WIX Archives
Re: Top speed straight and level, or in a dive?
Posted by Steve T on Tue Jan 06, 2004 10:45:24 PM
In reply top Re: Top speed straight and level, or in a dive? posted by Mike on Tue Jan 06, 2004 08:48:46 AM
Hi Mike--
: I believe that it was, in fact, a PRXI, and lost the prop
: and part of the cowling in the process.
The PR.XI incident was either during or just after the war, and the pilot was "Marty" Martindale iirc. I've seen a photo of the propless Spit taken afterward. "Yikes" about covers it! I hadn't heard the 1952 PR.19 account before but it is pretty clearly a different incident. Apparently the aerodynamics of the Spit airframe--the (for the time) very thin wing, especially--allowed an exceptionally high Mach limitation...one that was a bit TOO high for a bird with a great big fan out front! Given current prop technology...it would be really quite interesting to see what could be achieved now. (But who's going to hazard even a new-build Spitfire in such a manner...? I wouldn't if I owned one!)
S.