Great story on CBC radio Canada today on Ed Mann's Spitfire

[yellowperil]

It was special and named "Florence". After many years, Mr Mann's family found, with some help, that their dad's Spitfire was on display in a Polish museum.

Today's broadcast was titled "Finding Florence". This was long after their dad had died thinking Florence had been scrapped just after the war.


The plane was even in the movie "Battle of Britain" and that's actor Robert Shaw In the cabin
tipping Florence on it's nose during filming. Mr. Mann was form Cape Breton, NS Canada

PS The numbers are different because Poland changed it to match a Plane of theirs.

Also the story goes that Mr. Mann and his son watched the movie Battle of Britain and never knew that was his plane.

[john70t]

Had to look that up.
The squared wing tips were supposedly 4mph faster at 25,000ft...i.e. his airplane was specifically made for hunting bombers.
Not sure how that affected the Spitfire flight performance below that regarding wing stall. Probably worse.

It must have been modified for the movie.

The ME-109 variants already had slight variations on the wingtips.
The FW-190 long nose had longer wings, as well as a huge engine in front for higher altitudes.

[Bugsinrugs]

Recently watched “Spitfire” on Netflix. The plane that saved England.

[yellowperil]

Originally Posted by Bugsinrugs

Recently watched “Spitfire” on Netflix. The plane that saved England.

Indeed, and I think the Germans were a bit jealous of the Spitfire and in awe of it's power and flyability, or so I've heard.

[tcar]

Originally Posted by john70t

Had to look that up.
The squared wing tips were supposedly 4mph faster at 25,000ft...i.e. his airplane was specifically made for hunting bombers.
Not sure how that affected the Spitfire flight performance below that regarding wing stall. Probably worse.

The big advantages were a greatly increased roll rate, and a much increased dive speed. at any altitude.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Bugsinrugs

The plane that saved England.

Peter Townsend took issue with that assessment. He was a Hurricane pilot. Hurricanes and their pilots did more damage to German aircraft during the Battle of Britain than the Spitfires did. If it wasn’t for the Hurricanes the Battle of Britain (and therefor the war) would have been lost.