Spit 14

[HR_Zunzun]

4 hours ago, VBF-12_KW said:

Our Spit IX is listed as having the same 85 gallon total capacity as the Spit V - I don't think it's equipped with a rear fuselage tank.

Also, this rearward CG feeling has happened to me mostly in Berloga where they are just basically flying in fumes.

[Gingerwelsh]

7 hours ago, VBF-12_KW said:

Our Spit IX is listed as having the same 85 gallon total capacity as the Spit V - I don't think it's equipped with a rear fuselage tank.

 

The Spit IX, (ours), doesn't have a rear fuselage tank and neither does the Spit  F XIV. (ours).

 

Only the Spit FR XIV has a rear tank, 31 gals). This is normally kept sealed and only filled for special ops. but we don't have it.

 

..

[Kurfurst]

On 1/15/2022 at 3:44 AM, LukeFF said:

 

Not true in the slightest - it was in service from the end of 1943. 

 

So which Squadrons were those, considering that No 610 Squadron only received the first eight XIVs via a rail shipment at Exeter on the 6th January 1944, with only a single one arriving by the end of the month. 610 only began receiving and familiarization with them, and have spent the better part of the next two months receiving deliveries of single aircraft now and then, and working out various teething troubles with the Griffon 65 (plugs, rough running, tyres bursting etc.)?

Edited January 18, 2022 by VO101Kurfurst

[Gingerwelsh]

3 hours ago, VO101Kurfurst said:

 

So which Squadrons were those, considering that No 610 Squadron only received the first eight XIVs via a rail shipment at Exeter on the 6th January 1944, with only a single one arriving by the end of the month. 610 only began receiving and familiarization with them, and have spent the better part of the next two months receiving deliveries of single aircraft now and then, and working out various teething troubles with the Griffon 65 (plugs, rough running, tyres bursting etc.)?

The first Mk XIV's arrived at Exeter from Jan 1.

 

The engineering staff and pilots arrived on the 6th. 8 aircraft had already been delivered.

 

First operation was on the 8th.

 

First production was Oct 1943. Teething troubles were sorted at the factory before delivery to 610 squadron.

 

..

[Kurfurst]

53 minutes ago, Gingerwelsh said:

The first Mk XIV's arrived at Exeter from Jan 1.

 

Perhaps, and perhaps some were sitting on the tarmac at Exeter, on the 1st January. However there was a small issue that neither the pilots neither most of the Squadron maintainence personnel itself were there, too, as they were still packing up at the RAF's Fairwood Common (redeployment that lasted more than a week, partly due to organisation issues, and quite comically, because Kingsbridge Railway Station was closed for war on Sundays and they missed that information).

 

53 minutes ago, Gingerwelsh said:

The engineering staff and pilots arrived on the 6th. 8 aircraft had already been delivered.

 

There is very little operational about aircraft delivered to an empty airfield without crew and pilots.

 

53 minutes ago, Gingerwelsh said:

First operation was on the 8th.

 

Sort of.

 

A several patrols, for a total of 2+2+6+2 sorties were flown (uneventful convoy patrols, and btw this was the norm for the following months until DDay) on 8th January, by mix of Mark Vs (8 sorties) and XIVs (4 sorties) because the latter were and remained in short supply, arriving one by one, and thus mixed flights were necessary.

 

In in fact deliveries were so slow that it wasn't until the end of February 1944 that 610 could finally get rid of its remaining Mark Vs and claim be an actual Mark XIV Squadron, with 19 XIVs on hand. 

 

That is much how the Mark XIV was 'operational' in 1943. A handful of prototypes, pre-production planes were built, and were slowly arriving Squadruns during the first quarter of 1944, where they spent most of their time with familiarization, working out of bugs and uneventful patrols mostly in pairs far from the Luftwaffe. 

 

53 minutes ago, Gingerwelsh said:

First production was Oct 1943.

 

Well if you count two prototypes converted from Mk VIIs (RB 142 and 143) that were subsequently used for testing as 'production'.

Records show that a grand total of 18 aircraft, including conversions and prototypes were built during the whole of 1943.

 

53 minutes ago, Gingerwelsh said:

Teething troubles were sorted at the factory before delivery to 610 squadron.

 

... which is why  610 Squadron's own records still keep talking about working out the teething troubles with the manufacturer by the end of the February 1944.

[JtD]

Thanks for the clarification. I was a little confused by LukeFF's statement but was too lazy to look up the details myself.

[Kurfurst]

28 minutes ago, JtD said:

Thanks for the clarification. I was a little confused by LukeFF's statement but was too lazy to look up the details myself.

 

Well the 1943 XIVs discussion keeps popping up so...  I guess the ultimate trolling would be to release a totally historical 610 Squadron campaign up to D-Day, with highlights would be:

 

- Enter the XIV. Your squad is to receive brand new XIVs at Exeter. In a minigame, your mission is to take the train there by driving a lorry to the station. After 5 hours of driving you find out that the station is closed on Sundays, and you have to drive your lorry back to the base. On the next mission, the train station will be open and the next four missions you get the watch the English countryside from the train window, and get fill out various RAF forms to ease the boredom.

- Baptism of fire in which despite the promising title you only get to fly a Mark V from 1941 on totally uneventful patrols, in each and every mission in January.

- Perfection, in which around the half the campaign you actually get to fly the XIV and find out on the same totally uneventful patrols you the engines sometimes don't start, or quit and/or your tyres burst on landing

- Boosting the XIV with 130 grade fuel albeit performance is the exact same except for in addition to the above, you also get rough running engines.

- Pounding the Nazi air force into submission with the XIV well that's what Mustangs get to do, you get to patrol the Channel in pairs from dawn to dusk and never get contact, although there will be one mission where you get vectored onto a boogey (but never make contact)

- Participate in the Normandy landings during which you finally get one (1) mission to shoot up some house in the French countryside hat is a Wehrmacht HQ. Or isn't. 

- Doodlebug hunting with 150 grade fuel which could have been put in but sadly the campaign is cut off at a date just before all that could happen

[von_Tom]

Hmmm, someone seems to have a problem with the XIV being in-game. 
 

it does appear that the first operational sortie was on the 8th January 1944. That it doesn’t involve a furball with 50 190s doesn’t matter. 
 

As it was, there was already some experience of flying Griffon Spits from April ‘43 with the Spit XII. A different beast but I wonder how many of the lessons learned from that were passed across. 
 

von Tom

Edited January 18, 2022 by von_Tom

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, VO101Kurfurst said:

 

Well the 1943 XIVs discussion keeps popping up so...  I guess the ultimate trolling would be to release a totally historical 610 Squadron campaign up to D-Day, with highlights would be:

 

- Enter the XIV. Your squad is to receive brand new XIVs at Exeter. In a minigame, your mission is to take the train there by driving a lorry to the station. After 5 hours of driving you find out that the station is closed on Sundays, and you have to drive your lorry back to the base. On the next mission, the train station will be open and the next four missions you get the watch the English countryside from the train window, and get fill out various RAF forms to ease the boredom.

- Baptism of fire in which despite the promising title you only get to fly a Mark V from 1941 on totally uneventful patrols, in each and every mission in January.

- Perfection, in which around the half the campaign you actually get to fly the XIV and find out on the same totally uneventful patrols you the engines sometimes don't start, or quit and/or your tyres burst on landing

- Boosting the XIV with 130 grade fuel albeit performance is the exact same except for in addition to the above, you also get rough running engines.

- Pounding the Nazi air force into submission with the XIV well that's what Mustangs get to do, you get to patrol the Channel in pairs from dawn to dusk and never get contact, although there will be one mission where you get vectored onto a boogey (but never make contact)

- Participate in the Normandy landings during which you finally get one (1) mission to shoot up some house in the French countryside hat is a Wehrmacht HQ. Or isn't. 

- Doodlebug hunting with 150 grade fuel which could have been put in but sadly the campaign is cut off at a date just before all that could happen

 

And you totally missed the point that other squadrons were fully operational on the XIV at the time - including 91 and 322 Squadrons. 

[Dakpilot]

1 hour ago, von_Tom said:

As it was, there was already some experience of flying Griffon Spits from April ‘43 with the Spit XII. A different beast but I wonder how many of the lessons learned from that were passed across

 

First Griffon engined Spitfire flew on 27 Nov 1941 as the Mk IV (DP845) ,  they were fairly well developed by the time of the definitive production Mk XIV

 

Cheers, Dakpilot 

[Kurfurst]

2 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 

And you totally missed the point that other squadrons were fully operational on the XIV at the time - including 91 and 322 Squadrons. 

 

And the story is very much the same as 610 and the 'fully operational XIV squadrons' you simply conjured up out of nothing for 1943. 

 

No. 91. only gets its first batch of XIV on the 29th February 1944, then spends March with familiarization and training, while in April - May keywords are 'uneventful patrols over the Channel/Thames Estuary', occasionally skirting the French coast on patrol, and strafing coastal targets of opportunity like small vessel and lorries a couple of times. In June 1944 they are going on full anti-diver duty  do that until September 1944. No 322 is again pretty much the same story except it receiving its first planes later, in April. 

 

You can count Mk XIV aerial claims by all squadrons on one hand until the autumn of 1944, as hunting for unmanned V-1s in the summer of 1944 was their most significant action, and pretty much the only kind of actual combat operation against aerial targets, apart from a dubious claim for a single Fw 190 in March 1944: they basically take no part in any significant air combat operations against the Luftwaffe until very late in 1944.

[von_Tom]

3 hours ago, Dakpilot said:

 

First Griffon engined Spitfire flew on 27 Nov 1941 as the Mk IV (DP845) ,  they were fairly well developed by the time of the definitive production Mk XIV

 

 

Agreed, but first flew isn't the same as being used at squadron level.  That is where the experience properly started about how to use the things.

 

von Tom

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, VO101Kurfurst said:

In June 1944 they are going on full anti-diver duty  do that until September 1944. No 322 is again pretty much the same story except it receiving its first planes later, in April. 

 

No, not the case. They were also tasked with the occasional bomber escort mission, which means they were flying well over France. I count about a dozen bomber escort missions flown by 91 Squadron to the end of August 1944.

[Carlos_K]

Maybe some operational reports can be found here.

 

http://www.aircrewremembered.com/

 

[JV69badatflyski]

37 minutes ago, Carlos_K said:

Maybe some operational reports can be found here.

 

http://www.aircrewremembered.com/

 

i got the ORB's of most of the squadrons that used the mk14 (missing 3or4, but have the main-ones) covering the whole war. And Kurfurst is right, there wasn't much of action for the mk14's squads, mostly boring border patrols (note the Mostly ) or diver patrols until sept44. Having a campaign based in UK would be very, like very-very, boring...
But actually, most missions on the channel since end43 were boring without any ennemy contact.