Re: Can anyone help me out?

1. How many blades were used?
2. What is the diameter, pitch distribution, chord length, thickness to chord ratio, and an estimate of aerofoil section?
3. Where would I be able to get information on the engine’s performance data (with or without supercharger)?
4. Suggestions of possible sources for the above questions

Your best easily available source of information, unless you are able to spend time researching in archives, is ‘Spitfire: The History’ by Eric Morgan and Eric Shacklady and published by Key Publishing (the publishers of Flypast Magazine).

As far as I can make out from the above book, the Mk IX flew with a Rotol 4-blade propellor of 10ft 9 inch diameter. The Merlin 61 engine had a 30 degree pitch, whereas the Merlin 63 had a 35 degree pitch.

The performance of the aircraft was FIX: 408 mph @ 25,000 feet. HFIX: 416 @ 27,000 feet. LFIX: 404 @ 21,000 feet. Cruise (most marks): 324 mph. Rate of climb: 3,950 ft/min.

I hope this is helpful as a starter until you can get more detailed info. I should add that I’m not a Spit expert – I’m more interested in twin-engined types.

Just another thought: how about, from the Science Museum, the Gloster E28/39 W4041? What a tribute it would be to Whittle to have that in the air…. What’s that you say? An aeroplane with no propellor?!:eek:

The first time for me would be, I think, Leuchars BoB At Home Day in 1985 and then every couple of years or so after that. Those were the days when the airshow would get interrupted in order to scramble a couple of a/c (Phantoms I think back then) to chase after the Russkies over the North Sea.

Originally posted by RobAnt
I’m sorry, but I have a brother who’s dyslexic. I don’t expect him to broadcast this information to all & sundry!

Just ignore it, and try to look at the quality of the information the person is trying to impart, or the question they are asking – rather than make unnecessary, uninformed, comments.

On the whole, spelling & grammer or even software that translates writing into speech can only hope to help a few of those that truly suffer from the more serious forms of dyslexia.

Mentioning difficulties you experience is hardly broadcasting to all & sundry. All I’m saying is that acknowledging that you have difficulties in a specific area (and none of us is perfect at everything) would help others appreciate that fact and perhaps make them think before criticising their spelling. I’m not saying that reference to dyslexia should be made in every posting, but if people can establish the reason for someone’s poor spelling, they are likely to be more tolerant.

I have friends who have dyslexia and I know how long it can take them to write short letters. I can only imagine the difficulties involved in posting regularly to forums such as this. However, a bit of tolerance all round goes a long way.

Whilst on the subject of the slective coverage of Flypast, I find it interesting to note that they pretty much completely ignored the Festival of Flight at East Fortune (even though it is only one of two main airshows in Scotland – and the other is Leuchars which is almost entirely composed of various versions of Tornadoes which I can see every day by sticking my head out the window!)

Their attitude to the Festival of Flight compeltely changed (surprise, surprise) when Ken Ellis started doing the commentating. Now, all of a sudden the magazine includes a report on the airshow.

One other comment – they have dropped the ‘Help’ section which has been very useful to myself and other researchers. Clearly, Flypast has no interest in trying to help the aviation community to preserve its own history!

Thanks, Snapper. E-mail on its way to you.