Spitfire, the legend, the facts and its opponent (2 of 5)&fmt=18

Squadronleader Illife Cozens was in July 1938 the first to receive Spitfires. As war was declared in September 1939, nineteen and a half squadrons were equipped with Spitfires. The first Spitfires had a fixed two-bladed propeller, the next had a three-bladed fixed propeller and from 1940 the following a variable pitch three- bladed propeller. This needed a special unit, that was bought from the US , as it by chance matched the Merlin perfectly. Paul Day, who flies modern jetfighters, examines a Spitfire Mark 1,and immidiately points out the undesireable position of the throttle to the left and the flaps control to the right, which meant, that the pilot had to shift hand immidiately after take off. Otherwise he was reasonably satisfied with the controls and instrumentation, while he was very unhappy with the pilots restricted vision from the cockpit compared to the vision from modern fighterplanes. He found the plane light and agile and compared to other WW2 fighters well up in its class with its clear benefit of the excellent variable pitch propeller. His overall verdict was, that Mitchell had done it absolutely right. (It was easy to spot a novice taking off, as his plane was swaying and rocking, when he shifted hand. In the first Spitfires the control grip for lowering the undercarriage had a tendency to get stuck, and often one could see a Spitfire coming in to land make an extra round while doing some courious maneouvres: Flying repetedly nose up and suddenly nose ...