The Spitfire
The Spitfire is the most famous British aircraft of all time.  Although  there were more Hawker Hurricanes during the Battle of Britain, the Spitfire is still remembered as the sleek, fighting machine that turned the tide during the Battle of Britain. The Spitfire is one of the fastest and manoeuvrable fighters of World War II and it served in every combat theatre. Reginald Mitchell designed the Spitfire, it was a small, graceful fighter with elliptical wings and eight guns in the wings, and was able to fire without being hindered by the propeller.
 

The immortal Spitfire became not merely one of the best performing fighters of all time, and also one of the best looking. Although never a long ranged aircraft, the spitfire was a champion in dogfights. Spitfires were often dived at velocities approaching the speed of sound that was faster than any of the German Jets. In the early versions of the Spitfire, Merlin engines were used, but in later versions Had the Griffon Engine and the bubble canopy which made one o the most beautiful aircraft of history more appealing. The Spitfire was a derivation of the Naval carrier based Seafire. It made a vital contribution to British naval air power until new American Carrier based fighters appeared. The spitfire also found a new role as a tactical Fighter-Bomber.

Technical Details               Spitfire Mk 1A

The Spitfire was a single seat fighter and interceptor. It had a 1103-kw Rolls Royce Merlin 45 Vee piston Engine. It’s maximum speed was 594km/h at 5945 metres. It’s Range was 1827 km and it’s service ceiling was 11125 metres. It weighed 2267 kg empty and 2911 kg fully loaded. It had eight 7.7mm Browning machine guns with 350 rounds per gun. The eight machine guns was considered heavy before the war, but although they could pump out a lot of ammunition, the machine guns were not as effective as the heavy cannons of the German Me 109. The Radio aerial ran from a mast behind the cockpit to the top of the tailfin. The ejector exhaust stubs were designed  to add thrust to the spitfires propellers  and the designers claimed that they added 5km/h to the maximum speed. One weakness of the spitfire , which it shared with the 109 was it narrow track outward retracting undercarriage. This made it easy to crash it on the ground or carrier decks. Behind the cockpit there was a huge sheet of armour, fitted as a result of early air battles over France.
Few airworthy Spitfires still survive into 1999, and those they still do are the stars of any air show that they appear in.		 Dimensions
Span                       11.23 metres 
Length                      9.12 metres 
Height                      3.02 metres
Wing area              22.48 metres squared
Spitfire pilots rush to their  planes in Africa 
as the raid Siren goes off.

The British home defence plan.

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