve powered flight, it’s been proven!!!
@@mattevans4377 Gustave Whitehead made several flights in 1901 & 1902, witnessed by a variety of ppl. Controversial up to the present day!! Even Wright Bros. photos(ea. a different plane)of the ‘flight’, are extremely controversial. Unfortunately for Whitehead, no photos exist!
@@leifvejby8023 never read about exceeding the speed of sound on an Me262. Even the late P-47D and M could dive faster than the Me262 only because they have dive recovery flaps to get out of compressebility...
![The Fighter That Tried To Replace The Spitfire | Martin-Baker MB.5 [Aircraft Overview #82]](/img/1.gif)
My great Grandfather flew Typhoons in 1944-5 he said he first flew at a indicated 590mph in a Spitfire mk9 in 1943 whilst diving to escape three 109Fs and the Typhoon regularly exceeded 600mph indicated in a dive, he lived until he was 82years old despite two crash landings and being shot down three times between 1943-45
May your grandfather Rest In Peace. Much respect to him.❤️
I new RAF ground crew who all through the war listed to their pilots tell them that they where moving so fast that they almost pulled the wings off their spit.
Your great grandfather was a steely eyed beast. I tip my hat sir!.
600 mph indicated is unlikely. True airspeed, perhaps.
@General Melchett also interesting reading is the report from the RAF's speed test between a Typhoon, a captured Focke Wulf FW-190 and a Griffon-engined Spitfire. It was though that the fastest would be the Typhoon, followed by the Focke Wulfe, and the Spitfire would be bringing up the rear, but it turned out the Spitfire was the fastest (and considerably so), then the Typhoon and finally the Focke Wulf.
"I'm somehow back at 40000 feet, without an engine having blacked out and come out of a fatal dive. However, no need to bail out, I have these enormous balls of steel that will help me land the Spitfire Superglider safely". Respect.
According to Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown’s book ‘Wings On My Sleeve’, the dive undertaken by Tony Martindale that resulted in the loss of the prop & reduction gear which left the Spitfire with slightly swept wings was his second dive that day. The first reached M0.91 and he’d had to apply 80lb of force to the stick to recover from the manoeuvre. Brown stated that he’d had to use both hands to apply 60lb of pull in his own M0.86 dive and wouldn’t be able to exceed that so Martindale took it further as he was a much larger and stronger chap.
Incidentally, it’s not surprising that Martindale passed out as his weight-reduced Spit hurtled back up to 40,000’ ~ he pulled 11G in doing so.
I've seen an old interview in which General Chuck Yeager himself said that he wasn't the first to break the sound barrier, he readily admitted that he was the first to break he sound barrier IN LEVEL FLIGHT. He absolutely agreed that a few pilots had indeed broken the sound barrier in souped up piston engine planes in steep dives before he did it in the X-1 on October 14, 1947.
I know that he agreed that "Wheaties" Welch exceeded Mach 1 in a shallow dive in a specially modified XP-86A before the X-1's Mach 1 flight, but the XP-86A wasn't a piston-engine plane but a swept-wing jet. It's physically impossible for a piston-engine plane to exceed Mach 1 because the propellers lose efficiency rapidly in the transonic regime. The RAE's recorded fastest piston-engine powered flight is Martindale's 1,000 km/h (Mach 0.92) dive in his Spitfire, and the FAI's accepted record is held by "Voodoo," a specially modified P-51 Mustang, at 533.53 miles per hour (855.41 km/h). The FAI record is for level flight over a specified course, and it's possible Voodoo could break Martindale's record if a diving flight were allowed under modern record-keeping.
The Me 163 may also have managed to break the sound barrier
@@Rudeljaeger yes, although since that was a rocket plane rather than a propeller plane, it would have likely had an easier time doing so without the drag of the propeller
Also keep in mimd hat even though the plane did not reach mach 1, that the airflow over the wings would exceed mach1.
This evening I watched the Antiques Roadshow. A gentleman on there displayed his Father's medals and log book with aerial reconnaisance photos from ww2. Apparently low level photos were only safely obtained by high speed dives. The aircraft had no armament. They were very brave.
I am not qualified to comment on the reliability of the airspeed readings but I can state categorically that there is no sound like a Rolls-Royce Merlin on song.
Indeed. Listen to the music: ruclips.net/video/emx-sdNf-MY/видео.html
In 1944 that Mk19 in Hong Kong will have been a Griffon rather than a Merlin. A different sound but just as awesome
The Mk 19 Spitfire had the RR Griffon engine
The photo of what was left of that spitfire is amazing, how did he land that warped pile of junk?truly a gifted pilot
Yes, I'm so pleased your research was thorough. Someone else's earlier video never mentioned (beyonf Tobin) Martindale's M= 0.92 (p.50 in Capt.Brown's book 'The Miles M.52') and I also have known about Powle's 1952 incident. I do believe it because that version of the Spitfire wing was very suited to high speed - not the original shape nor the later Spiteful wing. In testing for the Miles M.52, a Miles Falcon was given a bi-convex wing, ultra thin ('the Gillette Falcon'), nearly elliptical, but with wing tips cut off diagonally along the line of the outer shock wave. Presumably, the elliptical wing of the Spitfire, though not solid was thin and was almost within the V-shaped shock wave from the aircraft's nose. PS. tests were later done on an all-moving tailplane for the M.52...on a Spitfire.
I'm impressed that these planes can take off at all, what with the massive pair of bollocks slowing them down. The greatest generation.
@Tech Stuf It was funny actually- Toms joke- Yes what a generation!
Got that right bro!
If it really reached that speed or not , what surley impresses me most is the bravery that those men showed by trying these trials, and considering the tech in those years it was really something.
I don’t really think it was all that brave considering the era. You just did what you had to do that was the culture. You felt safe as It was a state of the art aircraft and that’s just what you did back in those days. The world‘s become too soft today. Take NASA for example. I believe they’ve gone on record saying the risks that were taken in the Apollo missions would never be taken today.
@@Captndarty Anyone who climbs into an aircraft and tries to do what has never been done before is brave, no matter then or now. Stop rubbishing people just because you are the 8 billionth bravest person on the planet.
@@neilgriffiths6427 I couldn't have said it any better mate, there's always somebody dragging others down.
@@Captndarty I understand the ethos of your comment and whilst I don't flatly disagree; I think that these wonderfully skilled test-pilots, with a very good insight in to what they were provoking, were chosen for a reason. To battle against a Nazi airforce with matching performance is highly commendable whereby your fate is mostly decided by your own skill but to taunt the laws of physics is beyond reproach.
As for NASA? What a bunch of cu~~s, risk assessment? They knew of the Morton Thiokol issue with the SR boosters and then later the 'likelihood 'of insulating foam debris damage, yet they still forged ahead. There was no wartime pressures or Presidential decrees to comply with with the Shuttle missions? 'The likelihood'? Is that the worst place to inhabit😆?
Almost, there was a strong feeling that more than 1 went through it & survived. My father flew a Mustang Mk111 for the RAF & the Spits were considerably faster in a dive. His whole plane was shaking so much he couldn’t read the instruments. More than 1 Spit literally broke apart too.
I am talking not by choice or maybe by choice. In the film with Ralph Richardson ( The Sound Barrier , yes I know it’s a film, but a good one the beginning from memory shows a pilot in a Spitfire with the plane vibrating heavily) There were a number of unexplained crashes involving Spits where the think they may have tore themselves apart with the compression limit. I am not saying it did happen but there are theories they got very close.
Notice in the photograph of Sq Lr Martindale and three others, the most famous test pilot of all time Captain Eric Melrose Brown RN who also received the AFC for his momentous work on aircraft carrier aviation, which included the first landing of a twin engined bomber onto a carrier, the Mosquito, and after the war the first landing, and take off of a jet propelled aircraft, and recorded some 2700 carrier landings in his illustrious career .
You are right this man is not only brave but a Genius. Are there any books about him ?
@@oceanhome2023 ruclips.net/video/8sK0mZnBx94/видео.html What a guy and also, props to Reginald Mitchell... well done Sirs.
@@oceanhome2023 Wings on my Sleeve
Testing for Combat
Wings of the Luftwaffe
Wings of the Navy
Duels in the Sky
They are some that are still available
Very accurate portrayal of these pilots exploits . And cements how fabulous an aircraft the Spitfire was ! Thanks .
Supermarine developed an even faster model. Featuring an even higher performance version of the Griffin engine and the bubble canopy fuselage, this version - now known as the 'Spiteful' - featured a laminar-flow wing similar to that of the P-51 Mustang. This avoided the lack of rigidity that Mitchell's elliptical wing suffered at very high speed, and helped to reduce the problem of compressibility as speed approached the sound barrier. Sadly, with the onset of the jet age, very few were made.
Did the Spiteful wing have a higher tactical /critical mach number?
The mk. 19 Spitfire had a stronger wing too, even though it was elliptical, and high speed roll rates were much improved as a result. The Spitfire wing got redesigned structurally multiple times, though, the first service version being later Vs, but also separately on the IV (not put into service) and the VII and VIII and derivatives (and some but not all VI).
@@baselhammond3317 no, it didn't. Based on testing on the Attacker, possibly a tiny amount lower, but it allowed for better performance 400-500mph, which was more important.
GRIFFON engine.
@@stevengriffin7873 apologies. 'Autocorrect' was 'helping'.
Thank you for covering this episode on the Spitfire.
I live in Newmarket suffolk , nearby is the old RAF Duxford aerodrome and new museum , and have the privilege of hearing that merlin engine sound and seeing that beautiful R. J Mitchel designed aircraft regularly - and it stops me dead in my tracks every single time.
one very lucky person
You may have seen my flight 3 years ago when my excellent pilot Barry Hughes allowed me to take control for a couple of minutes and I then realised why one of the ww2 pilots I had seen on television said that you didn't so much fly the spitfire as put it on like an overcoat and it flew itself.
It's such a pity that Mr Mitchell died before he saw the results of his great invention.
The stripped photoreconisence Spitfire flight is recounted in Eric "Winkle" Brown's marvellous book "Sings on my Sleeve" A must read for any aviation enthusiast!
Yes . I'm not certain that Eric was ever noted for his singing ability !😅😅
What many people do not understand is that the local Speed of Sound is dependant on Temperature. Air Density has almost no influence on S of S. At 40,000 ft, the air temp is likely to be in the vicinity of -40 degrees, so the S of S is lower than at ground level, (763MPH @ 15 degrees C). Therefore, for a given groundspeed, the Mach number will be higher at higher altitude, due to the lower S of S, which changes by about 1.3 MPH per degree C. At 40,000ft the local S of S is likely to be in the vicinity of 690MPH. If the plane descends at a constant airspeed, the Mach number will fall as the local temp and local S of S rise. Many pilots were saved from high speed compressibility in a dive as the Mach number fell with the rise in local S of S.
Great Movie ! Thanks. Your Northumberland / Durham accent reminds me that i fell a little bit in love with every girl who ever spoke with me using that lovely accent. Thanks for the memory.
I would call the Spitfire the Bradman of propellor flight. Both were the greatest of all time, both inspired their nations like no other and both had an average just under the magical number. Which is fitting for humble heroes.
Great video, well done. Such an amazing aircraft the Spitfire was- perhaps the greatest of them all. IMO more recognition should be awarded posthumously to its designer R J Mitchell who in fact sacrificed any prospects of his own recovery to ensure this masterpiece was conceived
Great video, well done, very good commentary, 👍.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it.
The pilots notes on the Antiques Roadshow last weekend showed that his lightweight unarmed photo reconnaissance Spitfire reached close to 600mph in a dive. That means the airframe was better than nearly all the early jet aircraft. It certainly had a better limiting Mach number than the later P51 Mustang. The Spitfire was better than it had any right to be in this respect.
Indeed, the airframe *was* better than many early jet aircraft. Many years ago I knew a chap who'd been ground crew on the early Meteors and mentioned that an instruction to the pilots was "Don't turn too quickly or you'll find yourself doing 600mph without an aircraft".
I heard a spitfire pilot dived on a me 109
And had a loud bang his prop broke but he was over mach 1
@@jackwills7092 over Mach 1, given the wing profile, is highly unlikely. The IAS may have been high, but the pitot we wouldn't be calibrated for anything so fast. You'd only be likely to get a 109 to M1 if the wings came off first.
@@Kevin-mx1vi the Meteor had an issue at 0.84 meaning the wrong manoeuvre could result in something akin to an unrecoverable flat spin. It had a higher than desirable accident rate, some of which was due to having to send trainees up solo to qualify in single engine operation using a process that was unsafe. A lot of accidents were due to cold war issues and were things like pilots flying into terrain in bad weather. Overall the loss rate wasn't any worse than a lot of early jets and was actually better than some.
@@wbertie2604 Thankyou, I guess that explains why the pilots were told not to pull on the stick too hard.
And the idea of sending a trainee up solo to fly on a single engine in an early jet makes my hair stand on end !
As a USN/USMC flight test engineer I think they made the correct decision. While aircraft flown out of Farnborough had precisely calibrated airspeed equipment a fleet aircraft would have a much more significant deviation in its equipment. Fleet instruments have no need to be precisely calibrated which would be beyond the capabilities of the local repair facilities. The .03 difference in Mach number is easily within the margin of error for fleet instruments IMHO.
As someone that absolutely loves the Spitfire and its history. I think you have done a fair job telling the story about the near mach speed. But to anyone that isn't aware of these events in history, I think it would have been nice to have heard you mention the other aircraft that were tested for the same purpose, but were concluded as not up to the job. One that stands out in my mind is the P51 Mustang. Always compared with the Spitfire due to it's Merlin engine. (British Specification, may I add) . I know you said very briefly about it towards the end. But the Spitfire proved more stable and the fact it could glide, speaks volumes for its design.
All aircraft can glide, even the Space Shuttle.
@@David-lb4te I think you will find most aircraft will fall out of the sky without propulsion. They need the right design. The space shuttle was purposely built that way.
@@rmstitanic8163 The Mustang went down like a brick. The wing which was one of the main reasons for its success also caused problems like what my father called the “Super Stall” & poor gilding performance. However at high levels it was in his terms “ the best” .
@@beagle7622 a 'Super Stall' cannot be performed by any of the aircraft in this story. For a super stall to occur, you need a very high tailplane, which these fighters didn't have...
@@julianneale6128 That’s what they called it in the squadrons evidently. The Mustangs one real vice as far as my father was concerned. The RAF Mustang pilots all had a few hundred hours, experienced guys. He had about 500 when he went onto Mustangs . It was a high speed stall I believe & he said that he learnt to recognise it . It killed a new pilot in his squadron when he was there. My dad was not as story teller. He never talked about Ops , but happily talked about the plane. Somebody sent me a summary of the missions he flew while in France. He flew a MKIV a few times but not on Ops.
They had no stall warning so had to be careful.
A guy that I worked with had been in the RAF Regiment in the war, guarding air bases. At one base used by the USAAF, a Thunderbolt pilot was doing acrobatics, and put his aircraft into a steep dive; when he landed the wings had ripped out of the fuselage.
So how did he land?
@@thethirdman225 without wings, probably quite quickly
Maybe Colin means something had ruptured at the wing root or twisted but not detached.
Thunderbolts were known to pile on speed very quickly compared to some contemporary aircraft in a dive.
@@veritasvincit2745 Yeah, he probably does. I was just making a joke.
@@veritasvincit2745 WW2 aircraft had wings that were bolted on, and the wing roots were faired in. If the wings had bent back a bit, then that fairing would be ripped open. That's probably what was being described. It'd be a nailbiting landing, as the pilot would be able to see this and be aware that the pickup points on the fuselage might also be bent so wing failure on landing would be very possible
I reckon he did hit Mach 0.96! I like these videos, keep up the good work!
Thanks very much
Nice one!
I think the Spit broke the supersonic barrier, i wonder what other amazing aircraft RJ Michell would have come up with had he lived ?
I'm a keen spitfire fan, and I've often wondered the same.. I can imagine some incredible aircraft being built if Mitchell had lived.. 👍
If you look at other Reginal Mitchell designs you will wonder out of which hat he pulled the Spitfire. It's sad that he never knew just how good it turned out. It was about the only front line aircraft that stayed in the front line the entire duration of WW2.
*_"I think the Spit broke the supersonic barrier"_*
Not possible. The energy created in a full throttle dive is simply not sufficient to overcome the massive drag increase as the aircraft approaches what used to be known as "the sound barrier". The clue is in the name.
Best program Ant and Dec have ever done. Great upload all joking aside. Many thanks 👍
Aaaaaah the sweet sound of Merlin. Coupled with the smell even better!
My Grandfather was with 41 squadron when they were equipped with the Mk 12 spit, one of the tasks assigned to them was AA gunnery searchlight/ radar calibration, which involved flying straight and level at 20,000 feet for 20 minutes , after calibration had been completed (notified by radio), it was fun time. Full throttle, stand it on its nose and see how fast the 'blighter' would go , resulting in the ASI indicator needle hitting the stop. the control surfaces getting very heavy and after landing, a bo**ocking from the CO, " what the hell did you do to that aircraft, what was that noise" . My Grandfather was adamant the his colleagues told him they heard a bang or a boom, not that he did or that they would have known what it was. This little 'procedure' was banned after the odd
"airscrew came off". Later in his career doing high speed dives in Meteors and Vampires my Grandfather noted and much later told me that the spit 12 was a damn sight nicer at those higher speeds. I always found it hard to believe that he broke the sound barrier in a Spit but did not wish to question him too much out of respect.
Awesome my friend...l am a very old fighter fighter pilot my self...!
@@steveshoemaker6347 I'm glad you enjoyed it, 41 squadron at that time was an operational training unit , my grandfather and his fellow up and coming pilots new the 12's were coming and had got it into their heads that, "they were the cats whiskers", to be getting these new "Super Spits with their Griffon engines", they watched the first one come in and land, and were somewhat deflated when a little WAAF got out!
@@williamirlam8758 It wouldn't be a WAAF flying, it would have been a lady from the ATA- Air Transport Auxiliary.
@@liverpoolscottish6430 Thanks for that, I was repeating the it as my Grandfather had told me, except I omitted the word 'tasty' between the word, a and little, and the fact she was then whisked of to the offices mess.
@@williamirlam8758 I bet she was! lol ;)
The Spitfire was a Design Classic, never was so much owed to one man, and that man was R. J. Mitchell, a crying shame that he died of Cancer before he ever saw his masterpiece fly in action.
I think we forget Joe Smith who took the Spitfire right through the War Mitchell had gone well before it.
Very good video very interesting great pictures of the spitfire inside the cookpit , well done all
Glad you enjoyed it
@@TheNorthernHistorian pleasure to watch , once again thanks all.
Love your videos man! Absolutely fascinating! So well put together please don’t ever stop.
I appreciate that!
A Yank here and I must say that the Bravery of these pilots is unmatched and it could not have been done with out the technicans and scientists on the group ! All of these people deserve medals too !
BYW Have any propeller aircraft ever broken the Sound Barrier ????
No Prop aircraft has ever gone supersonic.
That was the fastest limiting Mach number of any propeller aircraft.
The Los Angelas times reported that an American P-47 Thunderbolt traveled over 700 MPH in the same test the Brits did on the Spitfire. They took the P-47 to 40k feet and then dove at 45degrees. The speed is disputed since they didn't use proper speed indicators.
P47 700 MPH ...Dream on .@@Wallyworld30
Excellent, no bloody annoying music. Interesting video
Glad you enjoyed it
Thanks for posting.
It's nice to hear a northern accent.
Both my folks are from Sunderland.
🙂
T hx 4 sharing just ❤ the Supermarine Spitfire.
No problem 👍
@@TheNorthernHistorian have lost count how many ⏱⏰ l have watched "The Battle of Britain" wish l had the cha-ching 2 personally own a couple of Spitfires. Not 100% sure which Mks 9-12 Some research required. Definitely a counter rotation Griffon version. Also really appreciate the P51 Mustang. A aircraft that didnt come alive untill the mighty Rolls Royce Engine came 2 the rescue. Had the opportunity 2 purchase a beautifull framed Spitfire print very large about 10-12yrs back. Unfortunately did have the spare cash at the time.
Great video thank you. Reconnaissance version of the Spitfire reminds me of the great BBC documentary with Dan Snow about RAF Medmenhan and operation Crossbow.
Well done , excellent video.
Thank you! Cheers!
As well as the advantage of thin wings, I've always thought that the design of the Spitfire fuselage produced natural area ruling that gave drag reduction at very high speed.
I think he managed that speed. Higher altitudes mean thinner atmosphere means less friction. I reckon he clocked that speed while still quite high up in his dive
What an amazing video! The spitfire is such an amazing airplane!
Thanks for a great video!
Glad you liked it!
Thanks for a Great episode … I’m surprised that it wasn’t Eric Brown flying this Mission.. I thought he handled all the Mach Limit research ..
He did some, they all did, but eric says in his book he was not strong enough to pull out at those very high speeds
There were many involved
The Northern tone sounds great for narration quite professionally presented subject. 👏👏👍
Thank you kindly!
'Winkle' brown and the RAE Test Pilots Tested the P-47,P-38 & P-51 at their Maximum dive speeds. So as to determine the Max Mach Number that could be used in operational conditions. The P-47 and P-38 had surprisingly low attainable Mach numbers. They Advised the USAAF to concentrate on P-51 production. and procurement.
Late P-47N had a critical Mach number of around 0.80. Early ones was around 0.69.
The P-38 was a far more draggy aircraft than most realize.
@@vascoribeiro69 REALY... with the same Aerodynamics.. Ie the Wing?
P 47 mach . 0 71 . P 38 mach 0. 68 .
Not good.
@Hoa Tattis Eric Winkle Browns book .
Wings on my Sleeve.
P 51 0.78 P 38 0.68 P 47 0.71 .
good video that lad
They were lucky that they were able to pull out of the dive.
Indeed they were.
Ole Hansen
A later one, early jet didn't pull out.
De Havilland lost a son.
great video, very informative!
Very good history of the Closest sonic boom piston engine for the spitfire and can you do the next history of spitfire highest altitude
@Hoa Tattis yeah that the history we like to hear
@Hoa Tattis maybe
I think this is a great little video 👉🇬🇧👈👉💎👈
Quite common for Tempest pilots to exceed 560mph in dives, but i find 690 very hard to swallow. 606 is hard enough considering the weight & power. Spits are just not strong enough, damn lucky the wings didn't tear off. I seem to remember Alex Henshaw saying he would put them into a 450 max speed dive, at which point they were out of control.
I believe that was indicated airspeed which would have equated to a higher true airspeed,; the disparity tending to increase with altitude.
Alex Henshaw could barrel Roll a Lancaster .
Alex Henshaw was flight testing production squadron aircraft a lot of the time, so extremes of performance were not possible or desirable.
An addenda to the Alex Henshaw involvement. He test flew the first of 300 Lancasters built at Castle Bromwich . The factory mainly built Spitfires Marks V , IX & XVI . which Henshaw would have test flown. The more advanced Marks XII , XIV , XIX all Griffin powered were built at Southampton. Ace Johnny Johnson considered that the Griffin powered should have had a name change other then Spitfire as their handling characteristics were different.
And this is why we have the Great in Great Britain...for all time
With regards to the RAF Kai Tak Spitfire, it would be interesting to note whether the Speedometers where calibrated to National Standards and what was the accuracy and repeatability of them. If it was the case that the gauge was calibrated and the Spitfire had been just shipped from the factory we could say that this was indeed the new record. Usually certain gauges are classed accurate to +/- X mph or as a +/- percentage when manufactured, given the vibrations these aircraft would go through, gauge inaccuracy would increase over time!
They are or were world accepted.
i doubt the highest speed in the spitfire as there was no propellor or frame damage. excellent video
Why doubt it?
Didn't realise Declan Donnelly had a youtube channel.
Is that War Thunder that you used for the CG-animated reconstruction?
No. It's Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ It’s to go with the supersonic MOSQUITO
We were walking in a field near the memorial arboretum when the bbmf spitfire flew low over us and round the arboretum, then the pilot circled us in the field as he’d seen us taking pictures as he passed, our own personal show, stunning plane and sound
Yes, watching one swoop over the white cliffs with NO camera on me was so bloody annoying but the engine noise as it looped up was great.
According to german accounts a photo reconnaissance spitfire did hit the mach 1.0 barrier and it is assumed it was as fast as mach 1.01. The Spitfire came under attack from ME-109s over france and dived to escape, the ilot flew low enough to be fairly safe from most if not all of the area anit air defenses. A german officer had reported seeing the spitfire fly low into a canal, and infact flew under two bridges, having times in his report the times indicated that the spitfire had mach 1.0. The same spitfire actually broke appart with the pilot barely surviving but the pilot had managed to destroy much of his photo equimpent, and when taken into custody he was saluted and given extra good tratement by the luftwaffe for his "heroic speed" as they called it.
I did read later that aviation experts have gone over the various reports at the time and found that the spirfire could not have travelled that fast, but they do belive it may have been as much as mach 0.75.
My dad was in a Spitfire squadron as part of the ground support crew. As an enthusiastic participant, dad was convinced they could touch the speed of sound in a dive, they were the best plane ever built as far as he was concerned. Perhaps the pilots mistook the mini-booms from the propeller as an indication of speed?
The Spitfire was not an especially durable aircraft. The P-47 not stripped down either for example, would go into compressibility in a frightening short period of time if the nose was put down as repeatedly recorded. But it never bent or broke. I don’t know how its possible to mention this and not mention both the P-47 and the P-38. If the special airspeed indicator was linked to air pressure as the standard A/S indicator is then its was not reliable in compressibility. And the Merlin had a reduction gear on the propellers to keep the propeller RPM down to avoid the tips and more of the prop going supersonic in normal flight. Its also dependent on temperature and altitude. AND once in compressibility its impossible to pull out until the aircraft got low enough that the air density increased to the point that the drag slowed the aircraft out of the compressibility range. It DID take a lot of guts to do this and a tip of the hat to the pilots. The reason Chuck Yeager was able to exceed the speed of sound and survive was the he and the engineers changed the horizontal stabilizer to a stabilator IE the entire airfoil moved like on a moder jest aircraft, even airliners. Without this mod super sonic flight was basically impossible. This gave the F86 in Korea an advantage over the conventionally tailed Mig15. Swept wings were not needed as shown by “Glamorous Glennis”, the F104the X-15 etc. But it DOES work better.
It is possible that he did reach that hi Mach number, but the Pitot tube was designed for the aircrafts normal speed range. It might have been influenced by super sonic air flows.
Chuck Yeager, the second person to go super sonic. The first one was George Welsh in a prototype F86 three days before.
@Penelope Scott the F86 officially went supersonic only a few months later. If your interested have a read of a book called Mach 1, can't remember who wrote it.
I have a childhood memory of a film about these spitfire tests. In the film it was said that beyond the sound barrier the flight controls worked in reverse. The his would have been mid 60s, but I can't recall the title. Regarding the validity of speeds, a similar situation befell the GWR loco City of Truro in 1903. The guards timing log of the trains run show that it was certainly possible it surpassed 100mph, but it was discounted as an 'unofficial timing' !!
I seem to recall that they discovered control reversal at very high speed, and it was solved by reskinning the elevator with aluminium, rather than canvas?
@@cossiedriverrs Rings a bell, thanks 👍👍
"This research helped Chuck Yeager break the sound barrier in the Bell X1". That and the fact that we mysteriously cancelled our ready to go supersonic aircraft and then obligingly let the Americans look it over so that they could copy the tail plane!
And let's not even mention giving jet engine technology to the Soviets who promptly put it into the Mig 15 , which outperformed any Western fighters of the time.
The cancellation if the Miles Supersonic Test aircraft was decided upon by a solitary British Civil servant who decided, on his own, that test flying a potentially supersonic aircraft was: " too dangerous and likely to result in loss of life" which overlooked the fact that 2 pilots in the High-speed test unit had already crashed and died whilst flying and researching High-speed flight. Thus this particular fool of a man handed the prestige of cracking the sound-barrier to the Americans .The British public service have been known to take some stupid decisions at times and this was one of them. The Miles test aircraft was almost ready to fly and commence testing. What a stupid decision.
@@michellebrown4903 socialist government, sympathetic to communism.
@General Melchett What would you expect, they were the same people who would not fund the renewal of his patent for the princely sum of 5 Pounds!
@@iststeve …Let’s not forget Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Profumo and other members of the “establishment” who also did SO much for Britain!
Powell's ASI was broken as a result of the high speed dive, so it's very difficult to discern if the recorded airspeed of 690 mph was accurate. Some machine the Spitfire!
That was extremely interesting. As the Mosquito was the fastest propeller plane during the war I believe it would have been considered for these tests as well. But considering it has an all wooden airframe there was possibly some doubts as to its strength. The conversations about all this at the air ministry would have been very interesting.
@Hoa Tattis I thought the Do335 did enter service, on a small scale?
@@julianneale6128The Do 335 was definitely faster than the mosquito,reaching 473 mph in level flight.
I assume that the quoted Mach # was adjusted for the altitude(s) the speed was measured at?
690mph jeez thats quick with a prop in front!
I read somewhere that a propeller driven aircraft can never break the sound barrier because of the propeller.
I don't think that that's true. There have been a couple which might have done (The Republic Thunderscreech and the 'Machbuster' racer) but didn't finish their flight testing
@@oxcart4172 The P-47 never did it.
@@thethirdman225
Where did I mention the P-47?
@@oxcart4172 You didn’t but it usually comes up.
@Oxcart . In the early 90’s I was talking with a WW2 veteran who served in the RAAF . At the end of the war he was stationed in Japan & he told of a rear propeller plane which he believed was capable of the speed of sound . I think it could have been a Kyushu J7W1 but I have also seen illustrations of a flying wing in an aircraft book years ago . He said the Americans destroyed these planes after testing them & said the reason was the jet age was here .
One correction the Wright Brothers were not the first heavier than air powered flight. That had happened ten years prior by yet another French man Clermont Ader. It however had no control surfaces which the Wright flyer sort of did. They tried wing warping with some success but the idea was eventually abandoned.
Depends on how course you could set the pitch on the prop. The radiators on Spits are in the same location as P-47 dive brakes.😊
I loved it when Thrust SSC broke the sound barrier on the ground. We need to push further and faster. It's what makes us move forward. We were always ground breakers in speed. Look at Concord utterly magnificent. What a plane to be proud of. 1 crash to be blamed on another planes debris on the runway. NOT CONCORDS FAULT.
The second Spitfire didn't reach anything near Mach 0.96. On board instruments were not made for that speed, and shown wild errors when nearing the speed of sound.
Also the 980KM/h recorded by the Reggiane Re.2005 in July 1943 trials, by Cmdr. De Prato were not indicated by the on board instruments, but triangulated from the ground.
Only the British would be so ''Honest', and overwhelmingly pleased with themselves, for being so.
No point in claiming something that isn't verifiably true, the only person you are deceiving is yourself.
No matter how fast it rotated the propeller was a Wall of Steel that could not be overcome
Yes I'll believe it, and its 112km/hr over so its not like a smidge. Thanks for the vid
gods looking at the image of Martindales spitfire, that thing looks almost unrecognisable as a spitfire... looks closer to a hurricane at that point
That’s ‘Winkle ‘Brown in the photo if I’m not mistaken.
He was part of that program so I wouldn't be surprised.
@@TheNorthernHistorian His FAA uniform is the giveaway:)
Oh yeah, great video. The narration gets better all the time. And the French pronunciation:)
Thanks for an interesting post.
I wonder how accurate the pitot probes were in providing true air speed in such conditions and how they were calibrated outside the normal flight envelope.
That was Sqn Ldr Tony Martindale attached to RAE Farnborough In a Spitfire MkXI
He was testing transonic flight when his engine ran out of control He lost his spinner and he was flung all over the sky, passing out. When he came to he was at 40000ft no engine Wings Bent up and he then glided back 20 miles the Farnborough His Machmeter showed Mach 0.92
A lot of hot air here. Ignores the fact that the Spitfire was a poor diving aircraft. In fact German pilots used diving to break combat with Spits.
I notice they spend a lot of time about the propeller, but no time on compressibility.
Finally, all of these measurements on Indicated Air Speed depended on air pressure. Thing is, this results in wildly variable and unreliable measurements. No reliable, verifiable measurements exist for any of these claims. More than a few pilots even claimed to have broken the sound barrier during WW2 based on similar bogus measurements.
... Speaking of air pressure, Mach numbers are not absolute. They vary with altitude , air pressure, and air temperature. What may be Mach 0.89 at 30k or 40k is not nearly the same number as at 20k.
These are some of the reasons post war speed records were based on performance over a closed course, using external measurements, not in a dive using unreliable IAS measurements.
I think that, on the balance of probabilities the Spit did reach a speed of Mach 0.96
Just for interest-how did you balance the probabilities?
@@riazhassan6570 Knowledge of the aircraft and it's capabilities. However, if you prefer, I think that it's more likely than not that the Spit did reach a speed of Mach 0.96
@@pierremainstone-mitchell8290 the most common flights at such high speeds was made with P47's during hunts for me 262's: the P47 was probably the fastest ww2 propeller aircraft in dive of all times, was able to fly FASTER in dive as a me 262 without damage (the me 262 was unable to fly faster than ~950km/h because deadly loss of control caused from a tail design fail... The Spit was never use in such conditions because was a low range aircraft...
@@leneanderthalien Whilst I take your point the question asked was whether viewers of the video thought that the Spit reached a speed of Mach 0.96.
On that basis the performance/use of any other aircraft, whilst interesting, is, to be bluntly frank, not relevant to the question asked.
As I wrote in my original comment - "I think that, on the balance of probabilities the Spit did reach a speed of Mach 0.96" and I stand by that observation!
The Thunderbolt could dive with both the P-38 and the Spitfire, but few remember according to the P-51 Flight Manual the never exceed absolute top speed limit in a Mustang was 505 mph...
Spitfires constantly went over their supposed top speed in Dives with emergency super charger boost activated
The P47 was frequently use at very high speeds (probably close to 1000km/h) during hunt on Me 262's over germany (Spitfires was nevers use because had a low range) , and was able to fly FASTER in dive as a me 262 who was limited at ~950km/h from tail design defects who make this aircraft totaly uncontrolable in transsonic speeds...but "almost break the sound barrier" for the Spitfire is a false assertion: the sound speed (mach 1) is at 1224km/h at sea level and 1153km/h at 5000m altitude and the speedometer use on the WW2 aircrafts was unable to measure the real speed over 900km/h...i did use metric for the numbers because mph is not international allowed , but only Knots = nautical miles per hour (who is metric), or km/h) and mph are only use from Brits and US, never from continental europe countries...
No it wasnt.
11:05 There was an instance where a Lockheed P-38 Lighting reached 780 mph in a dive, but its instruments weren't designed for accurate measurements.
nope, the P38 had tail problems (appears supersonic waves who destroy the tail this is Why the P38 had dive speedbreaks) at high speeds and was unable to fly such speed without desintegration in the air
@@leneanderthalien Mentioned its instruments weren't designed for such speeds, hence inaccurate (i.e. read high),
read in 𝘓-1011 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘩𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 1973
Utter nonsense!!)
Is there any data that was recorded during Geoffrey De Haviland's fatal flight, and what was the aircraft type ?
why are you asking a comment thread of a YT video? Don't you know how to do a google search? Even my 10 year old daughter can do a google search. LOL
@@autodidact537 ,,, because I am sure, that there is a high probability that the answer is unknown, and it would be more of a speculation or an opinion, that de Haviland broke the sound barrier, and I've never read anything that concurs along those lines .
Small bit of info - Seletar is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable and is more like Seleeter. Good video - lots of interesting information.
You have to factor in that the speed is dependent on air density. I think that speed, or something very close it was in fact achieved in the far east.
Temperature. But it didn't happen anyway.
Great piece of work! The bit about how the prop is driven directly off the engine crankshaft is wrong and so is the phase "making so much power they were breaking the sound barrier"- power has little to do with it- the propeller blade tip speed, as it goes past the speed of sound, starts a rhythmic moving sonic boom that shakes through the entire craft. But work on the details- the presentation was A OK! FR
The highest mach number attained by a Tempest 5. 0.87 .
fuk 1100kph, thats fast as f in a propeller driven plane. Respect for that effort!!
I think I’d be more confused as to why the third spitfire didn’t take damage like the one before. That alone would make me question the reliability of the speed and possibly the story.
probably a material difference between mk 11 and mk 19 not entirely sure but it's the only guess because dropping from 50,000 feet the mk 19 was also built with the griffon engine and so was designed better for the higher top speed so new engine and new fuselage and wing designs probably, sorry for the 1 year late reply you probably won't see this but if you do this might help a little.
Yes
Airspeed indicators use pitot tubes which may be affected by shock waves especially with propeller driven aircraft so who knows?
A staggering 469MPH! -The Northern Historian (yes I'm childish)
No matter if the Spit. Reached these ridiculous speeds or not, still wonderful A/C. By the way, the Wright Bros. we’re NOT the first to achieve powered flight, it’s been proven!!!
Proof? Just the standard procedure to ask for some.
@@mattevans4377 Gustave Whitehead made several flights in 1901 & 1902, witnessed by a variety of ppl. Controversial up to the present day!! Even Wright Bros. photos(ea. a different plane)of the ‘flight’, are extremely controversial. Unfortunately for Whitehead, no photos exist!
I think the romours of ME262 breaking the sound barrier in a dive in WWII are much more beliveable after watching this.
The Me262 had a critical Mach number similar to the best piston engine fighters. Same buffeting and control problems.
@@vascoribeiro69 Yes, but the English post war Me262 users manual claimed that the buffeting would cease when the speed of sound was exceeded.
@@vascoribeiro69 but a much slipperier design and more power oh and swept wings. Lots of variables in atmospheric conditions too.
@@leifvejby8023 never read about exceeding the speed of sound on an Me262. Even the late P-47D and M could dive faster than the Me262 only because they have dive recovery flaps to get out of compressebility...
@@hexadecimal7300 not very swept...