Supermarine Spitfire IX
The Supermarine Spitfire had the measure of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 all throughout WWII, but then in 1941 the Germans did something different. A small, neat, radial-engined fighter appeared, and the Focke-Wulf 190 slaughtered the RAF’s premier interceptor.
It took Rolls-Royce and Supermarine about a year to produce the answer to the ‘Butcher Bird’, in the form of the Merlin 61 fitted into a long-nose airframe, and the combination became the Spitfire Mk IX. Perhaps the definitive Spitfire variant, the Mk IX, first flew on 20 September 1941, and remained in service from 28 July 1942 until the end of WWII and beyond.
The Merlin 61 had a two-stage supercharger with intercooler which boosted power from the 990 bhp of the Merlin II to 1560 bhp. The Spitfire IX was some 40 mph faster than the MkV, and could reach an altitude of 43,000 feet ~ 6,000 feet higher than the Spitfire Vb. The 190 was almost a match for the Spitfire IX below 20,000 feet, but above that altitude the Focke-Wulf was outclassed.
Suddenly it was the turn of Fw 190 pilots to be astonished , they were used to outflying Spitfires but the MkIX achieved superiority over both the Fw 190 and the Bf 109G. The unpleasant thing for Luftwaffe fighter pilots was the deadly Mk IX looked exactly like the Spitfire V they were used to shooting down.
The Spitfire IX was the best Spitfire. When we got the IX. we had the upper hand, which did for the 190s. ~ Johnnie Johnson.
Test Pilot Jeffrey Quill, who was instrumental in all Spitfire upgrades, described the Spitfire IX and it’s Rolls-Royce Merlin 61 engine as one of two quantum leaps in Spitfire performance during the war, (the other being the introduction of the Rolls-Royce Griffon engine).
Like many very powerful engines shoehorned into tiny fighters, the Merlin 61 was originally designed for use in high-altitude bombers, (see the Bf 109 D). Rolls-Royce were the world leaders in supercharger technologies and the Merlin 61 used two blowers in series, one feeding the other and separated by an intercooler. This crammed as much air as possible into the Merlin’s intake manifold. The Merlin 61 needed a big four-bladed propeller to absorb all that power, and the Spitfire IX needed a second underwing radiator to cool the intercooler. (Tricky for the Lutwaffe pilots to spot in the middle of a dogfight.)
The Spitfire IX weighed 600lbs more than the Mk V, and was usualy armed with two 20mm cannon and four .303 machine guns. There was a variant of the Merlin, the 66, which was used to power a low-altitude version of the Spitfire IX, the Spitfire LF IX. This was designed to better the Focke-Wulf 190 at low and medium altitudes, the 190’s preferred hunting ground. At 21,000 feet the LF Spitfire IX was 30 mph faster than the Fw 190, better in the climb and vastly more maneuverable.
The basic Mk IX also appeared as the modified photo reconnaissance Spitfire PR XI, which could cruise at 42,000 feet, well above the maximum altitude of the Luftwaffe’s best fighters, and fly to Berlin and beyond.
The Spitfire IX was also modified to meet the threat from very high altitude attacks by Junkers Ju 88R and P’s. These German attacks were merely nuisance raids, but in order to meet them the armour and some equipment was stripped from the standard Spitfire IX, which allowed Pilot Officer Prince Emanuel Galitzine to chase a JU88P flown by Feldwebel Horst Götz and Leutnant Erich Sommer to 43,500 feet and damage the bomber before it could escape into cloud. This was the highest altitude air battle of WWII, and ended the high altitude bombing of England.
And finally for this post, in order to meet the threat from V1 flying bombs, (an early cruise missile), Spitfire IX’s were stripped of their camouflage paint, the wings were waxed and polished to a mirror finish, the mirrors were removed, and the armour was taken out. Then, if they were already in the air when the threat was detected, the Spitfire MK IX could catch and destroy the German Terror Weapons. The preferred method of downing a V1 was for the Spitfire to put its wing-tip under the stubby wing of the V1, and then roll sharply. This toppled the flying bomb, destabilised its giro, making it plummet into the ground ~ preferrably in a field somewhere.
~
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
RMS Queen Mary
Once the grandest ocean liner in the world the 1,000 foot long, 81,000 ton Royal Mail Ship Queen Mary was built to capture the Blue Riband, (the record for crossing the Atlantic Ocean with the highest average speed). Launched in 1934 she took the record at an average speed of over 3o knots, before losing it to the French liner Normandie. Queen Mary retook and held both the Eastbound and Westbound records from 1938 until 1955 with average speeds of 31 knots, (35 mph).
You can only appreciate the sheer size of the RMS Queen Mary from close to. She is big, slightly larger than the modern aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, and far better looking.
The interior of the Queen is magnificently art deco. If you are interested in that style, or if you are interested in interior design at all, you will love wandering around the passenger areas, and don’t miss the magnificent bar towards the ship’s bow. Snacks and drinks are not so expensive in there.
During WWII the Queen Mary was painted grey, had all of her luxury fittings taken out and was used as a troop ship on the Atlantic run, carrying 15,000 troops at a time from the USA to England. She was so fast that she sailed alone, apart from one escort cruiser. Tragically, in October 1942, she ran down her escort HMS Curacao, cutting her in half without the huge Queen Mary feeling more than a slight shudder. Because the Queen Mary was forbidden to stop to render assistance some 240 of the Curacao’s crew lost their lives.
The Queen’s huge engineering spaces are fascinating. Even for those who don’t have an engineering background it gives you a view back into another age, when men were men and computerisation hadn’t even been thought of.
Some of the machinery is on a huge scale.
Right aft in the engineering spaces you can go outside the ship, through to a special pool that gives you a view of one of the Queen Mary’s four propellers. Personally I found that quite spooky.
The Queen Mary is now at Long Beach in California and a stop to visit her makes a good day on any Californian road trip. Trust me, I’ve been there and done that. If you like history, ships, engineering, or spooky ghostly stuff you will love to spend a day on the Queen Mary. Just visiting the propeller pool was spooky enough for me.
The Queen Mary is also a floating hotel with magnificent art deco staterooms. A midweek special isn’t very expensive. Booking on-line at http://www.queenmary.com/stay-aboard/stay-aboard/
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jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Death of the Real Land Rover
Rest In Peace, The Best 4×4 By Far
The Land Rover Defender 90 inch, doing what only it could do.
All good things must come to an end. My Lightweight Land Rover was one of the best things I ever had. Proper Land Rovers are fairly ugly, ( the Lightweight pictured is incredibly ugly), boxy, heavy, slow, uncomfortable, thirsty, rugged ~ a ‘proper’ Land Rover is one of the coolest cars a man can buy. And, should you ever want to take off into the middle of a desert, on a dirt road, for a couple of weeks at a time, then there is no better car to choose than a ‘proper’ Land Rover.
The modern ‘proper’ Land Rover is called Defender, but before Land Rover went chichi and upmarket on us, all Land Rovers were rugged off-road vehicles equally suited to driving down Regent Street in London as they were to carrying troops across a battlefield. The iconic Land Rover is said to be The Queen’s favourite car.
The very first Land Rovers were built, by the Rover Company, to replace the ubiquitous Jeep just after the end of WWII. The whole design ethos can be traced back to those 2 simple facts. It had to replace the Jeep and it was going to be British, and Britain was broken and destitute after WWII. The Land Rover had to be a rugged, go-anywhere 4×4 workhorse. Steel was in short supply in the UK so the body is aluminium, it had to use as many existing components as possible, looks and comfort didn’t much matter, and it had to be cheap. The 1948 version cost £450.
The simple solution found by Rover designer Maurice Wilks was to manufacture a strong box section chassis, and just hang everything else off that. Just look at that chassis. Rugged or what? Over-engineered perhaps. At the beginning all Land Rovers came in sage-green because a job-lot of surplus paint was acquired from a fighter aircraft factory.
Basically, once the basic steel frame has been welded together, everything else is bolted on. Or pop-riveted. Or screwed. Or banged in with a hammer. For English boys of a certain age if I say that a Land Rover is just a man-sized Meccano, they will know exactly how it was built. (USA Erector Set) As the blurb for the Erector Set says the ability to build a model, then take it apart and build something else, over and over again. And, do you know what? You can do the same thing with a full-sized Land Rover.
If your Land Rover is falling apart, you can take it completely apart, down to the last nut and bolt, and then build it again, but perhaps differently, and better. Choose cart springs or coil? Part-time or full-time four-wheel drive? Pick any engine you like, and as far as the body is concerned, the choice is too wide to mention. The most extreme Land Rover bodywork is the 101 Forward Control, which makes a fantastic camper / RV. This thing was mostly used as a military ambulance or command car.
This flexibility and rebuild-ability means that the Land Rover is the greenest car ever built, dust to dust. More than 80% of all the ‘proper’ Land Rovers ever built since 1948 are still in use~ they don’t get thrown away, they get recycled. Which should have pleased the environmental nutcases is California, but didn’t. Perhaps they didn’t like its military connections.
Since the first Land Rover was built in 1948 some 200,000 have been bought for military use, and like all Land Rovers have appeared in a bewildering range of variants. As well as the 101 there were tracked, amphibious, fire engines… The most famous variant being the Pink Panthers used by the SAS, (Special Air Service), the UK’s and World’s premier special service force. The pink colour is desert camouflage. You would understand that if you’d ever been into the desert.
However, there are a few problems having a real Land Rover as your only car. For example; they are illegal in the USA, they are slowish and use a lot of fuel, comfort isn’t what they are built for, they are tall and a long way off the ground, the heating system is pathetic…. But, as I said, if you really want to drive off into the desert, this is your vehicle of choice, at least you will stand some chance of returning.
There is an all new Land Rover Defender coming off the stocks. But the new Land Rover Defender isn’t even going to be built at its traditional home, in Solihull, in Britain. A new factory in Slovakia, (Slovakia? Did anything good ever come from that part of the world), will build the chichi new Defender DC100, which looks like a bigger version of BMW’s Mini that’s been frightened by a plastic bath-tub. More suitable for the supermarket car park than the Sahara Desert.
Good Grief! But money talks. Land Rover will be able to sell this toy car in the USA. They are just dumb enough to buy it if it’s cheap.
I have owned a couple of Land Rovers, including a Lightweight, and the kid’s toy look of the new DC100 just doesn’t cut it. It’s a girl’s car, or maybe a hairdresser’s, at least a metrosexual guy who worries about his manicure more than his car.
Don’t worry, get a tool kit and build your own ‘proper’ Land Rover. All you need is a hammer ~ well maybe. It’s the tool of choice in Slovakia.
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
most photographs from google
The Miracle Material ~ Plywood
Plywood is marvellous stuff. An engineered sheet wood that is made from thin veneers of timber glued together in a cross-grained layer cake. It was allegedly invented in 1797 by Royal Navy Engineer Samuel Bentham, and further refined in about 1847 by Immanual Nobel, (father of Aflred Nobel).
You can build just about anything out of plywood. Go to Joshua Tree in California and take a look at the Integratron if you want to see an amazing structure made from sheets of plywood.
One can see the method of constriction much better from inside.
The floor in my apartment is covered in sheets of varnished ply to give a warm, clean and attractive finish which is better than carpet, and gives extra strength to the structure ~ (which stops my record player from skipping when I walk around).
One can make furniture, car chassis, (as in the Marcos 1800 GT,and the Costin), from plywood, which have a stiff plywood monocoque.
I could even build a home out of plywood ~ not difficult once the concrete base is laid. In fact all of the materials to build a substantial home could be moved in the back of a Ford Transit Van, (which was designed to take the standard 8 x 4 plywood sheet).
Of the more remarkable things built out of plywood there is the WWII United States Patrol Torpedo boat as skippered by Future President John F. Kennedy in PT 109.
An even more remarkable war-winning machine was the ‘wooden wonder’ the de Havilland Mosquito ~ the plywood plane. This machine was a light bomber, strike fighter, night fighter, reconnaissance aircraft, target marker, low level bomber, maritime patrol aircraft, torpedo bomber ~ the first truly multi-role aircraft. In 1941 the ‘Mossie’ was the fastest aircraft in the world and was almost immune from interception. Powered by two Rolls-Royce Merlin engines it was faster than the Supermarine Spitfire, could fly higher and had a much longer range than the legendary Battle of Britain fighter. The Mosquito could carry 2,000 lbs of bombs at up to 400 mph, all the way to Berlin. The Mosquito could also maintain a climb on one engine. It was also bloody dangerous for inexperienced pilots at low speed, having a stall speed of 121 mph.
de Havilland’s later jet fighters, the Venom and Vampire also use wood extensively in their construction.
One of the largest plywood structures today is Inhabitat, the Roskilde Plywood Dome. Although, to me, this offers less than the aforementioned Integratron.
If one wants a less challenging project than an aircraft or home using plywood ~ try boat building.
Oh, and the WWII LCVP, the Higgins Boat, was also made from plywood.
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
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