09-25-2008, 10:34 PM
There is something very special about the Supermarine Spitfire. The Hawker Hurricane played an equally heroic part in the Battle of Britain.
Indeed, in the long hot summer of 1940 it was - in terms of planes in the English sky and number of enemy 'kills' - the first line of our defence against Luftwaffe bombers.
But numbers - 27 squadrons of Hurricanes and only 19 of Spitfires - are less important than the spirit that the name invokes. When you think of 'the Few' who saved us in our 'finest hour', you think of Spitfires.
There were 14 of them at Duxford for the Imperial War Museum's annual air show in the run-up to last week's Battle of Britain commemorations.
Each one was a survivor of World War II. And they all flew. One - still in its original camouflage colours - did a victory roll. The older spectators remembered what that meant and cheered.
The first Spitfire in service with the RAF arrived at Duxford exactly 70 years ago. It was the brainchild of R.J. Mitchell, the aeronautical genius responsible for the seaplanes with which Britain had won the Schneider Trophy three years running.
Two years earlier, Mitchell had designed a new fighter plane to the specification of Air Ministry boffins. It was a complete failure. In war the English always begin slowly.
But he started all over again - relying on his own ideas. The result of his confidence and courage was the most famous aircraft in British history. And its fame endures.
Everybody at the Duxford air show had something different to say about the Spitfire.
'Its distinctive engine noise changes pitch when it banks and turns. It reminds me of a seagull in full flight ... I made a balsa-wood model of one when I was a boy.'
But it was the aircraft that most people recognise. Alongside Vera Lynn and Winston Churchill, it is what we think of when we remember the war.
When war broke out in 1939, 2,000 Spitfires were in production. But they came slowly off the production line and it was Christmas before Duxford's 19 Squadron was up to strength. But, having arrived, they stayed.
Spitfires were still there, or at the station's satellite airfield, when the war was over and won - part of the 'big wing' of Hurricanes and Spitfires called 12 Group.
For a time they were commanded by the most famous fighter pilot of them all, Group Captain Douglas Bader.
As the air show Spitfires took off, I asked a pilot of another generation, Wing Commander Andy Green, what made Spitfires so special.
Green now works in the Ministry of Defence but, in his time, he flew Phantoms and Tornadoes and last year he beat the world land-speed record in the supersonic time of 763.08 miles per hour. So his opinion counted for something.
He quoted a dozen facts about the Spitfire - its firepower, its manoeuvrability and its stamina. The nature of its construction meant that, as the war went on, Spitfires could be improved and modified - longer range, better armament, more speed.
The planes on the tarmac illustrated his point. First two-blade propellers, then three and finally four as the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines grew from 990 to 1050 and then to 1280 horsepower.
But airmen are romantics about aircraft, just as sailors are romantic about ships. So Wing Commander Green went on to talk about the Spitfire's style and grace - the curve of its wings, its slim fuselage and its elegant cockpit cover.
![[Image: article-1059933-0411BBC10000044D-593_468x515.jpg]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/09/22/article-1059933-0411BBC10000044D-593_468x515.jpg)
Then he pointed to all the fighter aircraft, waiting to take off and play their part in the air show pageant - two Hurricanes as well as the 14 Spitfires.
'I hear people say that after the Battle of Trafalgar England was safe from invasion for ever. But if it hadn't been for those planes, we would have been invaded in 1940.'
Even with the Sunday afternoon crowd huddled in raincoats and sheltering under umbrellas from the unseasonable downpour, it was easy to imagine those young men, almost 70 years ago, waiting in the September sunshine for the order to take off again.
One of the Spitfires that flew at Duxford was used as the master for the moulds from which fibre-glass replicas were made for the 1969 film The Battle Of Britain.
And there was a Flying Fortress called Memphis Belle outside the United States Air Force tent. Most of the films about the war in the air owe something to Duxford, but there was a feeling on Sunday afternoon that we had all come face to face with the real thing.
Halfway through the afternoon, I gave up counting the number of aeroplanes - British and foreign, World Wars I and II - that circled above us in the Cambridgeshire sky.
But I did work out why - Lancasters and Dakotas, Vulcans and Meteors, notwithstanding - the Spitfire is the patriot's plane. We think of it as the aircraft that defended Britain when we stood alone.
Indeed, in the long hot summer of 1940 it was - in terms of planes in the English sky and number of enemy 'kills' - the first line of our defence against Luftwaffe bombers.
But numbers - 27 squadrons of Hurricanes and only 19 of Spitfires - are less important than the spirit that the name invokes. When you think of 'the Few' who saved us in our 'finest hour', you think of Spitfires.
There were 14 of them at Duxford for the Imperial War Museum's annual air show in the run-up to last week's Battle of Britain commemorations.
Each one was a survivor of World War II. And they all flew. One - still in its original camouflage colours - did a victory roll. The older spectators remembered what that meant and cheered.
The first Spitfire in service with the RAF arrived at Duxford exactly 70 years ago. It was the brainchild of R.J. Mitchell, the aeronautical genius responsible for the seaplanes with which Britain had won the Schneider Trophy three years running.
Two years earlier, Mitchell had designed a new fighter plane to the specification of Air Ministry boffins. It was a complete failure. In war the English always begin slowly.
But he started all over again - relying on his own ideas. The result of his confidence and courage was the most famous aircraft in British history. And its fame endures.
Everybody at the Duxford air show had something different to say about the Spitfire.
'Its distinctive engine noise changes pitch when it banks and turns. It reminds me of a seagull in full flight ... I made a balsa-wood model of one when I was a boy.'
But it was the aircraft that most people recognise. Alongside Vera Lynn and Winston Churchill, it is what we think of when we remember the war.
When war broke out in 1939, 2,000 Spitfires were in production. But they came slowly off the production line and it was Christmas before Duxford's 19 Squadron was up to strength. But, having arrived, they stayed.
Spitfires were still there, or at the station's satellite airfield, when the war was over and won - part of the 'big wing' of Hurricanes and Spitfires called 12 Group.
For a time they were commanded by the most famous fighter pilot of them all, Group Captain Douglas Bader.
As the air show Spitfires took off, I asked a pilot of another generation, Wing Commander Andy Green, what made Spitfires so special.
Green now works in the Ministry of Defence but, in his time, he flew Phantoms and Tornadoes and last year he beat the world land-speed record in the supersonic time of 763.08 miles per hour. So his opinion counted for something.
He quoted a dozen facts about the Spitfire - its firepower, its manoeuvrability and its stamina. The nature of its construction meant that, as the war went on, Spitfires could be improved and modified - longer range, better armament, more speed.
The planes on the tarmac illustrated his point. First two-blade propellers, then three and finally four as the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines grew from 990 to 1050 and then to 1280 horsepower.
But airmen are romantics about aircraft, just as sailors are romantic about ships. So Wing Commander Green went on to talk about the Spitfire's style and grace - the curve of its wings, its slim fuselage and its elegant cockpit cover.
Then he pointed to all the fighter aircraft, waiting to take off and play their part in the air show pageant - two Hurricanes as well as the 14 Spitfires.
'I hear people say that after the Battle of Trafalgar England was safe from invasion for ever. But if it hadn't been for those planes, we would have been invaded in 1940.'
Even with the Sunday afternoon crowd huddled in raincoats and sheltering under umbrellas from the unseasonable downpour, it was easy to imagine those young men, almost 70 years ago, waiting in the September sunshine for the order to take off again.
One of the Spitfires that flew at Duxford was used as the master for the moulds from which fibre-glass replicas were made for the 1969 film The Battle Of Britain.
And there was a Flying Fortress called Memphis Belle outside the United States Air Force tent. Most of the films about the war in the air owe something to Duxford, but there was a feeling on Sunday afternoon that we had all come face to face with the real thing.
Halfway through the afternoon, I gave up counting the number of aeroplanes - British and foreign, World Wars I and II - that circled above us in the Cambridgeshire sky.
But I did work out why - Lancasters and Dakotas, Vulcans and Meteors, notwithstanding - the Spitfire is the patriot's plane. We think of it as the aircraft that defended Britain when we stood alone.