Chaos, welcome. Some interesting suggestions…

An all-Spitfire force would indeed have been smaller, and also serviceability levels lower as they tended to take longer and be more difficult to repair than Hurricanes.

The Hurricane may well have benefitted from later marks of Merlin, but probably not as much as the Spitfire did. Another issue is that the Hurricane airframe was not developed overmuch because to do so would have meant slowing production down, so the fuselage remained more or less the same in all the production variants while the metal wing had one or two key changes mainly to improve armament fit.

The main issue with putting better and better Merlins on the Hurricane was that by the MkIV of 1942, with the 1,600hp Merlin 24/27, the old bird was starting to run into aerodynamic difficulties mainly around the thick wing. The upshot is that the Spitfire was far better suited aerodymically to pouring more and more power on. The Hurricane ‘stable’ was developed, and very well to, into the useful (if flawed) Typhoon and the superlative Tempest.

To twist the issue yet again, if we had gone ‘all Spitfire’ in 1940 what would we have done about the need for fighter bombers and ground attack aircraft in the desert and the Far East which the Hurricane provided a plentiful supply of?

Hi all, just to say I am in the process of acquiring a Canberra instrument panel from a fellow forumite so 1) if anyone has any suitable instruments going spare I’d love to hear from you and 2) I will post some photos to show progress, which will probably be a very long time from now. And if anyone knows a good way of making the control column stay upright without attaching it to the aircraft first I’d be grateful for your suggestions.

(Please don’t anyone say ‘would you like a cockpit section to go with that?’ I’ve got quite enough on my hands as it is!)

Not MB-5, but I spied this bit of MB-2 in my wanderings around the Midlands this year.

Mark

Blimey, I had no idea anything of that aircraft still existed! Basis for a rebuild to fly perhaps??

Presumably there isn’t anything left of the MB3 either (if there was it would be crash wreckage or part of an unfinished airframe… so I would guess not…)? Shame because of the three Martin Baker fighters, the MB2 was the least attractive, even when it did have a proper tail. The MB3 tends to get left out in all the furore over the MB5 but by the sound of things would have made a pretty good fighter itself had they managed to get it into production by 1942-ish. Also not unattractive.

Sorry, that MB5 still looks dodgy. Even more unfortunate because as I understand it the steel tube construction of the MB5 (or the MB3 for that matter) would have made it relatively easy for an amateur reconstruction.

Sorry Stormbird 😮 Didn’t mean to put such disturbing images in your head!

Heathen! 😛

Well, if you find a Messerschmitt with Harold Bishop’s chin attractive I suppose you’re entitled to take issue.

Every time I look at that MB5 ‘replica’ pic it looks worse. I feel really bad for saying it about what’s obviously a real labour of love and has taken someone a lot of time, effort and money, but the owner must have been able to see when the drawings were presented to him that it looked more like a collision between a Supermarine Spiteful and a Super Guppy.

Last seen at Wattisham at the back of a hangar in about 1963 wasn’t it Tom?

Will it be at Legends?

Unless I’ve missed it, no-one exapanded on the He100’s evaporative cooling system, which helped it to be very aerodynamically clean – hence its outstanding straight line speed. As I recall the He100 was the product of the lessons of the He112 which was, through a long and painful process, developed into an aircraft which was more or less the equal of the Bf109. However, the 109 boat had long since sailed, and in any case the He112 was far more complex and labour intensive to build. The He100 was therefore not only high performing but much simpler than the He112 and easier to build. The official line seems to be that the RLM had decided that Heinkel was a bomber manufacturer and should leave fighters to Messerschmitt. I suspect twitchiness about the exaporative cooling might have influenced decisions not to put it into series production. They certainly went to great lengths to make the Allies think they were using it.

The Ki61 story is appealing given the aesthetic similarities of the two, and the fact that the aircraft was a conscious attempt to make a ‘European style’ fighter (indeed with a licence built Daimler Benz engine) but I suspect it was no more directly influenced by the He100 than it was by the Bf109, Spitfire and Hurricane. As far as the LaGG 3 is concerned, I don’t particularly buy it – the Russians always seemed to go their own way on fighter design.

After having gone to all that effort it’s a shame the finished article doesn’t really capture the look of the original too well. Maybe it will seem better in the air.

If you’ll forgive me a little what-iffery I always thought the MB5 would have made a far better naval fighter than the Griffon marks of Seafire, what with the wide track undercart, reported stability and ease of landing, no swing from those contraprops, good visibility and ease of maintenance. Plus it would have looked wonderful in Extra Dark Sea Grey over Sky!

Some Blackburn Skua ‘artwork’ for XN923.

Oooooh!!!!!!!!!!

Luvverly.

How much??