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The Spitfire

  • Thread starter Thread starter O.C.
  • Start date Start date
Rod, Thats a great photo, those are the fuel tanks for the Spitfire and if you go back to reply 1 you can see one in place, they were placed right in front of the pilot.
Another thing about the tanks were, they were coated with a kind of rubber a few layers thick so if a bullet penetrated it it would seal it self
 
I can settle it as I have 1942 Aircraft Recognition Manual by C H GIBBS
I will go and have a look
 
Messerscmitt has a Diamond wing pattern tappered both sides so that one is out Stuka it is
I d'aint know you was a plane spotter Rod
 
:-[ I adore WW2 Aircraft, although I don't recognise all of them, some like the spit and stuka are very distinctive in their wing pattern. I was a little uncertain though, you cant really see the Gull like upturns on the posted picture. ?
 
The Fuel tank was made of fabricated rubber and inside it had 3 linings from the outside going in
Fabricated Rubber
Plastic rubber
Inner lining
inner lining
then the fuel,when or if the tank was penetrated by bullets or shrapnel the fuel comes in contact with the plastic rubber lining which is made of solvent and then it automatically seals itself.
 
Any questions on the Spitfire or technical photo's you want to see I have the manual so fire away
 
Spitfire Island. Photo I took early this morning of the monument erected in memory of the Spitfire on the A452 Chester Rd
 
Designed by Tim Tolkien, the grandson of J.R.R.Tolkien who of course wrote LOTR. Its a fantastic sculpture, but I understand some time ago that it was to be moved? I wonder if we know anymore about that yet?
 
A nice little Spitfire brooch that they sold and all the money went into the building of more Spitfires
 
Pilots Cockpit of a Spitfire
I have marked in blue for easy reading
1, Gun sight.
2, Gun sight mounting.
3, Artificial horizon.
4, Rate of climb indicator.
5, Revolution counter.
6, Brake Lever.
6A Turn indicator.
7, Gun button.
8,Control column,
9,Air speed indicator.
10, Oil and fuel pressures
11, Engine – Boost gauge.
12, Oil and Radiator pressure gauge
13, Fuel Gauges
14, Rudder Bar
15, Light switch
16,Emergency pump for operating undercarriage if automatic mechanism fails to function
17, Undercarriage selector lever
18, Pilots seat
19, Recognition lamp switch
20, Radiator –flap control
 
Fantastic....  I understand many pilots reconfigured their gun convergence

sigus.jpg


Another Spitfire variant the Seafang based on the Spitfire Mk XIV with the Giffon engine first flew in 1946....Production of this aircraft never commenced I think maybe because of the new jet technology Meteors and Vampire aircraft.
 
Photo 1,The Fitting of the guns into the Spitfires by Women Armourers
Photo 2, Test firing the guns to make sure they are set right (Note all the spent casing in the floor)
Drawing shows range of the shells
 
The Spitfires course is set by a magnetic compass and to avoid error it has to be checked and rechecked many times over.
There is so much metal on a plane that it becomes necessary to swing or adjust the compass very carefully on the ground before it can be made to give a correct reading.
But even after this has been done the course set in the air is sometimes not as accurate as it should be.
If an aircraft flies through an electrical storm the magnetism of the aircraft changes substantially, Bombs are also magnetic and the aircraft might have been swung on the ground with bombs on board, but what happens when they are released? The same applies with the undercarriage down then up as it takes off.
All this has to be checked very carefully and tested on a turntable, the aircraft is swung in various positions to get the compass to give a correct reading
Shown below is a Spitfire having its compass adjusted
 
Shadow factories that were built next to existing factories manufactured arms, munitions or built aircraft, tanks or anything that helped the war effort.
At the Austin Longbridge plant they built aircraft, Cadburys Chocolate factory they made munitions, while at the Nuffield Plant at Castle Bromwich they made the Spitfire.
Photo shows the Spitfire Plant from the air
 
Spitfire pilots waiting for the action to start, a couple play shove halfpenny and another plays darts while the other one pours himself a drink
 
Re: Spitfire Replies Here

I thought that this might be of some interest to you Graham. It has been cast out of solid copper. (home made) Someone was obviously passionate about The Spit. I'm not sure how it came to be in my possession, my son thiks that one of his friends gave it to him. Nevertheless, someone has gone to a lot of trouble. I am buying a new lathe and milling machine soon (starting a business from home) so I think I will finish it off properly. With all of the great info that you have posted, I shouldn't be short of data

The piece of paper is A4.
 
Re: Spitfire Replies Here

Fran the small one are usually copper the larger ones are made of brass.
quite unusual if it is copper (Get the wings right)
 
Re: Spitfire Replies Here

I thought it was brass at first until i gave it a bit of a buff. It may be an alloy that someone has made up, but it is definitely more on the copper side, but not pure.
Between finishing the house and re-building my car, it will probably finish up being either a retirement job or a "SOD YOU!!!! I'm gooin' down me shed!!!" job. :)

Do you have a decent plan photo or drawing Graham, so I can try to get the scale right. The wings look a bit skinny to me, I may have to add ailerons.
 
Its a hard little know fact that over 100 women paid the ultimate price for their war work and were killed at the Castle Bromwich Spitfire plant in night bombing raids on the factory when a bomb blew the roof off the machine shop.
The Shadow factory was taken over from Nuffields by Vickers-Armstrong and use to turn out 350 planes a week and I think now the only thing left is the Flight shed which was part of the Jaguar Factory which was strange really as each plane had to be towed across the Chester road.
All in all 11,694 Spitfires were built at the plant and 305 Lancaster bombers.
Harris and Sheldon shopfitters who were based in Corporation Street made the wing tips for the Spitfire which were about two foot square and tapered down to half-an-inch
Photo shows the women refueling the Spitfires
 
Any German Plane that was shot down was immediately taken away to be scrutinized by the RAF to keep one step ahead of them.
The Spitfire was so well designed that throughout the war the structural design was never altered and at the end of the war its rate of climb had doubled and the speed it flew at jumped from 370mph to 450mph
The wings were so precisely made they started at an angle of two and a half degrees tapering to half a degree.
Alex Henshaw was the chief test pilot at the Castle Bromwich plant and tested every single plane himself
 
Hard to think about Granny Smiths kettle or ya Ma's frying pan flying about in the sky helping to shoot the Germans down, but as the call went out for aluminium the people responded in a big way and them old pots and pans helped a lot.
 
The German Luftwaffe had detailed plans of most of our munition factories but as most of our car factories switched production to aeroplanes such as the Whitley, Lancaster and Stirling Bomber as well as our fighter planes the Hurricane and Spitfire they had to find out where they were being made.
Daytime reconnaissance Focke Wulf planes regularly flew over taking picture to identify sites to bomb and destroy.
The British War office came up with a brilliant plan which was highly top secret which fooled the Germans right up to the end of the war.
The Plan went like this. The Castle Bromwich Spitfire Plant was crucial in the war effort allthough it was bombed a couple of times it kept up production.
Very large dummy detailed factories were built all over the country known as "Q" Sites a few miles from the main factories complete with imitation hanger, wooden aircraft and dummy runway lights to fool the German night raiders and were even protected by Barrage Balloon  and Anti Aircraft sites.
The objective was we wanted the Germans to bomb these sites and we gave them hell when they did because while they were doing this our real factories carried on production.
Our Barrage Balloons were protecting nothing but fresh air on the "Q"sites and after the war all trace of them were removed as though they never existed and very very few photographs are about
The First photo shows the German High Command studying photographs of possable target over England
The Second photo shows why the "Q" sites were set up after the production line of the Stirling Bomber was hit at Short Bros. at Rochester
The Third Photo Shows a "Q"Site which looks like a typical factory with a plane outside (notice the supports holding the wings of the wooded plane up) The Factory was made of wood and canvas and was quite impressive
 
With regard to post 37 I understand that a lot of the pots and pans collected were wasted and not used as the metal did not come up to speck in terms of quality. I was quite shocked to learn this, how many housewives sent their best saucepans to be recycled? Ive had a look for an article on the BBC website where I first read this but cant now find it.
 
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