[Closed] PSA: Spitfire BBC2

Lovely aircraft, just watched the programme. Good watch.👍

Such a shame that even the picture of this plane is now politicised.

I’ll catch that on the iPlayer over the weekend. Highly recommend the book aswell.

Programmes like this do annoy me though*, there were 24 versions, damn near every country in the allied forces flew them, (and even more post war) they flew in nearly every role from Photo Recon to Ground Attack, even a float plane version...What do we get...Battle of Britain for an hour, every else crammed into 20 mins.

* i know it's not a programme for plane nerds, but is it too much to ask that they look slightly past a couple of months in 1940?

BBC4?

I think that’s the book that has a picture of a Typhoon, purporting to be a Spitfire. He’s a good writer and very enthusiastic but I was surprised how ignorant he was about the Spitfire (which he acknowledges, hence the book). I’d assumed any aircrew would know about it, but no reason why I guess.

Yep sorry BBC4

My dad actually flew them for real, between 1940 and 1945.

I'll be watching this with slightly misty (and, no doubt, rose-tinted) eyes

RIP Mary Ellis. Hope she gets a mention. Lovely picture of her flying the two seater on her 100th birthday in that book.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ellis_(pilot)

nickc

Subscriber

Programmes like this do annoy me though*, there were 24 versions, damn near every country in the allied forces flew them, (and even more post war) they flew in nearly every role from Photo Recon to Ground Attack, even a float plane version…What do we get…Battle of Britain for an hour, every else crammed into 20 mins.

* i know it’s not a programme for plane nerds, but is it too much to ask that they look slightly past a couple of months in 1940?

I agree, I found the program very disappointing

My dad actually flew them for real, between 1940 and 1945.

I’ll be watching this with slightly misty (and, no doubt, rose-tinted) eyes

Similar here. FIL flew in 602 Squadron, was shot down over France. Got the pilot's manual for his Spitfire. Boultbee, whose pilots flew in this film, and are also involved in the Silver Spitfire, were great supporters of the veterans. Spent a few happy weekends with him at Westhampnett. They flew 'City of Exeter' at his funeral.

Quite liked the film, was always supposed to be a British pilots view rather than exhaustive history I think, part of the RAF's centenary commemorations.

Filmed by a bloke at our sailing club 🤗

I don’t get the love TBH, sound nice when they come over the south coast though.

Programmes like this do annoy me though*, there were 24 versions, damn near every country in the allied forces flew them, (and even more post war) they flew in nearly every role from Photo Recon to Ground Attack, even a float plane version…What do we get…Battle of Britain for an hour, every else crammed into 20 mins.

Because the vast majority of people don't know or care about the difference between a Griffon and a Merlin, a canon and a .303, a carburettor or a fuel injector or if a plane has a variable pitch propeller.

They want footage of a pretty plane and nostalgic interviews with brave old men.

They want footage of a pretty plane and nostalgic interviews with brave old men.

Sure, but only a small group of brave old men, it would seem.

The PR versions are arguably the prettiest, and those brave old men flew above Germany without any guns at all. There was a catapult version out at sea, but the brave old Navy pilots never get a look in. They flew in the Arctic, but the brave old Russian pilots that flew them (and the brave old merchant seamen who took them there) don't get a look in. or the brave old men of the RNZAF, and RAAF who risked being murdered by Japanese soldiers should they need to bail out over SE Asia never get a look in, and the desert pilots who largely enabled our first (of very few) victories over the German Army don't get a look in, or the brave old American pilots who risked arrest to come and fight before their country joined in the effort rarely get a look in either...

I've nothing against re-telling the BoB, it's a pretty important part of our recent history, but it tends to skew history too much IMO

the desert pilots who largely enabled our first (of very few) victories over the German Army don’t get a look in,

Really?
I was always told that the Spitfire didn't like operating in the desert, something to do with the intakes and sand?
I thought the Hurricane did a lot more over there?

I don't think many airplanes liked the desert, TBH, there was a Vc version with initially a big Vokes and then the smaller Abukir filter.  Always looked pretty aggressive to my mind...