Supermarine Spiteful and Seafang

[Phil Winks]

I thought you might have it covered Colin, but thought I'd better mention it just in case

[Colin Leighfield]

It's appreciated Phil, I'd rather you remind me than leave me to forget, it's all about sharing experiences, isn't it?

[Phil Winks]

[pub147]

Good Morning

by searching the net, I just saw that you also build a Spiteful
So myself doing 1/6 the Forum modelisme.com

I made personal plans, find the airwar.ru site as accurately

So I built 1 / 7.5 1/12 and currently 1/6

are you already flown this model?

greeting

speak french translation google

[perttime]

I think I have seen the Spiteful thread on Forum modelisme. Hawker p.1030 too? But I cannot read French well and reading a whole thread through Google Translate is hard too. Did you make a plan that others can use too?

[pub147]

Hello test with Google Chrome for reading

Posted by perttime on 23/01/2015 21:06:53:

I think I have seen the Spiteful thread on Forum modelisme. Hawker p.1030 too? But I cannot read French well and reading a whole thread through Google Translate is hard too. Did you make a plan that others can use too?

Thank you and good Hawker P1030 magnificent flight

I for the plan has yet to be finalized before ....... and no problem to have them

Salutation

[Colin Leighfield]

Greetings Bertrand and perttime. Great to see that we share an interest. I knew that my own interest was not unique, I have drawn the Spiteful/ Seafang to 1/6 scale myself (70" wing span), but not completed the design detail. Mine is finished and I have made a launch bogey/trolley for it. I am in New Zealand now and won't be in England for two more weeks, but will test-fly it when the weather improves.

When I get time I will tidy up my own drawings, so if anyone else wants to do a 1/10 scale version, they can. Perhaps we can share more information later.

[perttime]

The Spiteful and, perhaps even more so, Seafang are fascinating designs - along with , many WW2 '46 prop planes. Also, if you like what-if scenarios, they are great for inventing either credible or totally wild colour schemes.

(If you want to share a plan for free, for wide distribution, Outerzone is probably the best website for it...)

Recently, I found a picture of an imaginary turbo-prop Spiteful/Spitfire development. It was intended for the "hushkit" website but not published there after all.

[Colin Leighfield]

That looks fantastic doesn't it? As we've mentioned before, the Attacker used the Spiteful wing and was originally called the " Jet Spiteful". In I think 1973, the ultimate authority on the Spitfire, Jeffrey Quill, wrote to Air (then I think Aeroplane) Enthusiast following a feature on the Attacker and said that he'd told Joe Smith that the Attacker would have been a far better plane with a Spitfire wing! I don't doubt that with Mk24 Spitfire/FR47 Seafire wing it would have been, with a higher limiting Mach No. and far fewer development problems. I've seen Ali Maschinski fly a large Spitfire V with a turbo-prop and it looks and sounds brilliant. It really makes you think.

 

Edited By Colin Leighfield on 26/01/2015 04:30:44

[Erfolg]

Hmm, does somewhat beg the question, if the Spitful wing was inferior in all respects, why use it, rather than a Spitfire wing? I guess the tooling was still available?

[Colin Leighfield]

It was a mistake based on wind tunnel data from the NPL, proved later to be wrong. Exactly as the misleading information saying that a thick wing section wasn't a problem for transonic flight which lead Sydney Camm to handicap the Typhoon and cause it's failure as a fighter at anything except low level. It turned out that wing section thickness was more important than "laminar flow", which turned out to be mostly illusory. The Spitfire and Seafire were in production until 1948, so the fitting of the Spitfire wing to the Attacker was entirely possible, they used the same mounting points. Jeffrey Quill thought so and that's good enough for me.

Doesn't change the fact that the Spiteful/Seafang make good model subjects later.

[Erfolg]

Colin

With respect to the Typhoon, from what I have read the designers did not take much convincing with respect to a thick wing. It made life so much easier for gun/weapon installation and made a wet type wing feasible, then there is the installation of the controls.

Again, I think it is easy to cast NPL (National Physics Laboratory) as the incompetent villains. The reality was that most of the good wind tunnels for high speed investigations resided in Germany. Hence the dismantling of most of them to be shipped to the various victors countries at the end of WW2.

It is pretty much the same with fatigue (tails falling off), now it is all so obvious, well tabulated, and the mechanisms very well understood. Yet Grithiths first published his work in the 1920s, although accepted by many, it was not until the 60s that computational power was able to make all the ideas of his and others predicable to a point of high accuracy. Yes the same guy that Whittles supporters like to suggest that he knew nothing. Again an aside, it surprises me how many of us modellers, are unaware of what is now known about, alloying effects, the continuum of heat treatment, slip planes, and so on. We are some 60 or so years later.

I would also suspect that the idea of milling skins, or building out to in, would have seemed to high a production price to pay for accuracy. On that basis, I am not convinced that the wing was that laminar at all, particularly with all the lumps and bumps that engineers reluctantly accept as inevitable.

I do think we should be more generous to all who made decisions, which with hind sight appear to be incompetent.

[Colin Leighfield]

There's nothing ungenerous or critical about it Erfolg, I'd be the last person to call Joe Smith incompetent. Where did you get "incompetent villains" from re the NPL? The supersonic wind tunnel in Stratford, London was used successfully for many years after the war. It's just just what happened. With all of the German success with high speed wind tunnels, none of it translated into supersonic flight for them. Despite the performance of the 163 and 262, both of them were in trouble above Mach.82. In that respect, no better than a Meteor. None of it changes the fact that with all of the manufacturing limitations of the time, Mitchell designed a very efficient wing. The limiting dive speeds in the pilots' notes of the Spitfire IX corrected for true air speed translate into Mach .85, guns, aerial, fixed tail wheel and all.

Accepted science at any point in history is likely to be proven wrong later, certainly never truer than it is now. Anyway, we're getting off the subject.

[Erfolg]

Colin

In the case of the Germans, there priority at the latter part of WW2 was not primarily supersonic flight. The more immediate issues were weapons systems at high speed, particularly with wide speed differences. The other was airframe related, control in particular, with respect to the effects on them and the airframe. At the time not well understood, although there was some understanding and educated guesses.

I was focusing on the Typhoon, where blame was being dished out, in many respects it was fortunate that a suitable role was fond for the airframe.

During WW2 the German wind tunnels were more advanced than the UKs particularly at the higher speeds. The understanding was also greater at that point, hence so many of their engineers and scientist were recruited to the UK in addition to the USA. Every major company had its German engineers, there was one remaining one at the company I worked for when I started work.

Was the Meteor a match for the 262? most reports suggest the then current models, the 262 was significantly a better airframe. From distant memory, active consideration was undertaken to build a UK version, to miss out a step. The 163, appears to be a dead end, although others trod a similar path.

With respect to the Spitfire, I have always found it hard how much was conscious decisions initially and how much was serendipity. What it was, as far as I am concerned, a complete triumph, was the incremental development. Often despised by many, yet so much in this world owes a lot to the notion of improving aspects in a carful considered manner, step, by step.

I do think we have to be careful in the appraisal of many products, as the reputation often owes a lot to the PR department and leaning on others to keep their mouths shut. One aircraft immediately comes to mind that fits that particular description, the Javelin, best thing since sliced bread, nudge, nudge, is it supersonic, well cannot say, Official sectrets act, you know, when it was in service..

I think we can all agree that the Spitfire was an exceptional and long lived aircraft. In the case of other aircraft, it is often the innocent who get the blame for faults and failure.

[perttime]

Anyway... from modeling perspective, the Spiteful/Seafang is an interesting subject, whether as a recreation of a piece or history or as a cool looking object (or player in alternative histories).

I must admit that, esthetically, I'm a great fan of the "late model" Spitfire wing...

[Erfolg]

I know it is not quite the Spiteful, but the Attacker did use the wing.

The more I thought about it, the more makeshift the aircraft seemed. Although I do not know, it seems to be an aircraft conceived against a spec that called for the use of existing components, with little money or time available.

I can get the wing, using a Spitfire wing would be saying, the Spiteful wing is not as good and it was obvious that the Spitfire was reaching the end of its useful life. Then there would be the issue, if not in production (the Spitfire), the press tools would have to be installed on the presses, the jigs dug out of storage, floor space cleared. All the time the question would be asked, why are you not using the Spiteful wing, it is better, yes?

Then there is the UC issue, the Gloster Prototype used a tricycle, the Meteor used one, the Arado Blitz, Me 262, He 280, He 162, Henschel 230 all with tricycle undercarriages. All because there was evidence from the Me 262 prototype and the two Heinkel research aircraft, that jet engine blast on the runway did very little good, and there could be issues with authority of the elevator initially. Yet changing the UC from the Spiteful would cost time and money and the wing would no longer be standard. I guess the radiators and plumbing went.

Which might indicate that some one was hoping, against hope, that a new body on old wings, could potentially lead to more funding. If not did Supermarine ignore all the data that was available, as to trends and why they were trends?

[The Wright Stuff]

I have to admit, the immediate post-war period was a fascinating time for aviation development, often overlooked. I'm enjoying this thread!

I also find the evolution of the names very interesting in this period. It is well known that R.J. Mitchell disliked the name "Spitfire", but Supermarine stuck with it all the way through to the Mk 24. Hawker, meanwhile, went through the dictionary of meteorology to name the evolutions: fury, hurricane, typhoon, tornado, tempest (unsurprisingly, the "little bit windy" never flew! )

There are so many variants and prototypes in this timeframe to choose from: some great opportunities for truly unique models!

[pub147]

 

Un ptit coucou

Edited By Bertrand Pugin on 08/03/2015 16:04:58

[perttime]

New production Spiteful straight from Supermarine

[Colin Leighfield]

That's beautiful Bettrand, good luck with it. Bon chance! When the weather gets warmer and the days a bit longer, I will test fly the Seafang.

[Graeme Poke]

Wow, I love that Bertrand. Absolutely fabulous. Where do I get the plan?

Go well Graeme

[Colin Leighfield]

While in the shed tonight It occurred to me that about 3ft. away from the Seafang is the fuselage of my o/d 1/7 scale model of the prototype Spitfire prototype K5054. I designed this many years ago and shelved it because of other priorities, but there's not a huge amount to do. The point is that VB895 really was the end of the Spitfire line and K5054 was the first, so I took the picture in my scruffy dis-organised shed. The first and the last.

[Erfolg]

The Spitfire arguably has a history which begins before the first prototype. Perhaps it is to easy to overlook the 224

It appears to be in response to specification F7/30, rewarded with a contract on 2 August 1932, first flight was on the 19 Feb 1934.

The aircraft below a Ha 137 (Hanburger Flugzeug, later Blohm and Voss, later still Hansa, before becoming part of Airbus)

The contract was placed in June 1934, first flight 18th Jan 1935. Certainly influenced by the Supermarine, or great minds think alike.

Just as the Supermarine aircraft, it was found to be unsatisfactory.

[Colin Leighfield]

You're right of course Erfolg, the 224 was designed to meet the restrictive F7/30 specification. There's no argument about the history though and of course that goes back well before the 224.

[Jon Laughton]

I am in the process of a traditional build of an old model for the Type 224 from the 80's. I had the main parts laser cut by Falcon Aviation in Burnley from the original plan. Photos of the build's progress can be seen in my albums.

Progress is very slow as it keeps being overtaken by ARTFs! And....I keep thinking of how to make the cowl more simply than the traditional method but have not yet come to any decisions. I will also use two aileron servos rather than one...

The original power plant was going to be an OS 55AX as the model was planned around a 46 two stroke but (unusually for me) I have elected to use a brushless motor / 6S set up.....and will modify accordingly.

Edited By Jon Laughton on 11/03/2015 13:48:52