HISTORY

Spitfire Mk.Ia of the No 19 Squadron with full armor, gun heating, late type of the Pitot tube and three blade De Havilland Type 5/20 propeller.

Barr and Stroud GM 2 reflex gunsight. After Spitfires were introduced to

regular service, the gun camera was installed externally on the right wing

upper surface root, starting with airframe K9988 G.42B gun camera was

installed into the left wing leading edge. Pitot tube was also subject to modification, the older „two fingers“ design was replaced by more modern

T-shape pitot tube starting witn K9918 airframe test-flown in March 1939.

First Spitfires Mk.I were equipped with short wave radios TR.9B and TR.9D

with wire antenna running from the antenna mast to the top of the vertical

tail surface. Since the spring 1940 these older radios were replaced by

TR.1133 radio working on very short wave frequencies where the antenna was actually a radio antenna mast and antenna wire application was

discontinued. The antenna mast was originally tall with constant diameter,

kind of a broom stick, later it was replaced with new, shorter sword-shaped mast. In September 1940 type R.3002 IFF (Identification Friend or

Foe) identification device was added to the Spitfires‘ equipment enabling

No 602 Squadron Spitfire Mk.Ia flown by P/O A.A.McKellar during maintenance.

See the anti-spin fairings on the sides of the fuel tank cowling.

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the ground stations to distinguish their own aircraft from the enemy onesf

on the radar screens. It was nicknamed „pip-squeak“ and featured two

wire antennas running from the fuselage sides to the horizontal tail surface tips leading edges. Spitfires were entering the service without any

passive protection despite the fact that some aspects of this, such as armored glass on the windshield, were discussed already in 1936. Due to the

problems with layered glass development the application was delayed,

as a standard it was featured on the N series airframes in September

1939. 50.8 mm (2 inches) thick armor plate was mounted on the outside

of the windshield. Similarly the introduction of the armored pilot seat and

the whole cockpit area was delayed. Those should have been installed

in September 1939. In reality, numerous Spitfires were lacking them still

in the spring and exceptionally even in summer 1940. Complete Spitfire

Mk.I cockpit armor protection, as per modification nr.247 promulgated on

June 6th, 1940, consisted of an armor plate behind the seat, then 6 mm

sheet metal on the engine bulkhead, a sheet metal covering the face of

the coolant tank and finally, as per modification nr.315 dated November

20, 1940, armor plate behind the pilot’s head. These features however

can be also recognized in the Spitfire photographs from the spring and

summer 1940. The important feature of the passive protection was also

fuel tanks armor protection. Spitfire had two fuselage mounted fuel tanks,

the lower one with capacity 168 litres (37 gallons) and upper one with

capacity 218 litres (48 gallons) located behind the engine and in front

of the pilot’s cockpit. Same, like in other cases, the protection was initially

non-existent. As a first step, a thicker 3 mm dural sheet protecting the

upper fuel tank from outside was applied. Since April 1940 the protection of the lower fuel tank was being introduced by means of the Linatex

protective covering which was a sandwich of rubber and linen 5 to 15 mm

thick. Only in the end of July 1940, according to the modification nr.273,

the rubber self-sealing tank protection was introduced. Unfortunatelly, in

the summer 1940 a lot of Spitfires were still flying without any fuel tank

protection and the upper tank was completely missing the self-sealing

covering which in case of combat damage often resulted in a fire and se-

INFO Eduard - August 2020