Short film: Spitfire 944

[Picchio]

 

Beautiful, and quite moving.

Shame about the intro/outro soundtrack choice, though - seemed a somewhat tasteless choice to me.

Edited July 2, 2014 by Picchio

[=LD=Hethwill]

Good stuff. Nothing confirms a story like the "lost in memories expression eyes" of the ones whom were there - "I'll be damned!".

 

+1

[NastyDog]

WoW respect fore this man , no guns in the wing and than flyging over Germany .

[LukeFF]

It sounds like he got into FM arguments with other pilots. 

 

"You can't fly a Spitfire to Berlin and back!"

 

"Oh yes I can."

 

 

[Leaf]

It sounds like he got into FM arguments with other pilots. 

 

"You can't fly a Spitfire to Berlin and back!"

 

"Oh yes I can."

 

 

Hahaha! That's brilliant! 

[Finkeren]

That was awesome.

 

Reconaissance is so overlooked in military history, be that land, sea or air, but quite often it provides some of the greatest drama.

[Finkeren]

BTW: Honestly it's not really any kind of "secret", that the USAAF flew recon Spits. The converted Spitfires made arguably the best high altitude single engine recon planes with great performance even above 40,000 feet. Their ceiling was more or less determined by how well the pilots coped with the altitude.

[Mastermariner]

Nice movie. Thanks for posting.

Regarding the altitude of recon flights I read a book, ages ago, and I recall the pilot went up to where contrails started to form and then reduced alt until they were gone.

 

Master

[Herbs107]

WOW... To watch the glint in his eyes when he realised he was watching his own plane make a forced landing..Priceless.. 

[Finkeren]

Regarding the altitude of recon flights I read a book, ages ago, and I recall the pilot went up to where contrails started to form and then reduced alt until they were gone.

 

That tactic could also work, especially if the aircraft was "camouflaged" for high altitude, as these Spits were.  

 

However, I think flying as low as perhaps 25,000 feet in a Mk. XI would completely negate the tremendous advantage of the Spit: High altitude performance. Contrails might well make it heasier to spot your aircraft, but if you're flying 400 mph at 32,000 feet, you're practically untouchable anyway.

[MiloMorai]

Maybe Fink, but Mossies flew at these lower altitudes and were hard to catch. The Germans even formed 2 special JGs (25, 50) to catch the Mossies but were soon disbanded due to lack of success.

[Finkeren]

Maybe Fink, but Mossies flew at these lower altitudes and were hard to catch. The Germans even formed 2 special JGs (25, 50) to catch the Mossies but were soon disbanded due to lack of success.

 

Sorry, I didn't catch your point. Why are Mossies relevant for the Spitfires performance as a high alt recon plane?

[MiloMorai]

Mossies were slower than Spit XIs.

[Finkeren]

Mossies were slower than Spit XIs.

Again I'm afraid I don't follow you. So simply because there were other planes that were slower and those didn't get shot down in droves, that means that they wouldn't have used the Spit recons at an altitude where they performed their best and were almost completely untouchable?

[DD_bongodriver]

I'm sure there were times the Spitfire had to do low level recon, if they really needed detail photos it probably had to get close to target, I think Milo is simply saying the Spit didn't fly high altitude through necessity.

[Finkeren]

I'm sure there were times the Spitfire had to do low level recon, if they really needed detail photos it probably had to get close to target, I think Milo is simply saying the Spit didn't fly high altitude through necessity.

 

No no, I understand that. It was simply a question of the tactic of flying "semi-high", right below the altitude where contrails form, and whether or not it would make sense for the Spits to use that tactic when flying high alt recon. 

 

Of course Spits flew low alt recon missions as well.

[DD_bongodriver]

I would say it still makes some sense to be inconspicuous even if the speed and alt made you untouchable, if the enemy don't know they are being observed then there is a greater likelihood of finding juicy details.

[Finkeren]

Juicy details that could be hid away quickly enough aren't gonna be spotted from either 25,000 or 40,000 feet though

 

In any case, it's propably a futile discussion. One would have to go through the mission reports to check flight altitudes. All this is just speculation.