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

The first and the ultimate test: The Battle of Britain.

The pilots on both sides were to begin with very enthustiastic - young and admired as they were. The testosterone raged in their blood and they felt they were members of an exclusive club - the knighthood of the air.

But they soon learnt of comrades being washed ashore from the Channel and comrades screeming going down with their plane in flames.
The british Spitfire-pilot became aware of, that he sat behind fuel tanks containing up to 380 litres of petrol and the german BF109-pilot, that he sat with 400 litres beneath his seat. The fuel could instantly change the plane into a blazing fire, he had less than 10 seconds to get out from, and at speeds in excess of 140 mph it was dfficult to open the canopy.

The possibility of a sudden death was'nt nearly as frightening as to die in a burning plane.

The strategical winner of the battle was Air Marshall Hugh Dowding , and the tactical winner was Air Vice Marshall Keith Park .
The strategical and tactical looser was Hermann Göring .

It is not often published, but many pilots from the occupied Europe played their vital part in defending Britain during the battle.
Young brave volunteers from the US took against their governments will part too. The best known of them tradically died in a training-accident. His name was John Gillesbie Magee jr. Before the accident he had written a poem "High flight" to his parents. This poem soon became loved all over Amerika and the allied nations.

These young fighterpilots, who risked their life day after day, saved Europe from the teutonic darkness . As Churchill said: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

Three colour-pictures mark the end of this serie : Spitfire Mark V , Mark IX and Mark XIV .

(You are here, because you have chosen a series of quality videos. Another series (very big) of high quality videos is to be found here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FF93A9257EAD7950

Carl Vendler

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[YARROWS]

A truely British effort Designer of Spitfire English,Winston Churchill English Sir Hugh Dowding Scottish Sir Robert Watson Watt (Inventor Radar)Scottish,and not to mention New Zelander Keith Park.

[JaleelJohanson62]

@uknews Not quite. There's the whole accuracy thing and the North Koreans are still way behind. If they were to attempt to hit one of our beaches, I'd be worried no matter what beach I was on in the world. Then there's the matter of how much damage can they inflict? We could obliterate them many times over. The thought is total madness though, and I find it amazing that we all haven't blown ourselves up already. I hope we never do. It'd be so useless..

[kentucksoldiersson]

@N4bpp1 A socialist liberal country? You sound just like the Tea Party. Fox News (sic) et al

[kentucksoldiersson]

Churchill: Hitler knows he has to break the people of this island, or lose the war."

[N4bpp1]

What is sad is that England stood almost alone against Germany and helped win the war for freedom, democracy and the chance to be free. Today, like most of Europe, it has become a socialist liberal country near economic collapse . America is following rapidly in its footsteps. I wonder now if all those lives we're wasted. What would all those dead veterans think of today's England and America?

[notsureyou]

@YARROWS

Old chap, at some point you are going to have to realise that not everything was invented by the Britts :)

Alot of inventions cannot be put down to one person. One person may prove it, another will take the results and from their own view point (different thinking) make it better, or even come up with a massive break through. Just like with the cavity magnetron that you mentioned.

[YARROWS]

@notsureyou Bollocks!

[notsureyou]

Instead of abandoning the magnetron due to its frequency instability (which is what the Germans did), they (Randall and Boot) sampled the output signal and synchronized their receiver to whatever frequency was actually being generated. In 1941, the problem of frequency instability was solved (by the Brits) by coupling alternate cavities within the magnetron.

[notsureyou]

In regards to the cavity magnetron:

The first simple, two-pole magnetron was developed in 1920 by Albert Hull multi-cavity resonant magnetron had been developed and patented in 1935 by Hans Hollmann in Berlin

In 1940, at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, John Randall and Harry Boot produced a working prototype similar to Hollman's cavity magnetron, but added liquid cooling and a stronger cavity. Randall and Boot soon managed to increase its power output 100 fold.

[notsureyou]

and later patent 169154 for a related amendment for also determining the distance to the ship. He also received a British patent on September 23, 1904 for the first full Radar application, which he called telemobiloscope

[notsureyou]

The German Christian Huelsmeyer was the first to use radio waves to detect "the presence of distant metallic objects". In 1904 he demonstrated the feasibility of detecting a ship in dense fog, but not its distance. He received Reichspatent Nr. 165546 for his detection device in April 1904