KITS 08/2020

K9795, No. 19 Squadron, RAF Duxford, Cambridgeshire, October 1938

INTO SERVICE. The first unit to be armed with the new Spitfire Mk.I was to have initially been No. 41 Squadron, which at the time was flying the Hawker

Fury. For a number of reasons, though, the honor ended up going to No. 19 Squadron. Besides the fact that this was an experienced squadron, which similarly baptized the new Gloster Gauntlet in 1935, the size of the airfield was also a determining factor. The airfield at Duxford, No. 19 Squadron’s base, had

a longer landing strip than the one at No .41 Squadron’s base, Catterick. After the experience with the Hurricane, where several aircraft were lost in landing

accidents, the larger field was felt to be the better choice. Last, but not least, the fact that the Squadron’s Commanding Officer , S/Ldr Henry Cozens, was

a qualified aeronautical engineer able to co-operate with Supermarine on the fine-tuning of the Spitfire, certainly did not hurt. This later turned out to be

good choice, and there was a close communication between the new head designer, Joseph Smith, and Cozens. Cozens himself first flew Spitfire K9789 on

August 11th, 1938. Our presentation of the Spitfire camouflage scheme and markings from October 31st, 1938, are based on the photographs taken from

a Blenheim Mk.I. An interesting item of note is that during the photo op, Cozens’ K9794 was equipped with a blown canopy cover, a feature that didn’t become standard until January, 1939. The first loss came on November 3rd, 1938, when P/O Sinclair, future A Flight Leader of No. 310 (Czechoslovak) Squadron,

suffered a landing mishap, causing the first officially delivered Spitfire Mk.I to the RAF, K9792, to be written off. Note the interesting design of the fin leading

edge, which was to prevent entanglement of the anti-spit parachute in the case of use.

No. 41 Squadron, RAF Catterick, North Yorkshire, Spring 1939

TUNNING. No. 41 Squadron accepted its first two Spitfire Mk.Is, K9831 and K9832, only a day before the end of 1938, as the third Fighter Command unit to do so. This Spitfire Mk.I, coded PN-M, carries a scheme from the summer of 1939, with the upper surface national roundels of

the red-blue type, with the white segment covered in blue and red, and the yellow segment covered over with the camouflage colours. Technically, the aircraft is representative of the first production version with a Merlin II engine, a fixed, two-blade wooden Weybridge propeller,

a flat cockpit canopy, and the original pitot tube. The aircraft lacked gun heating and all armor plating, including the armored windscreen. The

right wing of the aircraft mounted an external gun camera. By the beginning of the war, the RAF had accepted 306 Spitfire Mk.Is, 187 of which

served with Fighter Command squadrons. Seven of these units were fully combat ready on September 3rd, 1939, and the remaining four

were at various stages of re-equipping. Prior to the outbreak of the war, thirty-six Spitfires were lost to various accidents. After the war began,

no Spitfire equipped squadrons were sent to France and all remained on the British islands.

INFO Eduard - August 2020

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