Spitfire documentry 1976

[wolfracesonic]

Maybe this should go in the video thread, but I'll try and sneak it in here what with the interest shown in 'Guy Martins' Spitfire and Mustang vs Spitfire threads. Just spent an hour watching it and just like the 'World at war' series it benefits greatly from featuring people who were there at the time: Douglas Bader and Bob Stanford-Tuck discussing negative 'g' issues, chaps from the Schneider trophy design team, Johnnie Johnson, people from the factories and a lady who did a circuit of an airfield desperately clinging to the tail of a Spitfire. Well worth 60 minutes of your time, if you haven't come across it before Spitfire documentary 1976

[Wedg1e]

On that theme, look out for the two documentaries concerning the 'Grace' Spitfire. None of the artificial emotional cr4p they put in programmes nowadays, just a telling of it how it happened.
I defy anyone to not have a tear in the eye when Nick's plane takes off after completion...

http://www.ml407.co.uk/pages/history.html

[wildcat45]

Just sent a wonderful hour watching the first film.

What fantastc people.

One question that wasn't answered, if they had a ME 109 captured and if the fuel injection gave better performance in combat, why couldn't they just copy the design, or modify it to RAF requirements.

[Eric Mc]

I think because the pilots developed techniques for countering the advantage of the DB601 and later Mr Shilling's adaptation meant it wasn't that big a deal.

They went on and manufactured tens of thousands of Merlins and they all had carbs.

The later, more powerful, Griffon also had carbs.

[hidetheelephants]

wildcat45 said:

Just sent a wonderful hour watching the first film.

What fantastc people.

One question that wasn't answered, if they had a ME 109 captured and if the fuel injection gave better performance in combat, why couldn't they just copy the design, or modify it to RAF requirements.

Because the existing carburettors worked and RAF sooties understood them, and because sparing the manpower and manufacturing capacity to reverse engineer a reliable copy would slow down other more important projects.

[outnumbered]

Thanks for the pointer, I don't think I'd seen that film before. Just makes you despair about "documentaries" these days really...

[Bebee]

Looks and interesting doc, Ill watch that later.


Just a heads up for now:

BBC4 starting in 4 mins

'Jet! When Britain Ruled the Skies'

[BrettMRC]

Superior History on youtube have loads of similar older documentaries, worth looking at their uploads.

There is a good one on a similar line covering the hawker tempest.

[Eric Mc]

I videoed this documentary off BBC1 or 2 in around 1981 or 1982. It is very good mainly because many of the people interviewed were key individuals who had worked on the design of the Spitfire and the Merlin engine.

[Simpo Two]

A lot of 80s/90s aviation stuff is appearing on Quest, mostly made by a fellow called Robert Garafalo. Yesterday there was a whole string of programmes about various aeroplanes narrated by Harry Enfield. Ther was also a very good old documentary about Jaguars last week - notable by lack of thrashing background music and hype; it just got on with it.

[Eric Mc]

The Harry Enfield series was made about ten years ago for Discovery and is very good.

[davepen]

Eric Mc said:

later Mr Shilling's adaptation

Miss Shilling (or Mrs Naylor) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Shilling

[Eric Mc]

Typo.

I know all about Miss Shilling as she was a local here at Farnborough. The relatively new Weatherspoon's Pub (opened 2011) is called "The Tilly Shilling" in her honour.