Thanks Tony! That’s awesome! I’ll have a look immediately after I post. I’m also keen to get my hands on that model. 😉

Pagen01, I’m not sure. Since I’ve not had a chance to analyze the wing I can’t say yet. Most likely it Deteriorated low speed handling too much for a relatively slight improvement in maximum speed. As to why the mustangs wasn’t a problem, I’d say it probably had the same issues.just the role the mustang had compared to the spit/ spite meant that it didn’t matter.

The spitfire was renowned for it’s graceful and balanced handling, it’s unsurpassed (in Europe at least) sustained turning ability and it’s rate of climb (zoom climb not withstanding). All of these things was because of a low wing loading, a good lift coefficient and great maintaince of energy in the turn (due to the thin wing). Now the mustang isn’t particularly known for any of these things, but it was very fast and had a good roll rate and of course the stand out thing was that it had a much higher cruise speed due to it’s low drag laminar wing, so for the same fuel consumption (same engine) it got further. It’s range was of course what made the plane famous. Now all these differences meant that they were rather different in a dogfight. Both have benefits and downsides, but they each have their own thing.

The laminar wing moves the max thickness and camber of the wing back to delay the onset of shockwaves (which occur at the point of max curvature, and normally on the top surface first), reducing it’s intensity and therefore the associated wave drag. This tends to increase lift/drag (mostly by decrasing drag) at high speeds and therefore improves speed. But it generally also decreases overall lift which is especially important at higher angles of attack and lower airspeed (like the speeds a spit would turn at). Now making a thin wing could also improve speed but this means less fuel can be stored in the wing and also it’s structurally more of a challenge.

So by making the spitefuls wing more like the mustangs it lost what made it great (being the ultimate European dogfighter) but not quite as good as the mustang at being a mustang (because the mustang was also a flying fuel tank, while the spit was a bit dainty).

And I think anecdotal evidence supports me because I remember something about the attacker and spiteful being less than great at low speeds. However the attacker carried plenty of fuel for a first generation jet, so the wing was probably well suited to it. For a “jet spiteful” as it was called, it actually had very impressive performance, even setting a speed record (although inmight be mistaken).

Anyways that’s my take on it. I’m not an expert, but aerodynamics is a hobby and the spitfire is an obsession, lol

Again, until actually compare the wings I can’t be sure.
Hope that helps.

Cheers
Spite

Edit: bloody hell, that’s a good looking model Tony. Definitely have to chase one down.

It wasn’t really all that big a deal. The advantages of the P51’s Laminar flow wing was that it avoided a lot of the problems associated with compressibilty by delaying the onset of mach related shockwaves.

Now the spitfire was designed a good many years before the mustang (original development of the precursers going back nearly a decade before http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Type_224

The “big deal” that Supermarine made about the wing was because the Spitfire had been developed to keep pace with the cutting edge with largely the same airframe and this was the first major airframe improvement that they made to the aircraft. (one could argue the real big deal was the eliptical wing, but that’s another story).

To put this into perspective when the Spit first started flying the Curtis Hawk was pretty much the best the Americans had on offer : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_P-36_Hawk

So by the time the Mustang was designed the Spitfire was already very old (yet a comparative trial by the Brits between Mustang 3 and a Spitfire XIV found little to choose between the two including an equal top speed, with the spit being a better dogfighter and the mustang more of a zoom and boom fighter). If we were to put this same age difference on the mustang, it would be like expecting it to compare well against a de Haviland Vampire or a Me 262.

And yet in 1946 the spitfire still had the highest critical mach number of any fighter aircraft in the world, inlcuding all alied and german jets (of course including the P51).

I digress (clearly)

The basic thing is that by 1945 the Spit needed a make-over. Technology had moved on and it was thought that there was still a few years left before jets were the last word air-combat. Laminar was considered the state of the art, so this was included, but ironically caused more problems than it solved. The engineers at Supermarine joked that it was not until the Supermarine Swift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Swift that they finally designed a plane that had a higher Mcrit than the Spitfire.

The reason for this was that the Spitfire had an EXCEPTIONALLY thin wing for their chord. Something made possible by the original eliptical wing. Which is the thing that people really bragged about at supermarine, not the laminar flow wing.

Anyways, that’s really basic Spitfire history. Some of it’s a little simplified and the eliptical wings came about by accident nearly as much as design and half the stuff people say on the web about eliptical and laminar wings are hogwash, but its a good place to start.

Cheers
Luke