Spitfire XVI RR249 highback or lowback?

It would be my assumption that the ‘V’, large and bold, was stencilled on to the firewall spar cover to distinguish, both in the Castle Bromwich factory and in the field, the MK V from the Mk II .

Equally the large ‘9’ to distinguish the Mk IX/XVI from the Mk V.

With no engine and bearer the differences are not visually obvious particularly with the overlap of RAF serial sequence.

Mark

Not Roman but Arabic.

Here Mk XVI TB252.

Mark

Thanks for that Seafire. Next question then….. Do any Spitfire XVI have XVI painted on the front spar carry through? Or do they all have IX as I saw on TE330 or TE456?

It wasn’t just the engine per se, for there were differences in the auxiliaries too. As I recall, this was something that the late Edgar Brooks dug out of Supermarine documents, and may be still findable either in the archives of this site or those of Britmodeller. It might take a bit of finding, so it’s likelier that someone here actually knows.

They didn’t seem to differentiate the IX and the XVI very well at times…. Sounds like they just made them all the same and threw in whatever engine was available that day.

Hi Graham,

No, they didn’t just throw in engines, because there are “sets of serials” built as XVIs. Their rollout dates are sometimes noticeably different from the rollout dates of adjacent serials built as IXs, so they’d obviously been allocated somewhat ahead. (So, for example, in a run of 25 serials, a block of 10 in the middle might be XVIs, while the rest IXs.)

However, by and large the airframe WAS a Mk.IX with a Packard engine, so there was very little that needed to be differentiated, and anything else would just be another Mk.IX component.

You are correct that there were high and low-back of both types, however my analysis thus far suggests that as the low-back fuselages began to emerge from production, they were allocated to the XVI first. It was a couple of months (casually speaking) before low-back IXs began to come.

bob

Thanks chaps, and as RR232 is a highback as well, that’s what it probably is.

TE213 is the only low-back Mk.IX that I can think of that’s still with us (although TE308 started life as a low-back before being converted to a Tr.9).

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They didn’t seem to differentiate the IX and the XVI very well at times.

I remember working on TE330 or TE456 (I can’t remember which one) and even though it was a XVIe with Packard Merlin, the (untouched) front spar had a big old IX painted on it!

I believe there are also low back IX’s around too. Sounds like they just made them all the same and threw in whatever engine was available that day.

Definitely high back- built in October ’44, in service in November. Low-backs didn’t get into service until around March ’45.

bob

I’m sure a Spitfire expert will be a long shortly, but in the meantime from here:

http://www.spitfire.dk/i_prod_eng.htm

“Mk. XVI.
A Mk. XVI with serial numbers RR, SM and TB was in fact equal to a Mk. IXE with serial numbers from RK883. It was fitted with an American licence built Merlin 66 – Packard Merlin 266. Like on the Mk. IX with Serial numbers from TD175 through TE343 serial numbers starting with RW, SL, TD and TE had the low back and tear drop hood, which gave the pilot a better view.

The low back was introduced in February 1945. The XVI only had “E” wings with clipped tips. Shortly after the model became operational, the rate of loss in units equipped with the Mk. XVI went up. When examining a Mk. XVI, which had done an crash landing, it was established that a batch of Packard Merlins had a serious fault, which could cause a sudden fire. The model was built along side with the Mk. IX.”

So high back? At any rate I can’t vouch for the veracity of the info on this site.

cheers

greg v.