Spitfire Info Required

Alan Wright flew a cannon-armed IIb with 92 sqn – there is a famous photo somewhere . . .

(Ahem) 19 Squadron used the MkIb operationally, but found them frustrating to work with since the cannons were prone to jamming. However, George Unwin did manage to shoot down one or two with his cannon-armed Spit.

No, in 1940 30 Mk.IB cannon armed aircraft were delivered for testing but were not used operationally.

Just out of interest, did the Mk V see service in the Battle of Britain? I always thought they entered service in 1941 or late 1940 but i read somewhere that they were in the B of B, doubt it though.

rebuild?

Hi Mark

I know we got some nice bits from BL585 the other week – but I think a rebuild might be stretching our resources a little :dev2: By the way Gareth found another Data plate amongst the scrap today with “BL585” pencilled on the back!!! 🙂

Thank you

Warbird resource group lists 27 Spitfire MKV survivors (at least 3 of those survivors are wrecks and far from complete). But I don’t know how up to date their database is.

But if you consider the number of jbs and the list at WRG, you should have a good idea about the total number of surviving MKV spits.

Stieglitz

As to how many Mk.V’s remain, hmm from my notes I have a count of around 23.

I’m sure others will come up with a different number but it is in that sort of ballpark

Ok I’ll answer the easy bit of the question

There are five airworthy Mk.V Spitifres currently and they are,

AB910 – BBMF, RAF Coningsby
AR501 – Shuttleworth Collection, Old Warden
AR614 – Flying Heritage Collection, Washington
BM597 – Historic Aircraft Collection, currently enroute to Malta
EP120 – The Fighter Collection, Duxford

I need my books for the other parts of the question, but I’m sure others will be able to provide the answers

A quick Google turns up these figures

20,351 Spitfires
2,408 Seafires
6,478 Mk V’s