Life magazine photo collection

I guess many here have noticed how photo and film archives generally like to call any single-engined fighter with roundels a Spitfire! Similarly, any twin is a Mosquito. My theory is that there’s a freelance aeroplane expert doing the rounds of these archives – a five-year old child, pointing excitedly and shouting ‘Pitfire’! I’ve tried using the various ‘comments and corrections’ emails, but always to no avail.

My tip – whether you’re looking for Mustang, Typhoon or anything else, try searching ‘Spitfire’ 🙂

It really is amazing how often you see the Hurricanes in that famous 32 sq dispersal picture miscaptioned as Spitfires. Especially considering they managed to correctly label the cockpit of a Halifax from inside…

Oh well, smashing pics anyway. I’d not seen all that many of those before, so thanks for that.

It’s “cargo-information”. Once a journalist labels an image “Spitfire”, the remaining hacks just copy the label. It happens in all forms of journalism, even in otherwise historical books. To the majority it makes little difference and to those who know better, it provides a nice feeling of knowing better 😀

Here is a picture where you can see the early style canopy:

early Beaufighter with original style canopy

I know where you are coming from, but I can’t find a pic to verify. The nose looks very short to me?? Was the early canopy that different?

early Beaufighter with original style canopy

For some reason I just can’t identify this type??

http://www.life.com/image/50455073/in-gallery/36332