Spitfire!

As the nation commemorates the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, on 8 May, Mr Londoner considers the world’s most famous fighter aircraft.

Many years ago, I enjoyed a family visit to the Nether Wallop airshow, in Hampshire. It was a perfect summer’s day, just like those during the long hot summer of 1940. All types of aircraft, historic and modern, were on display. But the scene-stealer was the Spitfire. The crowd fell silent the moment we heard the distant, but unmistakable, roar of the Spit’s Rolls Royce Merlin engine.

We cheered as we first caught sight of this most magnificent of flying machines, which buzzed the airfield and then barrelled up into the heavens in a ‘victory roll’. The collective delight, as this most agile and graceful of aircraft was put through its paces, was truly palpable. Even after it had landed, the crowd remained transfixed as the Spitfire taxied gently along the green grass of the airstrip. For many, me included, this was a truly emotional experience.

Supermarine Spitfire Mark 1A, Science Museum London. Photo @meetmrlondoner

The Supermarine Spitfire was a short-range, high-performance interceptor aircraft. With its radical design and beautiful elliptical (curved) wings, the Spitfire was the brainchild of aviation engineer and mathematician Reginald Joseph (RJ) Mitchell, CBE. Mitchell was chief designer at Supermarine Aviation Works. From 1928, the company became a subsidiary of the engineering giant Vickers-Armstrong, with its HQ at Millbank, close to the heart of Westminster government.

Gazelle-like

During the 1940 Battle of Britain, the Spitfire played a pivotal role alongside its sister aircraft, the Hawker Hurricane. Gazelle-like in its agility and loved by pilots because it could quickly climb out of trouble, the Spitfire was the only allied aircraft able to match the enemy’s high-performing opposite number, the fuel-injectioned Messerschmitt Bf 109. Together, both the Spitfire and Hurricane defeated the Nazi airforce – the, as yet unconquerable, Luftwaffe.  

Hitler’s failure to prevail in the Battle of Britain saved the nation. Nazi plans for a sea-born invasion, Operation Sea Lion, were abandoned. The Battle of Britain gave the allies their first taste of victory during what would turn out to be a long war of attrition. Churchill’s famously morale-boosting words: “Never was so much owed by so many to so few”, resonate powerfully even today. This was the PM’s tribute to the relatively small numbers of pilots, from across the globe, who had the guts and tenacity to take on the might of the Nazi war machine. 

Poster for sale in the Imperial War Museum shop. Photo @meetmrlondoner 

During that perfectly cloudless summer of 1940, the enemy’s strength, in men and machines, vastly outnumbered that of the Royal Air Force. The Nazi ‘blitzkrieg’, or lighting attacks – that caused European nations to fall into fascist hands like a tumbling deck of cards – made the Nazis appear invincible.  

But Britain still had its own cards up its sleeve. Winston Churchill mobilised the English language in rousing speeches. His words empowered the people of Britain and its Commonwealth to believe in themselves. History records the nation as ‘standing alone’. It certainly stood alone in Europe. However, it had the support and resources of a vast empire covering several continents upon which ‘the sun never set’. Britain had technology on its side too, The Nazis were unaware of radar – its secret weapon. There were ace code-breakers too. And then there was the Spitfire.

Evolution

The Spitfire evolved from Mitchell’s initially disappointing Supermarine Type 224 and, then, the much more successful, Type 300 aircraft. Both designs emerged following Mitchells’s earlier success developing the Supermarine-Napier S5 and S6B seaplanes. These ground-breaking monoplanes won the coveted Schneider trophy, in 1927 and 1936 respectively. This high-profile international competition saw flying boats and sea planes compete to be the fastest and the best.

During the 1927 race, the only aircraft to finish the contest were two single-seater Supermarine-Napier S5s. One reached a record-breaking 282 miles-an-hour. Another British plane, a Gloster IV, and several Italian Macchis failed to complete the course. This dramatic spectacle was witnessed by a 250,000-strong crowd on the Venice Lido. Among them, taking it all in, was future Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. 

Bust of Mussolini, liberated by the Royal Fusiliers in wartime Italy, Fusiliers Museum, Tower of London. Photo @meetmrlondoner

The Spitfire actually began life as the Shrew. That name somehow seemed off-brand. Supermarine’s Chairman, Robert McLean, chose Spitfire, after his spirited young daughter’s ‘ little Spitfire’ nickname. And that’s how the new moniker stuck. The plane’s distinctive elliptical wing was the work of Canadian aerodynamicist Beverley Shenstone. Mitchell sought to evolve Shenstone’s design to achieve the thinnest possible cross-section to reduce drag. His ambition was to achieve a top speed greater than that of the Hawker Hurricane and other, less-friendly, aircraft the Spitfire might one day encounter in battle. 

Innovative

Mitchell’s solution was to use innovative sunken rivets in his advanced all-metal airframe. He also championed the newly-built Rolls Royce PV X11 V12 engine – known more romantically as the Merlin. The Merlin produced 1,030 horsepower. This was considered mighty by the standards of its day. But it was replaced later in the war by the Rolls Royce Griffon, which produced an astounding 2,340 horse power. Unlike its opposite number, the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the Spitfire had no fuel injection. It relied instead on a traditional system of carburettors, rather like those of a top-end racing car. The Spitfire however made use of an innovate new cooling system. And it was armed with eight devastatingly powerful Browning machine guns.

Rolls Royce Merlin engine, Science Museum. Photo meetmrlondoner

Mitchell was a quiet man. He disliked public speaking. He was, however, popular with his colleagues, to whom he demonstrated kindness and loyalty. But his fame was won only posthumously. Mitchell was flexible as well as brilliant and was open to the ideas of others if they got the job done. Although generally happy to collaborate with fellow designers, his relationship with bouncing bomb inventor, Barnes Wallace, was notoriously fractious. 

Mitchell, by this time suffering from cancer, continued to refine the design until his death in 1937, aged just 42. His loss, just as Nazi Germany was rapidly re-arming, was a devastating blow to Supermarine, to Vickers-Armstrong and to the nation as a whole. Mitchell was replaced as Supermarine’s chief designer by his highly-respected colleague, Joseph Smith. The pair had previously worked together on the Schneider trophy-winning seaplanes, so the company was in good hands.

The Spitfire’s elliptical wing. A radical design with the innovative use of sunken rivets reduced drag. Photo @meetmrlondoner

Spitfire v Hurricane

As its design evolved, the Spitfire remained popular with its pilots. Prioritising lightness and speed however, inevitably involved compromise elsewhere. Compared to the slower, less glamorous, Hurricane, which first test-flew just four months before the Spitfire, the latter aircraft was both under-armoured and under-gunned. The Spitfire’s fuel tank sat directly underneath the pilot’s seat. This made it very vulnerable. Just one precisely-aimed canon shell could detonate the aircraft mid-flight. 

The Spitfire was also a less stable gun platform that the Hurricane, which could also endure more damage from enemy flak and still remain aloft. The Spitfire’s retractable  wheels presented their own problems. Unlike those of the Hurricane, they were placed very close to each other, rendering the plane less stable on the ground. This could make take-off and landing fraught with jeopardy, especially in the hands of an inexperienced pilot. But in flight, it was another story. The Spitfire’s manoeuvrability made it a match for anything the Nazis could throw at it. It was as one flyer put it, and very much in the words of the day, “A lady in the air but a bitch on the ground”.

Quality

The quality of Mitchell’s original vision enabled the design of the Spitfire to evolve apace and 24 versions of the aircraft were built. Production ceased in 1948, with the dawning of the jet age. Although RAF Spitfires remained operational until the mid-1950s. Each version of the aircraft was a subtle improvement on the one it replaced. The button that fired the guns remained the only unchanged major component to survive from the Spitfire Mark I to the Mark 24. More Spitfires were built than any other single combat aircraft before or since the Second World War. It was also the only British fighter produced continuously throughout the conflict. 

According to the RAF’s Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, a total of 20,341 Spitfires were built. Production was ramped up as the war progressed with Supermarine assembling different components in factories scattered across the UK’s towns and cities. This reduced the risk of disruption to aircraft production by enemy attack. London’s Kings Cross and Chiswick both boast luxury apartments, housed in former factories and workshops, with the The Spitfire Works as their address.

It is estimated that, around the world, 60-70 Spitfires remain in airworthy condition and about 240 survive as display pieces. The RAF’s Battle of Britain Memorial Flight maintains six airworthy Spitfires. 

The British public saw the Spitfire in flight for the first time, in 1936, at RAF Hendon, in north-west London. Today RAF Hendon is the RAF Museum. It’s a huge site consisting of enormous aircraft hangars. Several Spitfires are on display here. Closer to town, you can get up close to Spitfires at the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth and the Science Museum in Kensington. All three venues can be visited for free.

VE Day will be commemorated across the UK in a variety of ways. Photo @meetmrlondoner

Design icon

Eighty years on, the Spitfire seems to embody Britain in its darkest hour. In 1940 the Spitfire caught the public imagination and, 85 years on, it still does. Its distinctive  silhouette adorns commemorative memorabilia and flyers for VE-Day street-parties, church services and tea dances. Today the Spitfire is an icon of British design and engineering. It takes its place alongside Concorde and the Jaguar E-Type. The Supermarine Spitfire is also a powerful reminder of how much we owe its designers, pilots and ground crews. They kept this incredible plane in the air for the entirety of the Second World War – and well beyond. We should think of them as we look up into the sky on VE-Day.

 

About the Author

Mr Londoner is writer, speaker and former Museum of London director Antony Robbins. Meet Mr Londoner here