OT Spitfire

[GeeRam]

I was surprised to see the wooden prop...late in the war.

All the Rotol prop blades fitted to all marks of Spitfires were of wood construction from late 1940 onwards.

It was only the early Rotol 3 blade design from 1939 and early 1940 that were alloy. The shortage of aluminium lead to the change over to various types of wood laminate construction for the remainder of the war. It also saved engines as well, as the wooden blades shattered and there was less tendency to shock load the engine in the event of a crash landing like that.

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[browningautorifle]

All the Rotol prop blades fitted to all marks of Spitfires were of wood construction from late 1940 onwards.

Didn't know that but...

It also saved engines as well, as the wooden blades shattered and there was less tendency to shock load the engine in the event of a crash landing like that.

It all makes sense from that point of view too.

[Surpmil]

Using a single engine fighter as a photo reconnaissance (PR) plane is only a good idea from the speed point of view. Were there extra Spitfires about?

If the Supermarine fans at the Air Ministry couldn't accept the Westland Whirlwind as a fighter it would probably have made a very good PR plane.

The Mosquito was another private venture plane like the Whirlwind that the Air Minister and RAF high command seem to have accepted only reluctantly when war and sheer performance made it impossible for them to refuse.

The Mosquito had similar speed to the Whirlwind, but being a proper bomber, to use the Mossies as PR planes didn't make much sense unless they weren't needed as bombers - which was never the case.

But the Whirlwind had so many enemies they pulled them all from service and scrapped them even while the war was still on! (1943)

Even Dowding seems to have had some animus against them as he sent them all up to Scotland for the Battle of Britain, despite being faster than Spitifires and with four 20mm cannon when the Spitfire and Hurricane had none.

Erhardt Milch and no doubt a few others greatly feared the Mosquito would be used in large numbers. Feared because it was almost too fast to catch, could bomb at low level with much greater accuracy and only had a two man crew.

But Bomber Harris & Co. had their lovely Lancs by then and weren't letting go of them; some things are more important than just winning wars you know.

[GeeRam]

Using a single engine fighter as a photo reconnaissance (PR) plane is only a good idea from the speed point of view. Were there extra Spitfires about?

Yes.

If the Supermarine fans at the Air Ministry couldn't accept the Westland Whirlwind as a fighter it would probably have made a very good PR plane.

No it wouldn’t have, the one thing you need in a PR aircraft as well as speed is range, and one of the Whirlwind’s problems was it was quite range limited, around 300 mile combat range, which given it was originally envisaged as an escort fighter, was a bit of a problem.
Even the early PR IV versions of the Spitfire that entered PR service in late 1940 had more than treble that range, and fly higher, and could range as far as the northern coast of Poland.

The Mosquito was another private venture plane like the Whirlwind that the Air Minister and RAF high command seem to have accepted only reluctantly when war and sheer performance made it impossible for them to refuse.

The Mosquito had similar speed to the Whirlwind, but being a proper bomber, to use the Mossies as PR planes didn't make much sense unless they weren't needed as bombers - which was never the case.

Rubbish, the 2nd ever Mosquito built was built as a PR version, so that role was envisaged for the aircraft while the 1st one flew for the first time in late 1940. The Mosquito was 40mph faster than the Whirlwind out of the box, as it was 40 mph faster than the then fastest Spitfire. It could fly higher as well.

But the Whirlwind had so many enemies they pulled them all from service and scrapped them even while the war was still on! (1943)

The Whirlwind’s biggest enemy was Rolls-Royce. The problems they had with the Peregrine in the early stages was really what hampered the Whirlwind, Westland didn’t get its first production deliveries of the Peregine until early 1940, and the pressure was on RR to produce as many Merlins as it could, and they simply didn’t want to divert much needed resources to the Peregrine, which they knew was limited in its development potential. Teddy Petter had designed the Whirlwind around the Peregrine, and it would have been a complete from scratch re-design to redo around another engine at a time when there were already existing options that were offered as much or more capability.The other big problem in 1940 was the fact that Petter’s design while being advanced, consumed 3 times the amount of aluminium than was needed to build a Spitfire, and we needed as many fighter aircraft as we could build.
The Whirlwind was just the wrong aircraft at the wrong time. Had it managed to enter full production just a year earlier, I suspect that things would have been very different for the type in RAF service, but that wasn’t to be.

Erhardt Milch and no doubt a few others greatly feared the Mosquito would be used in large numbers. Feared because it was almost too fast to catch, could bomb at low level with much greater accuracy and only had a two man crew.

But Bomber Harris & Co. had their lovely Lancs by then and weren't letting go of them; some things are more important than just winning wars you know.

Harris still needed Lancs, as the Mossie couldn't deliver more than a Cookie as a bomb load, which had it place in precision raids and pathfinding roles, but when Lancs were carrying 3 times that in general loads and more for shorter ranges, the RAF couldn't have relied on the Mossie alone for what it was doing.