the faa satrted the war with sea gladiators, which while slower than the 109 and undergunned proved to be quite a match for other fighters and bombers, i thick (but will stand to be corrected) that the glad could outturn a zero!, why didnt the faa upgrade the glad, up the firepower to 4x.5 and fit the higher power hercules from the beaufighter! whilst not perfect it would have been similar in performance to the wildcat. the next single seater was the sea hurricane, whilst a better performer it lacked any developement potential which only left the spit as beeing readly availible. they faa later found a suitable single seater in the vought coursair, and they got a good deal from vought as the us navy/marines had already rejected it for carrier use.

The problem in the FAA was that it was under the control of the RAF not the RN until the mid '30s. The RAF was unwilling to spend more than the absolute minimum of limited resources on it, result was very out of date types (Swordfish -- very good a/c by totally outdated concept even when it entered service) and land plane conversions like the Glad. After the RN got control back, there wasn't anybody far enough up the rank scale to have real influence on what was purchased, who also had actual flying experience. Result was things like the Roc and Fulmer. They were lucky when the Martlet (Wildcat) became available. It was designed by people who knew about flying from flight decks, and had performance at least equal to the Sea Hurricane. Credit to the FAA for developing usable CV landing methods for the Corsair, but they had the same problems, only worse with the SeaFire : very poor forward view, and landing gear problems. At least with the Corsair, the over-bouncy gear could be fixed. The narrow, weak gear on the Spitfire was beyond fixing. And, of course, with the air cooled engine, deck maintainance was much easier.

Hello MF I think AE is right about the Spitfire VII: with the Merlin 71 it could do 424mph at about 29,000 ft. With a bit of polishing and cleaning-up it would have easily gained 10-15 mph as AE suggests. No doubt the same engine could have been fitted to HFIX's had the RAF faced a credible high-altitude threat. C

I think AE is right about the Spitfire VII: with the Merlin 71 it could do 424mph at about 29,000 ft. With a bit of polishing and cleaning-up it would have easily gained 10-15 mph as AE suggests. No doubt the same engine could have been fitted to HFIX's had the RAF faced a credible high-altitude threat. Gee...with mods puts it almost to the same high altitude performance as a stock P-47.

Just how many guns are you guys considering removing? I would agree that the .303's days were numbered anyway (were probably only effective in the RAF because fighters mounted 8 of them), and I would hope all late-war aircraft were toting 12.7's or 20mm's.

Actually, in early '43 the RAF started getting an a/c called the Westland Welkin. This was a twin engine a/c using Merlin 76/77 engines with an extremely long wing. Span was 70 ft. lenght of a/c 41 ft 7 in. This was intended to provide for defense in case of a serious threat from very high altitude bombers. The a/c were never issued, but went right into storage as the threat never came.

The .303s or .50s depending on whether it is C wing or E wing armament. Most of the firepower came from the 20mm cannons so the loss of the guns, particularly the .303s, wouldn't be that much of a sacrifice. I know they did remove the guns on the Mk VII in the field.

"Gee...with mods puts it almost to the same high altitude performance as a stock P-47." Except a Spitfire can actually climb, and it would handle much better up high because of it's low wing loading. The Mk VII was also pressurised so the pilot doesn't freeze to death up there. But as Cromwell said, there were no credible high altitude threats so it was better to optimise the aircraft for a lower altitude envelope.

You're sure the Spit had enough endurance to get that high and stay there long enough to freeze? I assume the P47 could climb, as it did manage to get that high now and then. And certainly nothing the Germans had was a match for a P47D at 30K and up.

Alright, I can't resist that 1099 anymore. Eleven hundred!