How The Spitfire Became An Aviation Masterpiece | The Birth Of A Legend | Timeline

in the summer of 1940 a crucial air battle rages in the skies over southern England Britain is under attack [Music] [Applause] [Music] without any warning and suddenly some about a dozen also well-known ions came down on us out of the Sun the sky was full of Messerschmitt 109 for Yellin no his swastika some big black coffee table Churchill has warned of this a Battle of Britain upon which the freedom of the British people will depend one aircraft will become a symbol of the British will to resist to fight on and win it was such a wonderful machine to fly because it turns to the side slip do all of the things you had to do and come back so easily I'm very proud of the fact that I was involved in the design and development of the aircraft it is the most beautiful aircraft I have ever fir in my life and it was a fighter [Music] the story of the spitfire begins in 1931 in competition for the schneider trophy the Supermarine s6b designed by reginald mitchell achieves a speed of 340 miles per hour it's the third Schneider Cup win for a Mitchell designed aircraft Mitchell was a brilliant designer he was a very very good leader he was easy mounting it on with he did have his occasional flare-ups but one of his main advantages was that he was able to pick the right people to do the job at this time the biplanes of the RAF can barely reach speeds of 220 miles per hour alarmed at Britain's vulnerability to the threat of aerial attack the Royal Air Force invites proposals for a single-seat fighter at Supermarine Michels design known as type two to four proves disappointing it's underpowered with a pall rate of climb and a top speed of hardly 240 miles per hour the Air Ministry Awards the production contract to the Gloster gladiator a biplane with a top speed of 250 miles per hour Mitchell unhappy with design compromises made to fit the Air Ministry specifications begins work on plans for a completely new type of fighter plane he started to design an aircraft to his own ideas which had eight guns firing forward it had a cannon closed cockpit retractable undercarriage and all of the refinements which would need to be used to produce something with a very high speed he had also introduced the concept of stressed skin construction where in fact not instead of just making a structure which is self-supporting on its own and then putting plating on it the plating a notes external plating actually took some of the stress as well and that lesson was carried on into the design of what became a Spitfire Mitchell will incorporate into his design a new advanced aero engine being developed by the rolls-royce company a 12-cylinder 1,000 horsepower water-cooled powerplant the pea v12 later it would be called the Merlin when the 15,000 parts to go to make up the melon have been assembled thereby the last test but one the new aircraft designated type 300 bears little relation to the two to four Mitchell had used an elliptical wing in a previous design project of his now he uses it again he had engaged a team of experts specialists aerodynamicists structural engineers mathematicians and so on the principal aerodynamicist was a man named Beverly Sheng stoned and he was the man who is responsible for the design of the wing section and of its shape in December 1934 Mitchell's latest plans are shown to the Air Ministry with its all metals stress skin monocoque fused large utilizing light alloys and it's elliptical wing shape the type 300 is a radical departure from the conventional wood and fabric assemblies of current RAF machines the need for an advanced fighter grows ever more urgent Hitler has embarked on a massive expansion of the German armed forces for mental there is added urgency he is suffering from cancer [Music] the British Air Ministry is keeping Michels project under close scrutiny realizing it's potential they create an individual specification to accommodate his design the 5th of March 1936 the prototype finally takes to the air the test flight is a complete success as the prototype achieves a speed of 335 miles an hour those watching realize it's all they had hoped and planned for but Mitchell himself remains dissatisfied with its performance meanwhile they RAF is expanding young man eager to become pilots volunteer for service I decided that I'd like to learn to fly but I found that learning to fly through private sources would have been somewhat expensive for a young teenager I thought was one way of doing it let's apply to the Air Force I've marked the old Air Ministry building uses a new Kings ray of those days I walked in and got hold of the commissioner and said it wants to be a pilot what do I do went to the recruiting office and said I wanted to be a pilot and he said well you can't volunteer to be a pilot he said you can volunteer to be aircrew he said and if you're good enough you might become a pilot so I said alright I'll volunteer for air crew so I said right well what's your name and address and what is your father do and what's your job so I said well I work at Supermarine so he said what you do at Supermarine I said well I'm an apprentice apprentice he said he looked me in the eye and he picked up the piece of paper and he just tore in half and he said you go back to work my son he said you're doing a better job there this latest intake of eager recruits continue to receive flying training on biplanes soon to be outdated by Mitchell's prototype monoplane fighter the training airplane at 6:04 squadron was the Avro 504 in that was a slightly later version of the Avro 504 that was built and used in 1914-18 war they went to Grantham which was a flying training school flying hearts and Hinds which again were pretty old aircraft but that's all they had in spite of increasing ill health Mitchell oversees further development of the propeller and exhaust systems which increased the speed of the prototype to almost 350 miles an hour all super aircraft her name's we started with a letter s it was originally going to be called the shrew but what I said is with a name like that woulda lost the war meanwhile Nazi Germany's rearmament program continues apace in response the British government steps up the expansion of the RAF and orders 310 Spitfires at the time the largest single order fir aircraft ever placed by the RAF the 11th of June 1937 the farsighted aircraft designer Reginald Mitchell dies at the age of 42 he does not live to see the Spitfires finest hour news of Mitchell's death has a profound effect on the workforce Mitchell's death certainly had quite an impact on the people in the design department and I remember in fact the day that he died black and I were working in the laboratory on something I don't know what now we both sort of stopped what we were doing looked at one another silence for a bit then got on with the job work continues with Joe Smith Mitchell's assistant taking over as chief designer but getting the Spitfire into full production is causing huge problems the Supermarine works at Woolston is not geared up to manufacture such large numbers the government builds a huge Factory at Castle Bromwich to shadow the work at Woolston Lord Knorr field whose ceremony Lee starts work on the foundations is put in charge of the new factory it's hoped that his experience of the mass production of motor cars will speed production of the Spitfire due to the difficulties of manufacturing the revolutionary elliptical wing and complex airframe the Spitfire does not lend itself to mass production new assembly techniques have to be mastered by a workforce unused to the sophistication of Mitchell's design you have to be fairly agile to work on it you had to be prepared to bend your arms into funny places to be honest they weren't an easy airplane to work on whether they were designed I think they were designed by someone drawing our piece of paper they didn't actually have to do what we did meanwhile orders are being placed for the raf s' only other monoplane fighter the Hawker hurricane based on the wood and fabric design of the biplanes that preceded it and almost 50 miles an hour slower than the Spitfire the hurricane is a sturdy uncomplicated aircraft simpler to build and is soon in service with the RAF as 1938 draws to a close a further two hundred Spitfires are ordered by the RAF war now looks inevitable when he told or not weren't going to be anymore Munich's and that the factory had got me on a war footing by Easter of 1939 the fourth of August 1938 the first Spitfires are delivered to an operational RAF squadron [Music] sitting in a Spitfire cockpit for the first time to hear the roar of the Merlin engine it's the most wonderful noise you can imagine it's awesome rich and powerful and reassuring and it was wonderful and so I taxied out with very mixed feelings because you have to realize first of all that I was flying what we considered to be the best and fastest fighter aircraft in the world when I saw my first Spitfire and I was so impressed with it because in appearance you couldn't have a more beautiful machine than that then then this prefer the Spitfire was certainly more of them not necessary maneuverable but it was it was more powerful it was it seemed somehow as a you you fitted into a Spitfire with a maximum speed of 362 miles per hour able to climb to 20,000 feet in nine and a half minutes and a wing design that makes it highly maneuverable the Spitfire pilots learn to appreciate the qualities of this remarkable aircraft [Music] the Spitfire aircraft was a marvelous airplane to fly you had to be careful on the ground because we had such a narrow undercarriage and intended to be nervous heavy but once you got the aircraft into the air it was a wonderful aircraft to fly but also of course it was such a wonderful machine to fly because it was so sensitive to its controls it turned side slip to all of the things you had to do in combat so easily in a Spitfire the Spitfire looked as if it could fly look if it was designed to fly it was a beautiful aircraft to look at it was a beautiful design marker some told people it was a bit of a disadvantage but in a short ass it was it just suited me grand it was a natural to you I mean a Spitfire then who had described spit flying Spitfires you don't fly a Spitfire you just strap it on the fly it is the most beautiful aircraft I have ever found my life [Music] April 1939 in spite of production problems at the new castle bromwich Factory the Royal Air Force places an order for over 1,000 Spitfires [Music] the first of September 1939 Germany invades Poland he's in first four days it was it was up they were just moving and roaring their armor and the German air force going in and bombing and softening the target the Polish surface unfortunately had the outdated equipment we were overwhelmed by the power of the Luftwaffe we suffered heavy losses and we had to redraw at 11 o'clock on September the 3rd 1939 Britain declares war on Germany fewer than 350 of the 2,000 Spitfires now on order have been delivered to the RAF it is the time of the so-called phoney war a period of uncertainty of waiting the sense of frustration is felt by many pilots including jeffrey quill super marines chief test pilot he shares his doubts with Alex Henshaw who was joined super marine as a test pilot at Castle Bromwich following a record-breaking career in air racing and jeffrey quill said to me he said you know I think this bloody walls got a fizzle out and he said and I don't think the Spitfire will ever go into production and I think we both agreed that it was a difficult aircraft to produce he was also very costly and of course at that time the qualities of the Spitfire whilst they're appreciated by people like myself and other qualified pilots no one had really any indication as to how they'd stand up the 16th of October 1939 and the first enemy aircraft to be destroyed by Fighter Command fall two Spitfires of 602 and six all three squadrons a formation of bombers is intercepted over the Firth of Forth in Scotland and two enemy aircraft are destroyed with Spitfire production still plagued by construction and supply problems Hawker hurricanes are reaching squadrons in far greater numbers and it's hurricanes and their pilots that are sent to support British troops in France three days after were declared they posted our squadron to France along with three other Harrigan squadrons initially we didn't do much at all we were moving around trying to get settled into various airfields in May 1940 the Netherlands Luxembourg and Belgium fall to the Blitzkrieg of Hitler's forces enroute to France the hurricane squadrons are overwhelmed as the Luftwaffe sweeps ahead of the advancing German army [Music] resistance collapses refugees fill the roads as the German army drives on towards the French coast Spitfires fly from their airfields in southern England they are ordered to intercept Luftwaffe warplanes trying to destroy the British Army as it evacuates from the beaches we linked up to another squadron and so we fill it up our about 7080 miles across the sea to Dunkirk well you could see Dunkirk miles away because this enormous column of smoke from the burning oil tanks and things and we were about 15,000 feet and flying around not seeing anything at all and then without any warning at all suddenly the sky was full of Messerschmitt 109s with yellen's noses swastikas and big black cautious movement and this is very much a moment of truth for most of the Luftwaffe pilots this is their first encounter with the Spitfire this was our first contact with the Royal Air Force and we had a big respect Force I also want to add the Royal Air Force was still flying in a three ship formation but then changed to a four ship because it is more flexible for Sheik but that's flexi block we witnessed and experienced the advantages and disadvantages that came with it for example when a Spitfire rose with a tight turn we were unable to follow the Spitfire naturally means they are better the Messerschmitt and the Spitfire are closely matched but the me-109 II is armed with 27.9 millimeter machine guns firing through its propeller and two cannons mounted on its wings firing explosive 20 millimeter shells the Spitfires 8.3 or three machine guns cannot match their firepower Spitfire pilots have to ensure their fire is close concentrated and sustained to cause lethal damage to enemy aircraft I had a lot of bullet holes in the body of the plane anxious a few on the wings but Nam that would have influenced the flying ability of the plane I was only able to escape from the Spitfire because I turned the plane upside down and flew off with full speed the Spitfire was lighter and could not catch up with the sinking me-109 with the collapse of France the Luftwaffe is now free to concentrate against Britain from bases just across the English Channel it's crucial that Spitfire production is stepped up a castle bromwich if the Royal Air Force is to defend the skies over southern England now back to the wall and by god we needed aircraft so to some degree there was a panic to try and see if castle bombers could be put into production with the Spitfires Beaverbrook trapped our field into resigning and then Supermarine came into the picture to take over not necessarily the running of the of the factory but at least to guide them in the right direction to start production full spitfire production is finally underway and not a moment too soon and then of course it was a question of almost in desperation getting Spitfires out getting them tested and getting them to the battle stations the Luftwaffe has 2,700 operational aircraft at its disposal the Royal Air Force will meet this threat with barely six hundred and fifty fighter aircraft that are operational and ready for action 230 of these are Spitfires but the fact of the matter is I think those people like myself realize that within weeks we could have the Germans landing on this island of ours and certainly people like myself we're not going to surrender and to be a lot more like them but we realized that no way we're going to win and I think quite frankly that if it was put to me bluntly are we going to win this war I think we just have we should be bloody lucky if we do the Spitfire is about to face its greatest challenge June 1940 the German armed forces have swept all before them the Battle of Britain is about to begin the Spitfire will face the Messerschmitt in a fighter against fighter jewel for control of the skies it was a vital battle after all the Germans wanted to invade us and they couldn't be invaded us unless they've got air superiority before they flee when we started we had command bombers flew to England to win the war to deactivate decimate kill British fighter planes we believed that we would win the war this was the beginning and now I was able to show what a talented and experienced pilot I was racing swarms of German fighters attempt to draw the British squadrons into battle when you're far from we realized that they only took off when there was a bomb threat so then we brought bombers along that were also bombing British air bases the British fighter planes came up to shoot down the Bombers into Kingdom does he injured Floop let's say British fighters are scrambled to meet the threat single squadrons guided by radar hit the German Raiders hard and fast you looked and absolute stomach was in a knot and you couldn't see them when you eventually found and saw them it gave you a more magical settled feeling even though all hell was get ahead loose when she started making up was a steep learning curve trying to pick up an America just your eyesight to it knowing the performance of your aircraft for instance I pulled someone shout break I pulled round in a steep turn and stole the aircraft and so it was learning on the job the whole time and if you survived that period of course your chances of getting through coming out to live well was somewhat much better nothing was going to your mind you were just thinking I thought the drill he had taught yourself how to avoid being shot down there yeah and you're looking behind yourself every 10 seconds 15 seconds make sure no one's behind you you just concentrate on and then when you did see someone you went in like lee-sia was within like a bullets china shop so I reckon ma's best way to get in there Michels vision of a superlative fighting aircraft is realized as the Spitfires of the RAF clash with the me-109 s of the Luftwaffe the Spitfire was superior to the bishop in my view [Music] but Spitfires of the Battle of Britain do have their shortcomings unlike the petrol injection systems that feed the engines of the me-109 s the Spitfires Merlin engine uses a float type carburetor which is affected by g-forces when the aircraft is put into a sudden dive the engines starved a fuel momentarily loses power in the early days push MasterCard forward to get away from it but in spitfire if you did that not a better inject your engine cut out so you found yourself the world position in the beginning the Spitfire could out tell German fighters and so when he saw that he that he is in losing him in the turn that eventually I will get on his tail so it's a 12 this is this is there's no future there so he just simply put his nose down when went out the pilots soon learn how to overcome the problem if I had simply pushed the nose of my Spitfire down to chasing it I've lost speed so what I did instead of pushing the nose down was to do a sweeping left turn taking the plane down at the same time and did it in such a way that I came out just about 50 yards behind the 190 and that it was quite successful another problem soon becomes apparent when a one on I went into dive it was very very difficult to keep up with him and respected with spitfires at that time the ailerons were fabric covered so you couldn't hold it steady in the dive because as you rocked up to higher speed so that because of temperature on the covering the shape changed after I got to a certain speed I started to lose control the aircraft was turning away I couldn't keep it straight any longer so the things the game but you're learning all the time in these battles the vital importance of Michels vision will be recognized and the reputation of the Supermarine Spitfire as the aircraft that will save the nation is established the Royal Air Force is fighting for survival against an enemy determined to wipe it out as German bombers endeavor to strike at essential ground targets it's the fighter aircraft of both sides that will determine the outcome Britain's air defense system of detection and command and control is the finest in the world as the radar stations situated around the coast feed information into the system and plotting tables filled with the tracks of incoming raids the controllers must decide how to meet these threats the Huracan a sturdy stable gun platform is tasked with the job of attacking the Bombers the Spitfires because of their superior performance will tackle the hordes of deadly fighters that swarm around the bomber formations but the Spitfires in both units high fluid during battle their main object was to look after the 109 - the fighters we were just told to stay away from the Bombers and the first thing that seemed to always happen someone would call break we will be bounced by 109 that you realize you're in a dangerous game and they were playing for keeps without any warning and suddenly some about a dozen or so 109s came down on us out of the Sun we didn't see them we didn't hear anything until somebody shouted break break break from chrissake break and there was a 109 right in front of me who died the chip followed me down or followed someone else down and he didn't see me so um so that was one to me at the start of the Battle of Britain in July the RAF is receiving 80 new Spitfires a month by August production has tripled and 245 new Spitfires are delivered to replace the 133 destroyed in combat though the hurricane makes up the bulk of Fighter Command strength and will account for more enemy aircraft destroyed it's the distinctive shape of the Spitfire that catches the people's imagination high above them in the summer skies of England they recognize the powerful beauty of Mitchell's design and the Spitfire legend is born they stood for something as far as the Battle of Britain was concerned Lee it was an airplane that people could have related to some reason because it's the unique airplane you could recognize it and on those clear days you would see them going round and round and smoke no sound I don't remember any sound from them at all other than seeing these specks in the sky fighting one another we used to go in as a wing two squadrons of hurricanes and two squadrons of Spitfires we would squirt down a whole line of bombers so by the time we got off the end of a squirting at a whole line of bombers all hell was let loose literally suddenly we were attacked from all directions by hurricanes and Spitfires it's Fritz Pharrell and goofy in July Oh some minor egg unfortunately most of the group which was not that strong anymore dispersed sadly they were all shot down about seven pilots and planes from our group were brought down that day the Spitfire has got a tighter turning circles about the same at full speed but when you were head-to-head you must get out by turning upside down and straight into the next cloud the German leadership were not accurately informed they were not in a position to judge the Royal Air Force correctly and issue us with appropriate orders the Royal Air Force was much stronger than we had assumed but the strength of the Royal Air Force does not rest solely on the Spitfire there's a split section between those that favor the hurricane or give credence to the hurricane and probably more than the Spitfire but the fact of the matter is simply this that the Battle of Britain could have been one other Spitfire but had we not had the Spitfire I hope and could not have won it on its own it's as simple as that [Music] [Music] the Spitfire has played a crucial role in the battle for freedom of the skies over Britain [Music] the mark-5 spitfire enter service in february 1941 it is now armed with two 20 millimeter hispano cannons as well as its machine guns these latest variants occasionally caused problems now the Spitfires had 20 millimeter cameras and the machine guns and on the old one where you had eight machine guns you had a kind of button which when it was on safe your thumb wouldn't fit into it when you twisted it your thumb fit it ended on your stick and who controlled color and so it was a very positive safe or far on this on the top of your stick you had this tiny lever and one way it was Kanner's the other way of machine gun and some other way it was safe and one other way it was both of them see this one own eye coming towards me over at the same level as me who's failing me and I think well I've got the good chance here because I've got two cannons four machine guns he's got one Canada and I thought right if he comes at me and I kept straight at him straight at him and all of a sudden he pulls his nose out but shows his belly to me and I then worried whether I blow him out of the sky blew myself up too and I lift up pushed and nothing happened and I'd gone that thing unsafe the Royal Air Force is determined to take the fight to the enemy hoping to draw the Luftwaffe into battle Fighter Command begins a series of large fighter sweeps over enemy occupied France [Music] the Spitfire is operating at the limit of its range the British pilots are now as disadvantaged as the Luftwaffe pilots operating over England the year before now to get across to here we should go down to mentioned refuel I mentioned there's too far across the water to across the crews have been shot down we can break that down he spent 40 minutes flat cluster warning and all your Murph you're going you fly around 150 minutes try giving a little time there I know you're trying backing him they weren't very successful because then the loss of life was to rate four times veteran [Music] and the Spitfire mark fives now come face-to-face with early versions of the latest German fighter aircraft the Fokker wolf 190 with a top speed of almost 400 miles an hour the fw 190 executes turns and maneuvers at speeds that amaze British pilots who clash with this lethal aircraft and live to tell the tale it soon earns the nickname butcher bird [Music] to counter this threat the Spitfires engineers work to develop a further variant of Michels original design we also had to make sure that we were keeping one step ahead of the enemy and when the focke-wulf 190 came around we had to increase the maneuverability of the aircraft we actually added power assisted aliens like the power assisted steering you got on your motor car now but we weren't doing that on airplanes long before they thought of bringing in verticals [Music] they are given unexpected help when a [ __ ] wolf pilot lands his aircraft at an RAF airfield by mistake the German machine is examined closely June 1942 the Spitfire mark 9 enter service when you see the nine in action you'll notice all the familiar Spitfire features the wing shape the curved underside and small fin and rudder and don't forget the new features the longer nose with the pigeon breast beginning to disappear and the two symmetrical radiators that's the mark 9 with the top speed of nearly 410 miles an hour the mark 9 restores the balance against the fokker wolf 190 with the Allied invasion of Europe there is now a need for an aircraft capable of low-level attacks in support of the advancing Allied armies [Music] they fell the wings were clipped to give better maneuverability at low altitudes but the Spitfire is vulnerable to damage from the massive small arms fire and flak that greets these low-level sorties they had radiators and coolant and you know rather have in the car if somebody puts a bullet through the front of your car you don't even get as far as the top end of the road when it's rather the same with the fighter if you were shot in the coolant system the engine was seized in about four minutes it had run out of coolant the Spitfire was designed as a fighter interceptor and a new generation of fighter bombers will prove more successful in the ground attack role such as the powerful and sturdy typhoon it's a tribute to the advanced thinking behind Michels original design that it is able to accommodate continuous upgrading to meet the demands made upon it from high-altitude photo reconnaissance to carrier born operations [Music] from the prototype rolls-royce of course operated the engine continuously always through war the echo have got heavier and heavier and faster and faster so that was they the stream of development which took place the Spitfire is the only Allied fighter aircraft to stay in production and see continuous service for the duration of the Second World War by the end of the war it's nearly 1/3 heavier can climb 10,000 feet higher and is 100 miles an hour faster but the world has entered the jet age and the Spitfires days as an operational combat aircraft are numbered gradually it tired off you know came the time when there's no more Spitfires being used by the RAF we knew the time was coming when something's going to happen so the contract for mark 24 but by then the RAF didn't want them they want jet planes the Spitfire continues in operational service with the RAF until 1954 over 20 2,500 Spitfires of all marks and variants had been built and had flown in every theater of war RJ Mitchell's advanced aerodynamic design had been the secret of the Spitfires effectiveness and longevity as a fighter aircraft one of the things that I heard Mitchell say our number of occasions it looks good it is good and he was I think we all of us felt some sort of pride because we knew very well and we got a good one it was the grace and beauty of the design as well as the power of the aircraft that captured the affection of those who flew it I fell a bit in love with the surfer his most beautiful thing I had ever seen and it was a fighter the Spitfire in all its power and beauty has come to represent the spirit that saved the country in those desperate days when Britain stood alone that it's in a class of its own no matter how long the world goes on the Spitfire will be recognized that was responsible for contributing to the victory greater than any aircraft in the history of combat [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Keywords: TV Shows - Topic, documentary history, real, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, History, stories, Channel 4 documentary, Full Documentary, BBC documentary, royal air force documentary, world war 2 documentary, Documentary Movies - Topic, ww2, history documentary, Documentaries, fighter plane documentary, spitfire documentary, raf 100, 2017 documentary, spitfire film, world war two documentary, royal air force ww2, battle of britain

Id: fR03Mmv2bUs

Length: 44min 38sec (2678 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 06 2018