The Supermarine Spitfire was a single seat fighter used by the RAF and many Allied
countries in World War II.
Reginald Mitchell designed the
Spitfire with his team at the Supermarine factory. He was famous for making high speed racing floatplanes. His creation won
new World Air Sped record 407 mph which was a nice accomplishment.
Dowding found out that a need
for a new fighter plane for the RAF that would fill the gap between the relatively slow biplane fighters and the Schneider
Trophy racers. He was the one who issued the specifications for a new aircraft manufacturer. Mitchell submitted his plans
for the Supermarine Type 224, but they didn’t pull through and turned out to be a disaster. The prototype could only
reach a top speed of 228mph (367kph) and its rate of climb was slow which was determined by a complicated cooling system
A plan called the Gladiator won
the competition with a max speed of 242 mph (390kpm) and a rate of climb exceedingly better then to Type 224. Mitchell, not
giving up on designing a fighter plane for battle went back to the beginning and designed a “smaller, more streamlined
fighter". This new 1,000 horse power V12 Rolls-Royce engine was selected, only to be named the Merlin later on.
The design details for the new
Supermarine fighter were given to Dowding whom was so impressed with them issued funding from the RAF to the prototype of
the plane. The plane was renamed Spitfire.
The fighter reached a max speed
of 349mph (562 kph). When put through trials at Martlesham Heath the plane did well and an order for 310 Spitfires was made.
At the end of 1939 there were
2,160 planes on order and 20,531 Spitfires and 2,594 Seafires (the naval version of the fighter) in total had already been
made. Spitfires played different parts in the war one which was photo reconnaissance. The last Spitfire was made in 1947 staying
in service with different air forces around the world until 1955. Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force was the last unit to fly Spitfires.
Hawker Hurricanes played a major part in the Battle of Britain in the face of the Nazi’s Blitzkrieg.
These planes flew on many different fronts throughout and up until the end of the war.
The hurricane was designed by Sydney Camm and team to reach the Air Ministry specifications. Hawker
signed the contract for the prototype to be made and flown on 21 February 1935. It first flew on 6 November 1935 at Brooklands,
four months before the Spitfire. The max spend was 300 mph (483kph)
the war began in September 12939 497 Hurricanes had been mad and 18 squadrons equipped. Initially the Hurricane was to have
the Rolls-Royce Goshawk steam-cooled engine but when Camm got wind of the new, more powerful PV-12 engine he redesigned the
Hurricane to include the new engine.
The Hurricane was unlike the Spitfire because it used the traditional tubular metal
construction with fabric covering. With this the plane was able to take a more damage from the enemy and still get its pilot
home safely. The Hurricane was viewed as the lesser version compared to the Spitfire but in reality the Hurricane had 70%
if the kills. A major contributor to this stat was due to the fact that Hurricanes were 2/3 of the fighter numbers.
Over 15,000 Hurricanes were built and did something in air forces around the world.
The last Hurricane produced was in September 1944 staying in service until 1955.