Spitfire and the speed of sound

[Tiki Tom]

Holy moly!

"Martindale was saved by simple physics. With the heavy propellers wrenched off, the aircraft was now tail-heavy, and this change in the centre of gravity forced it to climb up from the dive at great speed. Martindale was knocked unconscious from the stress of the climb, and woke to find his aircraft flying at 40,000ft (13 kilometres). Somehow he managed to glide the aircraft back to his base, and emerged unscathed. The stress of the plane’s dive had bent the wings, giving them a slightly swept shape – the kind of shape that would eventually help other aircraft travel through the sound barrier."
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The article is basically about how the spitfire contributed to creative thinking about how to break the sound barrier.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160505-the-spitfires-that-nearly-broke-the-sound-barrier

Those daring young men in their flying machines certainly had bravery in spades. Just incredible. (The article also mentions Chuck Yeager... A name I haven't heard in years but which every schoolboy knew and could go into great detail about when I was a youngster.)

Once upon a time, my friends and I had a lively discussion about which was the better aircraft, the Mustang or the Spitfire. I think the consensus was that it was situational, for altitude and speed and escorting long-range bombers you would want the P-51; for close range defense and maneuverability you'd want the Supermarine Spitfire. I don't know. That may be true and well and good, but the more I read about the spitfire, the more I'm attracted to it.

 

[Smithy]

I've read a fair few RAF memoirs from the war (try 30 odd ) and in several of these there are mentioned instances where they bent the wings in very high speed dives.

In terms of what was better in relation to the Spitfire and the Mustang, it's a flawed proposition to begin with as they were both designed for different purposes, the Spitfire as a short range interceptor fighter and the Mustang as a long range escort fighter. But you can say that the Mustang would never have existed as it did without the Spitfire.

An interestingly aside, many former Eagle Squadron pilots who started their careers on the Spitfire in the RAF and then moved onto the Jugs and Mustangs with the 4FG, stated that the Spit was their first love and first choice, eg Bill Dunn.

But both were superlative aircraft for their designated roles.

 

[MikeKardec]

The Spitfire was also perhaps the most cutting edge interceptor of the prewar era, thus it gets favorably compared to planes like the Mustang that came a bit later but had been developed from the hard lessons of wartime. The Spitfire was so advanced that it wasn't outmoded until the very end of the war. If I remember correctly, the Spitfire's brilliance was in it's wing design much of which was based off of interwar German glider designs (post Versailles German glider development is STILL informing the leading aircraft designs!) a bit of intelligence that was sort of "stolen" from the Germans by a young engineer who I believe might have been Canadian.

When you commit your R & D money for national defense is a chess move and in this case the Brits made the perfect commitment of resources, though I doubt they realized at the time how perfect it was.

A number of P-38s had their control surfaces "frozen" by the transonic pressure wave as it moved along the plane's body (If I can remember lessons from an old girlfriend who had been, of all things, a test pilot), the trick is to penetrate the sound barrier (sound isn't really the important part, it's that deadly wall of compressed air) quickly and smoothly enough so you don't get buffeted to death like this poor Spitfire pilot nearly did. Better stronger controls in the P-38 solved the P-38 power dive problem in the short term. I think the trick was always understood to be getting that compressed air "behind you" as fast as possible.

 

[Stearmen]

A number of P-38s had their control surfaces "frozen" by the transonic pressure wave as it moved along the plane's body (If I can remember lessons from an old girlfriend who had been, of all things, a test pilot), the trick is to penetrate the sound barrier (sound isn't really the important part, it's that deadly wall of compressed air) quickly and smoothly enough so you don't get buffeted to death like this poor Spitfire pilot nearly did. Better stronger controls in the P-38 solved the P-38 power dive problem in the short term. I think the trick was always understood to be getting that compressed air "behind you" as fast as possible.

This article explains the problems and solutions to the high speed of the P-38. http://www.aviation-history.com/lockheed/p38.html

 

[Stearmen]

I see the Spitfire and the Bf109 as one in the same, great airplanes when they came out in the 30s, defensive aircraft, but, of less use by the end of the war. The Germans waited for the Spitfires escorting bombers to turn back for lack of fuel, then had their field day! There is a reason that all the Spitfires were out of operation with the Air Forces of the world by the end of the 50s and the P-51 soldiered on until 1984.