Supermarine Spitfire

The Supermarine Spitfire was designed by the Schneider Cup-winning Reginal J Mitchell and first flew in March 1936. The aircraft was originally going to be called the Shrew but was quickly renamed as the Spitfire. The Spitfire used a unique elliptical wing shape that combined with innovative sunken rivets gave the aircraft a higher top speed than most, if not all, other fighters of the time. The Spitfire was constantly developed during its life in service with multiple air arms around the world and whilst initial versions were powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin, latter versions used the far more powerful Griffon engine. In total 20,351 Spitfires were built and remained in military service until 1961 when the type was retired by the Irish Air Corps.

The Spitfire entered RAF service in 1938 and very quickly entered into combat the following year against the Luftwaffe. The final RAF operational sorties were flown over Malaysia as part of the Malayan Emergency in April 1954. Up until the recent shoot down of a drone over Syria by an RAF Eurofighter Typhoon, the last officially accredited air-to-air kill by an RAF aircraft was by a Spitfire over Egypt in 1948. In 1962 the RAF faced a situation over Malaysia and Indonesia where Malaysian-based RAF English Electric Lightnings may have to engage Indonesian P-51 Mustangs in air combat. In order to test the Lightning's effectiveness, the BBMF flew one of their Spitfires (PS853) in mock-combat dogfights against them.

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight will once again be displaying in the skies above RAF Fairford providing a living reminder of the sacrifice and heroism shown by RAF and Commonwealth pilots throughout the Second World War. The flight will be providing their three-ship display during each day of RIAT25 which will include one of their Spitfires flying alongside the Flights Lancaster and Hurricane.

Photo Credit: Rich Cooper