Supermarine Spitfire Mk Ia

Plane: Supermarine Spitfire Mk Ia

Weight (Empty/Loaded/Max): / 6,200lb /

Wing Area: 242sq ft

Wing Loading: / 25.6lb/sq ft /

Length: 29' 11"

Span: 36' 10"

Wing Aspect Ratio: 5.6

Engine: 1030hp Rolls Royce Merlin III Inline

Flaps: 2 settings

Visibility:

• Front: (Uses spitV art)
• Sides:
• Rear:

Control Feel:

• Slow: Good
• Near Sustained: Good
• Fast: Poor

Stall Speed 1k (No Flaps/Full Flaps) 85mph/70mph

Guns:

Ordnance:
0: none
1: none
2: none
3: none

Fuel Time/Percent: 47 seconds/percent

Power/weight (Empty/Loaded/Max): / 6.0 lb/hp /

Corner Velocity: 215mph

Durability: Fair

WEP time: 5 minutes

Maximum Angle-of-Attack (no flaps/full flaps): 16.0/16.0 degrees

Wing Incidence Angle (no flaps/full flaps): 2.0/2.0 degrees

Accleleration:

Climb:
1k-5k: 51s
5k-10k: 78s
10k-15k: 80s

Zoom Climb:
1k 400mph: +4,700ft
1k 300mph: +3,200ft

Dive:

Max Speed

Turn Performance

Corner Speed and Radii (1,000ft)

Speed: 215mph
Radius: 342ft
Sustained Turn Speed: 125mph
Sustained Turn Radius: 431ft
Full Flaps Speed: 100mph
Full Flaps Radius: 352ft

Roll Rate:
150mph: 6.9s
200mph: 5.1s
250mph: 5.7s
300mph: 7.1s
350mph: 10.4s
400mph: 14.6s

Minimum Full-Flaps Full-Power Split-S altitude:
150mph: 800ft
200mph: 1,000ft
250mph: 1,100ft
300mph: 1,900ft

Hoof's Tips and Opinions:

The Supermarine Spitfire was one of the key fighters during the Battle of Britain. Armed with eight .303 machine guns, and flying alongside (quite literally) the Hawker Hurricane, the Spitfire helped drive back the Bf 109s and 110s of the Luftwaffe and the bombers they were escorting, thus ensuring Great Britain's sovereignty during the war. Operation Sealion, the invasion of England, never occurred, partly due to the half-hearted attempts to do so (Hitler wanted to invade Russia,England was simply a sideshow so to speak), but mostly due to the excellent early warning systems and the Spitfire and Hurricane. It was only the advent of the Focke-Wulf 190 that the Luftwaffe was finally able to field an airplane clearly superior to the Spitfires up to the IX version.

The Spitfire Mk Ia is a remarkable aircraft. For her time, she is exceptional, able to fly as fast as the more "muscular" Bf109E4 with almost 200 less horsepower, while outaccelerating it and giving it a serious run for it's money in the climbing game. The key to this plane is her wings, the elliptical wings allow for low induced drag, which helps in the low-speed acceleration game, and really shines in the turn arena. In addition the wings are very thin for the times, and the inline engine allows for an aerodynamic cowl (something the Bf109 series really didn't benefit from until the F series) combining to reduce parasitic drag and allow for very high speeds for the horsepower and technology of the times. It is no wonder, looking at these performance statistics especially compared to other planes with similar wing areas, weights, and power loading, that the Spitfire earned it's reputation as a fast, maneuverable TnB and air superiority fighter. And it was the only plane during the early years capable of standing toe-to-toe with the infamous Bf109 fielded by the Luftwaffe.

The SpitI was an interesting bird, in that it had a fair number of modifications done to her during her production cycle. Originally she had no pilot armor and had a relatively inefficient two-blade fixed-pitch propeller, with a carburetor and fuel system that cut out in negative G situations. With the advent of the Merlin III in the Mk I (the earlier Mk I production aircraft had the Merlin II), the three-bladed variable-pitch propeller was installed, increasing efficiency. Pilot protection was fitted over the production cycle, retro-fitted virtually overnight for existing aircraft, and eventually consisted of bullet-proof glass in the windscreen (which saved British Ace Robert Stanford-Tuck's life the next day after his spit was equipped with it), and armored plate behind the pilot. After studying the Bf109E and its fuel-injected engine, with its capability for maintaining power in negative G maneuvers the Spit Mk I was equipped with a negative-G carburetor that maintained engine operation in such conditions. This solved the famous engine-cutout syndrome that the Spits are famous for (and didn't have after this fix BTW). The late production Mk I's would almost be considered a new design variant to many other nations. And it is the late production Mk I that is modeled in Warbirds. About the only change that the SpitI did not employ was the metal ailerons of the later versions. These substantially sped up roll rate as a comparison of roll rates between the various Spitfires will show.

The problems with turning radius in the Spit series do not occur with the SpitI. Her turning performance is so good she can turn at 125mph sustained (the SpitV pushes this up to 155mph carving a much bigger radius that other similar-turning planes can slip into). In fact her performance overall is very similar to the later A6M5 Zero, with similar turning performance, speed, altitude performance, and diving performance. But just like the later spits, her flaps produce a lot of drag when deployed, seriously hindering her turn when down (which is where the turn radius problem comes from, you have to keep the flaps up in the Spit to turn fastest, but the price is a larger radius)

In the early-war BoB arena, in a 1 vs 1 setting, the Spit Mk Ia has no real equal. While the Bf109F4 has climbing ability and speed vs the SpitVb, the Bf109E4 really doesn't have either, and is outaccelerated down low to boot. (the climbing performance isn't all that great, and the Spit I is as fast as the Bf109E4 up to at least 15,000ft). The Hurricane has a much poorer power-weight ratio, resulting in poorer acceleration and climb, as well as speed. The Bf110C4, while a good concept and design, is slower than the SpitI, and that's always a bad thing when a plane can't turn as well as another, the SpitI has both turning ability, climb, acceleration, and speed over the Bf110C4 explaining to a large degree it's failure in the Battle of Britain (the Bf110C4 turns quite well, especially against later war planes though, but it's still slow).

Thus I suspect, that until the SpitVb and Bf109F4 (and Fw later) come along, the Spit Ia will be the Uber plane of the early years. Note that this is not so in a scenario setting, since the SpitIa's attributes, like the Ki43 and A6M, are primarily for 1 vs 1 fights. In a many-vs-many fight, tactics, firepower, speed, and durability are the key assets of a fight (ask the Wildcat pilots who held the line against the Zero, and the P40 pilots who flew against Ki43s about this). And with the SpitI's frankly pathetic firepower (especially compared to the Bf109E4 and Bf110C4), this can be a big problem in a multi fighter-fighter fight, as a SpitI really has to stick on a target and put in 2-4 seconds of hits to score a kill, time it might not have if the pilot wishes to live and his target has a good wingman. Here the Bf109's firepower helps immensely as it needs a mere second snapshot to really thump a Spit.

In a scenario, which 95% of the time for the Spit I will be a Battle-of-Britain scenario, avoid the Messerschmitts and focus on the bombers. Here again the Spit's firepower will make you wish you had cannon, as the single 13mm/dual MG81Z 7.9mm machine guns found on the Ju88A4 (the most likely bomber), and the Ju88's speed (270mph on the deck) mean that those machine guns get plenty of time to tear you up before you can poke enough .303 caliber holes in the Ju88 to send her down. Plus almost any Ju88 will have BF109/Bf110 "little friends" to help it and you may find 20mm rounds in addition to the Ju88's machine trying to silence your .303s. Plus, the crew compartment is very well armored vs the .303 forcing a head-on approach for a real chance of a pilot kill. The best tactic is to use the Spits to take on the escorts, and have the Hurricanes dive on the bombers. Note that the Ju88 is faster than the Hurricane in level flight, so the Hurricane needs to have several thousand feet with which to dive to get a strafing run set up. Fortunately Otto's accuracy and ability to target a single area of the plane has been reduced drastically in 2.0, but the Ju88 may still have a human gunner on board, which will make up a lot of the difference. I suspect that shooting down Bombers in a BoB situation will be much more difficult than it was historically until the He111 or Do17 or even an earlier Ju88 is modeled.

This plane can outturn anything but an early A6M, or Ki43. Be wary going against either as especially the Ki43 has equal performance over the SpitI but outturns it. Against anything else, fly the SpitI like a Ki43, dodge any pass by an enemy, and try to get the enemy to turn with you. The SpitI's firepower isn't great, but a good pilot, like a good Ki43 pilot, can make that ammo stretch to two kills in a single sortie. Three is pushing it though, as you'll find yourself using 80-100 WB "rounds" (tracers) per bank to down an opponent.

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