Spitfire in suspension?

The same article states that the aircraft is painted to represent Lance Wade’s aircraft of late 1943, yet it clearly wears a much later scheme (no sky rear fuselage band, black spinner, etc)!

Lance Wade wouldn’t have been flying an XVI. He was flying in the Med and was flying VIIIs so that doesn’t fit either.

Hmmmmmm.

Dan

Deflated.

Steve,

The photos are by the Flypast chief photographer Duncan Cubitt. The first photo is one of a series taken in April 2004 for this four page feature which includes an air to air sortie. Caption of the particular photos reads – ‘The Spitfire taxying at its home airfield’ (sic). There is a close up air to air on the front cover – this is a major feature.

The pilots for the sorties were Dan Blanchard & Tom Gregory.

Mark

Mark,

No arguement about the fact it is bad to fly with the struts down, but I also don’t know anything about the photo. Was it taken after the airplane had been sitting for a period of time and the seals leaked down? Maybe during an engine ground run?

Again, I’m not a Spit pilot, but on the other aircraft I fly we use the 3-4 fingers method to check for strut inflation. If any pilot flew her with the struts completly down I bet he never did it again. Just like an old truck with a worn out suspension!

Riding the bumpstops.

Steve,

Of course one of the struts will compress under take off power, left or right depending on Griffon or Merlin engine with opposite rotation.

But this isn’t take off power – this is taxiing along with the cockpit door open and both legs are deflated.

I can tell just just by looking at the angle of attack of the fuselage that all is not well and you only have to look at the relationship of the gear doors to the tyres to see that as they say in automotive circles – it is riding along on the bumpstops.

The seals on these legs do cause problems, particularly if the aircraft is little used.

If you want a definitive answer please ask your pilot to tell us how much hard chrome in inches is visible between the stub axle and the gland nut.

Here is a shot of the what it should look like for reference.

Mark

Just a couple of points…

Even though we’re Americans, we do know not to fly airplanes with the struts deflated. Having just spoke to one of the pilots who flies this airplane for LSFM the Spitfire’s struts are filled (not overfilled) to the proper level and checked before every flight. The are not overfilled, as this tends to make the plane very “stiff”, however the p-factor from the Merlin will occasionally compress a strut completly on takeoff.

As I have not flown a Spitfire (yet!!!) I’m afraid I can add nothing further to this debate, but I’m confident the Spit is not being flown with no nitrogen in the struts.

Steve

It’s particularly alarming as Spitfires have never been that good with keeping their Undercarrige Pintle Shear Bolts in one piece anyway (having been involved with repairing the results of such a failure a few years back).
Now that I am away from the Spitfire world are the regular pintle NDT inspections still in force in the UK and would this extend to operators in the rest of the world?

I’m no expert, but even I know that’s not right! 😮

Aaaaaaaagh!

😮

Moggy