Supermarine Spitfire History

When the aircraft banks and the sun glints off the elliptical wings everyone in the 21st century airshow crowd looks up. Small boys point just as their counterparts did over seventy years ago and shout, “Spitfire”.

In 1936 Reginal Mitchell had watched the type 300 that he had designed sweep across Eastleigh airfield in Hampshire piloted by ‘Mutt’ Summers chief test pilot of the Supermarine aircraft company. Summers was impressed with the new aircraft although Mitchell is reputed to have thought Spitfire (the name thought up by Sir Robert McLean, Vickers Armstrong’s chairman) was, ‘a bloody silly name’.

Reginald Mitchell died of cancer 15 months later but his creation was to live on as the only allied aircraft to fight in front line service from the beginning to the end of world war two.

More Hurricanes than Spitfires served in the Battle of Britain and they shot down more enemy aircraft but the Spitfire was more manoeuvrable and faster at higher altitudes than the formidable German Messerschmitt Bf109 fighter. These attributes, alongside the Hurricane, the pioneering use of radar and effective organisation, tipped the balance in favour of the RAF.

Photo of Supermarine Spitfire MkV AB910 — Supermarine Spitfire MkV AB910

With the battle of Britain won, upgraded Spitfire Mk Vs began offensive sweeps across German occupied western Europe. In 1941 they encountered the new Focke Wulf Fw190 which was superior in all but turn radius to the British fighters.

Photo of Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX MH434 — Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX MH434

Further development of the Spitfire resulted in the Mk IX wresting air superiority away from the Luftwaffe as it fought alongside the P51 Mustangs, P47 Thunderbolts and P38 Lightnings of the USAAF.

Photo of Spitfire T9 PV202/G-CCCA 5R-H & P51D-25-NT Mustang G-MSTG 414419 LH-F 'Janie' — Spitfire T9 PV202/G-CCCA 5R-H & P51D-25-NT Mustang G-MSTG 414419 LH-F ‘Janie’

Development of the Spitfire continued throughout world war two. From the Mk XII onwards the legendary Merlin engine was replaced with a Rolls Royce Griffon. The nose was lengthened and the wings modified until production ceased at the beginning of the jet age in 1945.