No Spitfires In Burma After All 102
FBeans writes "In a story at the end of last year, it was reported that up to 124 lost WWII Spitfires could be buried in Burma at various locations. A team sponsored by Wargaming.net and led by David Cundall, who says he witnessed one such burial of planes, have been investigating a site that was thought to have up to 36 planes buried in crates near the end of the war. However, based on the evidence they have obtained recently, it seems there are no Spitfires buried at this location, and no substantial evidence supporting any other location, possibly leading to the end of the hunt. Over 20,000 Spitfires were made between 1938 and 1948, at a cost of around £12,000 each. Cundall has spent 17 years of his life and around $200,000 hunting the Supermarine planes; presumably, the lack of evidence will not stop him from continuing to search."
Re:It's not rational (Score:2, Insightful)
clearly you've never been in the military.
Re:Informative graphic (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know about the aerodynamics, but the performance part is correct.
That little scoop below the engine is the intake for air to cool the engine.
The design of that scoop could affect overall performance by something like ~1%.
Sounds small, but when everyone is using the same underlying technology,
and encounters typically have binary outcomes (you die or he dies),
1% can make the difference.
Re:Informative graphic (Score:5, Insightful)
I now know that the Spitfire's "performance" was located under the fuselage, and its "aerodynamics" were located in the tail section.
Which funnily enough is about right. The aircraft was a hack, a case of fix-what-we-have. The development history of the Spitfire is one of constant attempts to keep-up with the state-of-the-art as set by Germany and, to a lesser degree, the USA.
Constantly out-performed, out-manoeuvred and over-rated; the only reason the RAF continued to fly Spitfires is that there weren't enough Lend-Lease aircraft from the USA to meet demand. P-51s and P-47s couldn't come quick enough for European theatre and the P-40s held the line in North Africa.
There are plenty of airworthy Spitfires for anyone who feels dewy-eyed about them. What we really need to find is a cache of buried Beaufighters or Battles. Now THAT would really add to the historical record.
You overstate your case. The Spitfire had a higher power to mass ratio than any of its competitors and had a much better rate of turn than, for instance, the P-51. It had many shortcomings and many advantages compared to P-51s and P47s. Overall the range and cruise speed certainly made a P-51 a more valuable aircraft for flying the kind of missions most common late in the war, but Spitfires were pretty well suited for the Blitz.
Re:Informative graphic (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets address some slanted facts such as WWII did not occur until USA's involvement at which point american made was the best and won everything.
The spitfire was a fine aircraft, one of its flaws was infact its engine. German and US engine developments seemed to always be ahead of the english. German fuel injection for example mean an aircraft could roll or perform manourvers with out cutting out. One of the dreams of pilots was to put a 109 engine into a spitfire as you would have the agility and the power..(you couldn't of course, but that was the dream).
By the time the US started really handing out P-51's they were screaming hotrods. Learning from all the lessons from Uk and german developments the last ones were well sorted aircraft. But this was at the end of the war.
There are no doubt lots of aircraft hidden from WWII.. Countries stashed them, people bought them and stashed them. Amazing aircraft. If you ever get a chance to talk to a WWII fight pilot who flew them. Do it. I was lucky enough to have a Spirefire test pilot come my school and talk about them.. For a whole day. It had its shortcommings, but also had its advantages.
Arguably its the prettiest aircraft of WWII