Running costs of a Spitfire

Aren’t Spitfires like expensive watches or fine wines.
If you have to ask `how much` then it’s probably not for you.

I seem to remember reading that if Black 6 run it’s DB engine it would take ages to clean it up.I think it was in part a response to being asked about why Black 6 couldn’t have been saved to do ground running.I think it was something like a short engine run meant hours of cleaning.

From what I’ve always understood is that the Merlin is a “Heavy breather” most of the oil is chucked out the breather? And maybe the Packard IS a little better as they came up with a better breather system?

They seem to vary individually, but a target of 0.75 – 1.5 gallons an hour is a good one. Off the top of my head the book maximum figure is 2 gallons an hour above that investigate. As with any engine, some will be lost via rings, valve guides, some by leaks. Equally with merlin and griffon, some can be lost through the induction system due to leaky throttle butterfly seals/supercharger seals/supercharger bearings/ component interfaces with main and Aux cases etc etc.

They are old engines, if it’s not leaking, it’s empty!

FB

Entirely irrelevant to Spitfires but I seem to recall that sleeve valves always chucked oil, and Sabre-engined aircraft left a distinctive trail of fug. Presumably they had a whacking great oil tank.

Adrian

The Japanese comments obviously didn’t apply to some of the radials. I recall from my Vietnam days that A-1 Skyraiders we had at Danang AB were said to be mission limited by oil consumption on their P&W radials, not fuel. I always thought their sides and bottom were painted black; I was wrong! Later, as the SAC supervisor of flying (SOF) at Davis-Monthan AFB in the 70s, we had to go out to the end of the runway to give a pre-take off check to any SAC aircraft leaving. Usually it was the C-118 belonging to 15th Air Force that did admin runs between the 15th AF bases in the Western US. The four P&W radials leaked like a sieve. As a strictly jet driver, I asked the AC once what constituted an “unacceptable” leak. His response was that if the leak dripped to the ground in individual drops, it was okay, but if it was enough that it was a solid stream from the wing to the ground it was too much (unless maybe they were in a hurry, it was a short flight, and they were in a hurry to get home). The approach end stand where they waited for takeoff was always a mess after they’d gone.

Some of it has to burn, but I’ve no idea about proportion. I recall a comment that the Japanese were astonished just how clean the engine bays of captured American aircraft were, and a fellow-engineer put this down to superior US seal technology. I can’t say how much of this was available within the UK in the mid-late 1930s: from comments about the Merlin it would seem not a lot. It would be interesting to know if the Packard Merlins were noticeably cleaner, but it may not have been possible to change the design enough. Just part of engineering history that is if not lost, then at least well hidden.

Thanks Graham. So is it just leakage mainly then? Suppose it must be when you think about it as I assume burning it would somewhat reduce performance. Just a lot of joints then.

Does it mention oil consumption? Are you sure you’re not confusing it with the fuel consumption figure given?

Just me confusing everybody again. It didn’t mention oil consumption but I have read that tanks are large and oil is got through fast and wondered why.

Another source suggests £1/second as a ballpark figure. That grosses up to £3,600 per hour, depending of course on annual utilisation.

The Merlin was notoriously thirsty for oil. I can’t remember the size of the oil tank offhand – 9 or 11 gallons comes to mind, possibly erroneously – and a lot of that ends up underneath the belly. However, this wasn’t vastly in excess of other engines of the period.

Does it mention oil consumption? Are you sure you’re not confusing it with the fuel consumption figure given?

Can anybody tell me why the oil consumption is so relatively high please? Is it just size or is there something inherent in the design?

So about £200k a year for your 100 hours (or £2k an hour) by the time you’ve added in hangarage, consumables (oil, coolant, hydraulic, cleaning materials, tyres etc) and the like. In reality 100 hours is a lot, unless you’re flogging the thing around the airshow circuit or hauling rides in it, so the hourly rate for the 20-50 hours most Spitfires are likely to fly each year would be higher

So if my maths are correct and assuming that one doesn’t have a PPL and wants to fly about 100 hours per annnum, that’s over £2,000,000 for the first year and over £100,000 per annum thereafter. It’s a good job that I don’t wish either to own or fly a Spitfire!

Yeah, I think I still would….!

It must be strange to “own” something that costs you a fortune yet everyone else will get the same view /pleasure as you [unless you are a qualified pilot/owner].

Very revealing. But this is the bit I enjoyed:

“Even with your Spitfire successfully aquired you won’t be able to fly it safely without the 50 hours required to gain your Private Pilots Licence, plus another 50 hours in a Chipmunk for basic ‘tail-dragger’ experience, and then another 50 hours flying something like a North American Harvard in which you’ll learn about flaps, variable pitch propellers, retracting the undercarriage and flying from the rear of the aircraft. The latter is very important because from the hot seat in a Spitfire you can’t actually see where you’re going, which makes landings a trifle challenging.”

And I recalled Geoff Wellum’s 168 hours as he arrived at Kenley to go to war in the aircraft he had never even seen…..

Thanks for posting that.

Whilst perhaps not quite so glamorous a share in the Cat is very affordable, in comparison. Unfortunately she who must be obeyed, RIP GC, didn’t agree!