Spitfire 944 - a cool "found film" story.

"Spitfire 944", short film Honorable Mention at 2007 Sundance. Movie maker finds the pilot of a 1944 wheels up landing that his great uncle filmed. Pretty good story.

I think this was a Mk5 spitfire with a very late propeller as it is 4 bladed, The usual one was a 3 bladed constant velocity . 4 bladed props were used on aircraft that were destined for high level flight as this one was. The very last ones were all 4 bladed. One of them is still flying with the RAF in the battle of Britain Memorial flight and when compared to the early versions they were considerably bigger and had dispensed with the Rolls Royce Merlin Engine and were fitted fitted with a Rolls Royce Griffon that produced nearly 2000 BHP.

Post war, an experimental Spitfire was fitted with a Griffon of 2300 bhp and a 5 bladed propeller and was timed at 495mph in level flight!

BMbikerider said:

I think this was a Mk5 spitfire with a very late propeller as it is 4 bladed, The usual one was a 3 bladed constant velocity . 4 bladed props were used on aircraft that were destined for high level flight as this one was. The very last ones were all 4 bladed. One of them is still flying with the RAF in the battle of Britain Memorial flight and when compared to the early versions they were considerably bigger and had dispensed with the Rolls Royce Merlin Engine and were fitted fitted with a Rolls Royce Griffon that produced nearly 2000 BHP.

Post war, an experimental Spitfire was fitted with a Griffon of 2300 bhp and a 5 bladed propeller and was timed at 495mph in level flight!

Click to expand...

Yes, as I understand it, in level flight at relatively low altitude but not at climbing the Griffon-engine Spitfire came close to matching the first combat Gloster meteor, its jet engine contemporary at the time

pentaxuser

GREAT!

Further research found that on two occasions a Mk9 in a dive actually achieved speeds in EXCESS of 600mph (Mach ,92) A photograph of one of these aircraft was in a sorry state having lost all the engine cowling in the process!

Another achievement

On 5 February 1952, a Spitfire 19 of 81 Squadron based at Kai Tak in Hong Kong reached probably the highest altitude ever achieved by a Spitfire. The pilot, Flight Lieutenant Edward "Ted" Powles,[131] was on a routine flight to survey outside air temperature and report on other meteorological conditions at various altitudes in preparation for a proposed new air service through the area. He climbed to 50,000 ft (15,000 m) indicated altitude, with a true altitude of 51,550 ft (15,710 m). The cabin pressure fell below a safe level, and in trying to reduce altitude, he entered an uncontrollable dive which shook the aircraft violently. He eventually regained control somewhere below 3,000 ft (910 m) and landed safely with no discernible damage to his aircraft. Evaluation of the recorded flight data suggested he achieved a speed of 690 mph (1,110 km/h), (Mach 0.96) in the dive, which would have been the highest speed ever reached by a propeller-driven aircraft if the instruments had been considered more reliable.