Why no Spitfire trainer in 1940?

That isn’t a broad statement Stuart, you’re now into details.

In his congratulatory letter to Heinkel, RJ Mitchell only mentions the HE-70, there is no mention in his letter of ‘rib profiles’ or the NACA 2200 series, it’s doubtful he had time to evaluate them and I’m sure he had his own idea as to which airfoil section to use and plenty of time to apply it.
After all, he was an experienced aircraft designer.

Hopefully, Mr Creosote won’t get annoyed that his thread has gone so far off topic.:(

The letter sent to Ernst Heinkel from RJ Mitchell, wouldn’t have mentioned rib profiles, it was a simple letter of congratulations on, what RJ perceived as a great design; the information would have come from Siegfried Gunter, who was dispatched to the US, by Heinkel specifically, to “bone up” on US A/C designs.

Mitchell was very interested in using elektron for the skinning, of his A/C, this was I believe as a result of his visit to Germany; subsequently it was decided that the manufacture of suitable material in this country was not possible, whether it was financial or otherwise I can’t remember.

In my opinion the Spitfire was unlike any previous design, because; A, it wasn’t a flying boat, B, it wasn’t a racing seaplane, and C, it wasn’t designed to an outdated Airministry specification.

It would appear (from further investigation), that Siegried Gunter and his brother designed the HE70 betweem them, ( Siegfried must have been well thought of as a designer, as post war, the Ruskies kidnapped him, to work on their emerging Mig’s!)

One sweeping statement, begats another..

Ernst Heinkel sends Siegfried Gunther to the US to study /evaluate aircraft developement, on his return Heinkel immediately starts work on a new A/C, the HE65, all work on this is abandoned when Swissair (his principle market) starts operating a Lockheed Orion, whereapon a new A/C the HE70 is born ;first flight Circa ’31-’32.

The spitfire has wing rib profiles that correspond to the NACA 2200 series; if you lay an ever decreasing profile, spaced equidistantly, you have the plan form of a spifire.

Ernst Heinkel would almost certainly have similar access to this rib profile, via Gunthers fact finding mission, thus we should all be greatfull to the Americans…

That isn’t a broad statement Stuart, you’re now into details.

In his congratulatory letter to Heinkel, RJ Mitchell only mentions the HE-70, there is no mention in his letter of ‘rib profiles’ or the NACA 2200 series, it’s doubtful he had time to evaluate them and I’m sure he had his own idea as to which airfoil section to use and plenty of time to apply it.
After all, he was an experienced aircraft designer.

Hopefully, Mr Creosote won’t get annoyed that his thread has gone so far off topic.:(

:confused:That’s a bit off Stuart, especially as there were millions of Germans who didn’t agree with Adolph and his gang, but had little choice other than to endure the conflict!

Of course. Like the delightful old German gentleman on tv last night who expressed quite well that he was just a simple soldier who followed orders and did his little part. The same gentleman who described eloquently and without remorse that he stayed at his post at WN62 on Omaha Beach and expended an estimated 12,000 rounds of MG42 ammunition into the American troops ashore. A man who by his own admission waited patiently till the ramps of the landing craft had been lowered because he couldn’t hit anyone while they are up. A man who gave the same eloquent description of how he engaged troops coming ashore from LST’s by waiting till the stair ramps were full before opening fire. The same man who having expended all his ammunition for the MG42 (12,000 rounds) then picked up his carbine and fired fifty more rounds at Americans pinned down on the beach and in the surf. The same man who appeared to me to gloat that of those fifty rounds expended from his carbine he missed no more than five times. The same man that claims it must have been he who killed the most Americans on Omaha. The same man who says he was just an ordinary soldier.

It’s a different topic I know and one I regularly get moaned at for. But to me it is simple. The war could have been stopped much earlier if the German people hadn’t continued to support their leadership, if they hadn’t condoned the mass murder of segments of their own society as well as those of the Nations they oppressed and if they had decided that enough was enough and thrown down their arms. It could have happened.

regards,

kev35

…thus we should all be greatfull to the Americans…

’bout time. 😀

One sweeping statement, begats another..

Ernst Heinkel sends Siegfried Gunter to the US to study /evaluate aircraft developement, on his return Heinkel immediately starts work on a new A/C, the HE65, all work on this is abandoned when Swissair (his principle market) starts operating a Lockheed Orion, whereapon a new A/C the HE70 is born ;first flight Circa ’31-’32.

The spitfire has wing rib profiles that correspond to the NACA 2200 series; if you lay an ever decreasing profile, spaced equidistantly, you have the plan form of a spifire.

Ernst Heinkel would almost certainly have similar access to this rib profile, via Gunthers fact finding mission, thus we should all be greatfull to the Americans…

Why not give thanks to the entire German nation, without whom, there would’nt have been any need for the Spitfire…

:confused:That’s a bit off Stuart, especially as there were millions of Germans who didn’t agree with Adolph and his gang, but had little choice other than to endure the conflict!

And we know who to thank for the eventual design, don’t we?;)

RJ himself sent a congratulatory letter to Heinkel, after seeing their amazing aircraft at Derby, while it was their having a RR Kestrel engine fitted.
Shortly after that, he came up with his (unsurprisingly) similar F.37/34 submission, which was worlds apart from the F.7/30 and anything he’d designed previously.

We should all be grateful to Siegfried and Walter Günter, for their part in helping RJ with his design, F.37/34, Type 300 Spitfire and grateful to Mitchell for seeing the potential of the HE-70?

Why not give thanks to the entire German nation, without whom, there would’nt have been any need for the Spitfire…

All this time “R.J.” was also designing another fighter but he did not make this public until the failure of the Type 224 was plain to see. Supermarine decided to build this aircraft as a private venture under the Air Ministry Specification F37/34. The Spitfire was born.

And we know who to thank for the eventual design, don’t we?;)

RJ himself sent a congratulatory letter to Heinkel, after seeing their amazing aircraft at Derby, while it was their having a RR Kestrel engine fitted.
Shortly after that, he came up with his (unsurprisingly) similar F.37/34 submission, which was worlds apart from the F.7/30 and anything he’d designed previously.

We should all be grateful to Siegfried and Walter Günter, for their part in helping RJ with his design, F.37/34, Type 300 Spitfire and grateful to Mitchell for seeing the potential of the HE-70?

No Spitfire trainers in 1940 because the RAF would be too busy giving joy rides to senior ranks rather than fighting the Hun!

It should be remembered that the Texan/SNJ/Harvard really was designed from the outset to bridge the gap between Basic or Primary Trainers (BT and PT series) to Advanced Training (AT-6 after all) and as it evolved it became ‘homogenised’ to the P-51 – it shared many components with the latter, including rudder pedals, stick, broad instrument layout. Your first flight in a Mustang, Spit etc was of course your solo so if you could be taught as much as possible in a twin seat prior to your fighter ride then so much the better, ergonomically this meant that basic controls and instrumentation were in broadly the same place from AT to fighter. North American were hot on that after the P-51 was introduced with the AT-6D model and onwards.

Also remember that whilst pilot training in the AT-6 began in the front cockpit, final flight training was undertaken with the student in the REAR cockpit – this was to simulate having a hulking great merlin in the way and to teach the curved approach to future fighter drivers.

TT

Does anyone know when the pilot’s notes for the Spitfire and Hurricane were first published (for RAF use)?

JDK

My copy for the Mk II Notes is dated July 1940.

I have never seen a set of Notes for the Mk I.

Mark

Good point Mk.V; ties in with the ‘qualified RAF pilots should be able to handle what they are given’ pre-war thinking.

Plus trainees reading up on lots of handling notes, I imagine.

The Pilot’s Notes we are familiar with didn’t exist in that form pre-war. Another example of the changes brought in after the step up in performance.

Does anyone know when the pilot’s notes for the Spitfire and Hurricane were first published (for RAF use)?

Plus trainees reading up on lots of handling notes, I imagine.

Don’t drop the nose too rapidly chaps, Tilly hasn’t found her ‘orifice’ yet.:D

They must have realised even then what a massive leap it would be from Gladiators, Furies, Bulldogs etc, and wondered how pilots would cope with making the transition.

From memory – a critical part of the service acceptance trials for the Spitfire (& Hurricane) was the assesement on its sutability to be flown safely by ‘an average service pilot’ of the time. Humphrey Edwardes-Jones was the man who was tasked with making the reccomendation in respect of the Spitfire and he decided that it could be safely placed in the hands of the ‘average’ pilot with only a pre-flight brief. At the time that ‘average’ pilot might well have no experience of monoplane, retractable gear high performance aircraft but nontheless E-J made the right decision.

No it isn’t a two seater Spit, however…

In the link here Tony Ditheridge discusses (with another publisher) a BofB era two seater Hurricane.

I think you’ll find that a few hundred Harvards arrived in the UK during 1938, Mr C.

True enough Jose, but I’m thinking of the days when the Spitfire & Hurricane were still on the drawing boards.

http://www.spitfiresociety.demon.co.uk/supermar.htm

All this time “R.J.” was also designing another fighter but he did not make this public until the failure of the Type 224 was plain to see. Supermarine decided to build this aircraft as a private venture under the Air Ministry Specification F37/34. The Spitfire was born.

They must have realised even then what a massive leap it would be from Gladiators, Furies, Bulldogs etc, and wondered how pilots would cope with making the transition. I guess they had two choices and of course we all know now that they went with the advanced trainers that were to emerge on both sides of the pond. Just wondering if way back in the early days they didn’t at least sketch conversion trainers.

The issue for the RAF (and the RAAF among others) was that the training system of the 1930s was intended to produce pilots who could fly anything in their field; once qualified as pilots, any fighter was expected to be flyable for them. (The RAAF had ‘General Duties’ pilots expected to fly everything without any type conversion – from a Bulldog or Demon to Wapiti to Seagull V, and Sunderland or Spitfire.)

The major advance in skills and systematic flying was highlighted for the RAF by the introduction of the Blenheim, plenty of competent Hind and Hart pilots wrecking very expensive new Blenheims because the aircraft was in front of them. It wasn’t the need for a dual control trainer, (which would have been useful if they’d known what to do with it) but a cultural change that was really required. (Coupled with a higher attrition rate expected, as John’s pointed out.) Blenheim pilots were penalised for practices like landing with power on and reasonable length landing runs, hangovers from ‘split-@rse’ flying techniques viable in Hawker biplanes and potentially lethal in the more powerful, complex and ergonomic nightmare of Blenheims. [Covered by my article in a recent Aeroplane ‘Aircrew’ feature.]

The Westland Lysander had a dual control version delivered to the RAF, who didn’t know what to do with it and ignored it. A number of Lysander pilots and their crewman were killed because they pushed out of this aircraft’s less forgiving envelope than the Hector that they were used to. [Covered in my Lysander book.]

I do like the airy remarks about the Spitfire’s ‘docile’ handling – the qualification remains ‘…for a fighter of the era’. It had appalling forward vision, was expected like the Hurricane, to be a night interceptor as well, which was never realistic and was fast and lethal to a pilot who’d just learned to fly it. The purchase of Masters and Harvards is the answer to the original question – the idea of two-hole versions of the front line fighter probably being regarded as technically impossible in the late 1930s.

It remains one of the war’s great ‘what ifs’ to consider if better, longer and more systematic training in the late 1930s and 1940 would have resulted in a greater combat survival rate. From 1941-45 the Allies won the training war compared to the Axis’ shortcuts. It’s notable that quality declined in Axis training and then dual control 109s, 190s, Zeros etc. were introduced to mitigate the poor trainee’s previous training shortfalls.

The RAF’s adoption of the Harvard Mk.I caused a number of wry smiles in Australia after the RAAF and CAC had been previously aggressively castigated by the British press (led by the loony C G Grey) and SBAC for buying the design of an American aircraft for CAC’s first production – the NA-16, Wirraway in Australian service and a fore-runner to the Harvard.

The Battle and Lysander were offered as the best British alternatives ‘available’ at the time. The Master (not yet an option) was a better advanced trainer than either of those.

Regards,

I think you’ll find that a few hundred Harvards arrived in the UK during 1938, Mr C.

I read to same book – excellent read – and what struck me was why nobody told him how to do a night landing. He near killed himself working out how to do it. What are instructors for?

Welcome to the forum, NB26. Bit more about Wellum’s later life here-

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/geoffrey-wellum-prize-fighter-644419.html

Re the possibility of an early Spitfire conversion trainer, I think J Boyle probably hit the nail on the head when he said that losses were expected and tolerated. But even with the Harvard and Master, the Spitfire and Hurricane were such a quantum leap over previous fighters, I can’t help wondering if the powers-that-be didn’t at least consider a two-seater. Come to think of it, when the new monoplanes were being designed, were things like the Harvard even in existence, or was it intended to go straight from Moths and Maggies onto the hot new fighters? Anyone know how the early accident rate compared with previous fighters?

I read to same book – excellent read – and what struck me was why nobody told him how to do a night landing. He near killed himself working out how to do it. What are instructors for?