Crated Spitfire Found Buried in London!

Excellent links!

That perspective is deceptive; I wouldn’t have said the far column was that close to the fuselage or that the far wing would fit behind it!

I’m guessing the Spitfire is without engine and with a false propeller fitted (because no shaft to hang it from)?

HI all,if you look at Mark 12’s photo the rack underneath the tail looks like it has a merlin in it.

Steve

Finally got some spare time and had a little play with this. Took a photo of a serial, enlarged it, printed and had a play. Not the sharpest of images to start with – which I thought might make the test fairer.

Anyway, the photo

Wrapped under the table (lined up roughly with a model)

Skewed

And enlarged. Some stray artefacts from the distortion but the numbers come back readable.

I think there is something in this technique – it requires care and other research to back it up but gives a good leg up.

What do you think?

AllanK

I do wonder if the ‘corona’ effect of the bright white serial on the black underside is leaving a trail when skewed.

I agree – I don’t know what effects are caused by that extreme skew. The only way to be sure is to test it. If somebody has a model Spitfire with a number under the wing they could photograph . . . Or, I might try and set something up. I’d be interested to know if this really works or if it is pushing it too far.

I also agree that, while I can see a ..23, K9823 is not a good candidate at all.

But what about K9923 (Thanks for the Spitfire list):
K9923 Ia 143 EA MII FF 3-4-39 72S 21-4-39 wheels up landing Church Fenton 13-7-39 rtp

Is rtp reduce to produce?

An instructional airframe is a much better candidate for being at Charing Cross but what was K9923 doing after its landing accident?

And for completeness K9973 and K9931 were also busy at squadron, so very unlikely.

Interesting – not often I look at Spitfires in this much detail.

K9831 does seem much more likely:
“C/no.45. First Flown 20-12-38 To 41 Squadron 30-12-38; wheels up landing Catterick 30-1-39, to 1362M at 1 SoTT Halton 22-3-39 SOC 17-8-39 Total Flying Hours: 19.30”

(adapted from http://www.spitfires.ukf.net/p001.htm)

Does the above help to put an approximate date on the photo?

The precise date is on the back of the photo – 30 June 1939.

This looks perfect for K9831 but not so good for K9823.

I do wonder if the ‘corona’ effect of the bright white serial on the black underside is leaving a trail when skewed.

I see a ’31’ in the un-skewed high res original scan. 🙂

Mark

K9831 does seem much more likely:
“C/no.45. First Flown 20-12-38 To 41 Squadron 30-12-38; wheels up landing Catterick 30-1-39, to 1362M at 1 SoTT Halton 22-3-39 SOC 17-8-39 Total Flying Hours: 19.30”

(adapted from http://www.spitfires.ukf.net/p001.htm)

Does the above help to put an approximate date on the photo?

Was the port under wing serial inverted though?

Building on the good work of Pondskater, I ran the original image through the ‘perspective correction’ tool in Paint Shop Pro.

Another vote for K9823 here.

Oh yes….I see what you mean.

Curioser and curioser!

Mark12??

I know that before the doped patches came into play then the wings, if gun-less, had to fitted with something called “tunnel plugs”.

I am sure these devices were discussed here not long ago?

That is why I like K9831 becase it is a Ground Instructional airframe 1362M and almost certainly minus guns.

Mark

Wouldn’t it probably just been a light weight mock-up, taken around the
country for fund raising purposes ?

Most mock-up’s tend to be heavier than the real thing, most likely a genuine airframe, devoid of engine, guns, and undercarriage, just because the gun ports look like they aren’t there, it doesn’t mean the haven’t been subtley patched over and painted to match; the British public is remarkably good a stuffing rubbish into any orifice (ooer missus)they can find, way before the styrofoam cup…..

but theres none at all though, fabric covered or not. for it to be a fighter it should have guns lol.

Oh yes….I see what you mean.

Curioser and curioser!

Mark12??

I know that before the doped patches came into play then the wings, if gun-less, had to fitted with something called “tunnel plugs”.

I am sure these devices were discussed here not long ago?

Wouldn’t it probably just been a light weight mock-up, taken around the
country for fund raising purposes ?

but theres none at all though, fabric covered or not. for it to be a fighter it should have guns lol.

Unlikely to be needed underground at Charing Cross, I would have thought. Before 1940, Spitfires had “covers” fitted to the guns and ejection ports, which were (officially) replaced by fabric patches in September 1940. The authorities would be unlikely to leave guns in an airframe with the general public milling around.
Several years ago, Ted Hooton found that the even/odd A/B serial/camouflage combination was not adhered to 100%, with crossover occurring in some batches, so one shouldn’t use the scheme to dictate the serial; however, the under-wing serials were deleted from 30-11-39, which adds credence to the dates worked out above.

IF the Spitfire in question is K9823 then this is relevant: http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/showthread.php?11457-53-otu-problem-spitfires

“K9823. 53 OTU, crashed 2 miles SE of Llandow. Engine failure due to glycol leak. Crashed landed. P/O EL Miller 1422044 (USA)”

but theres none at all though, fabric covered or not. for it to be a fighter it should have guns lol.

The doped/covered gun ports were not extant on these early Spitfire I aircraft. That came later!

note the lack of gun ports. there does not even seem to be any doped fabric/overpainted in camo flat spots for the ports..

Thanks for the hi res. I’m getting similar results from it. These are the stages, I was mostly playing in Pixelmator on a Mac but also put it into Aperture for some enhancement:

The original (reduced in size for the web) I’ve drawn on a line to show the vertical axis of the letters/numbers

Using transform-skew to distort the image to push that line back to vertical.
I know, I know, that is an awfully big distortion and likely to create other stray effects and problems but the numbers are there and lets see where it goes.

Adjust the levels – this is the subjective stage. By watching the results of playing with the sliders I can sometimes see feint marks appear which perhaps confirm whether e.g. a number is a 3 or an 8. This is a reasonable result on my computer and to my eyes.

Make it black and white. At this stage it looked to me like L2159 – but that’s a Sunderland which means I’ve been looking at too many pics of the same aircraft – again!

So I inverted the image – my final result. Screw your eyes up and all sorts of numbers appear.

There are two things I would do from here. One is to run it through various levels and curves settings and write a series of possible numbers – is that really a 9 an 8 or a 3 etc. I’ve done that and am fairly happy the last number is probably a 3

Second, using more traditional research work out which aircraft are likely to have been in a position to be used – or in a position for their port wing to be used (?) So while I think I can read K9823 I’m not an expert on Spitfires – for that I hand back to Mark12 and other Spitfire researchers.

Have fun guys

AllanK

Might be worth trying something similar with different settings – it is amazing how often the numbers leap out.

I’m impressed!

Baz

I take it the numbers are read from the wing tip towards the fuselage, hence I inverted it? I think I can see K9823[/IMG]

Whist I can see where you are coming from with K9823, it may just be that with the skewing of the image, the ‘corona’ that you can get photographically and with scanning of bright white on black surface is just trailing and giving more body to the digits than they deserve.

If you would like to work on local high res from the original please ‘pm’ me an email address.

K9823 does not look too good on the record card at a time when every Spitfire counted.

66 Squadron on 10 December 1938 coded LZ-H based at Duxford.

Morris Motors, presumably for ‘Works’ repair, 30 November 1939.

Mark

A bit quick and dirty – I did a little lightening and altered contrast, then inverted the picture and distorted it to push the digits back to a reasonably straight appearance and this came out. Haven’t even sharpened it

Might be worth trying something similar with different settings – it is amazing how often the numbers leap out.

I take it the numbers are read from the wing tip towards the fuselage, hence I inverted it? I think I can see K9823