Spitfire - Did you know?

Discussion in 'The War In The Air' started by spidge, Sep 30, 2006.

  1. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    One Spitfire, stripped of armour,carrying only 2 machine guns, Merlin engine fine tuned and fitted with a 4 blade propeller, climbed to over 42,000 feet to shoot down a JU-86p Recce aircraft. Following this, JU86p's were shot down at heights of 45,000 and 50,000 feet.
     
  2. morse1001

    morse1001 Very Senior Member

    One Spitfire, stripped of armour,carrying only 2 machine guns, Merlin engine fine tuned and fitted with a 4 blade propeller, climbed to over 42,000 feet to shoot down a JU-86p Recce aircraft. Following this, JU86p's were shot down at heights of 45,000 and 50,000 feet.

    They were spit mk7s or 8s and their exploits are described in The Big Show by pierre Glosterman
     
  3. Gnomey

    Gnomey World Travelling Doctor

    Yep, were the not also ones that were in the same configuration except with 2 Cannon instead of the 2 machine guns?
     
  4. morse1001

    morse1001 Very Senior Member

    Yep, were the not also ones that were in the same configuration except with 2 Cannon instead of the 2 machine guns?

    I am sure the mk8 was cannon armed
     
  5. Kitty

    Kitty Very Senior Member

    Recently read of this little escapade. It was in North Africa, where the groundcrews were sick and tired of being bombed and photographed from on high, so they did a bit of 'tinkering' with some Spits, and they got a very good high altitude fighter. After that the German recon planes didn't come over again.
     
  6. adamcotton

    adamcotton Senior Member

    They were spit mk7s or 8s and their exploits are described in The Big Show by pierre Glosterman

    They were Spit VIs and VIIs; the Mk VIII was never a pure high altitude variant, and saw service mostly in the Far East. You can find an account of a two gun Spit VI or VII downing a JU86p at extreme altitude in 1942 in the first of Dr Alfred Price's "Spitfire at War" series of books published by Ian Allan in 1974. The pilot, I believe, was Plt/Officer Prince Emanuel Galitzine - a Russian emigre to Britain.
     

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