Britain Fixed The Spitfire In Four Months. Germany Had Spent Four Years On The Fw 190.

Germany spent four years developing the Focke-Wulf Fw 190. Britain fixed the Spitfire in four months, and called the result the Mk IX. Focke-Wulf began design work in the autumn of 1937. The prototype first flew on 1 June 1939. The Fw 190 reached operational units in August 1941, and when it met Spitfire Mk Vs over northern France that September it beat them in almost everything except the turn. Fighter Command lost 462 fighter pilots in 1941 while being told it was winning, and by November daylight operations over occupied Europe had been suspended. Supermarine's answer was crude and fast. Chief designer Joseph Smith took a Mk V airframe and changed as little as possible, fitting the two-stage supercharged Rolls-Royce Merlin 61 developed by Stanley Hooker. First flight 26 February 1942. Squadron service with No. 64 Squadron at RAF Hornchurch that July. Four hundred and nine miles per hour at 28,000 feet, a service ceiling of 43,000 feet, a climb of 4,000 feet per minute, and roughly 40 mph more than the aircraft it replaced. It was explicitly a stopgap, meant to hold the line until the purpose-built Mk VIII arrived. Supermarine and Castle Bromwich built 5,656 Mk IXs against 1,658 Mk VIIIs, and the compromise was still a front-line fighter on the day the war in Europe ended. Featuring Squadron Leader Wilfrid Duncan Smith of No. 64 Squadron, Flying Officer Prince Emanuel Galitzine and the highest air battle of the Second World War at 43,000 feet, Squadron Leader Hugo Armstrong of No. 611 Squadron, and Capitaine François de Labouchère of the Free French No. 340 Squadron. Genuine archival photographs and historic footage throughout. #Spitfire #WW2 #Fw190 #RAF #AviationHistory #ImperialWarCommand