merlin griffon griffon

thanks for your thoughts

Doesn't get any better... unless it was Merlin, Merlin, Merlin :)

Well, could be better. Besides the Spits being mismatched, they are strung out a bit too much and the background is not interesting. I think in an afternoon of airshow shooting you might get a better break shot than this. Unfortunately I live in North America, the only thing we get to see breaking in 3s and 4s here are those ugly P-51 things. Nice progression of angles, anyway.

ugly P51 one things? come on August! they may not be spitfires, but jeez man...

 

Nice shot, Duncan.

Thoese ugly P51s were a Godsend to England when the Spits were being shot down faster than they could be replaced.

as far as the history books this side of the atlantic go,we had beaten the germans over British airspace before the Americans joined in ,with a 2/1 kill ratio in our favour we did not a bad job..The best part of the p51 was the engine,a merlin as i remember.

There's something about this that reminds me of the 3 ducks on Hilda Ogden's living room wall (only the Brits will understand that!) and it made me smile :-)

 

The background may be washed out, etc etc, but it's got Spitfires in it!!

 

Went to Duxford today for the final show of the season. Please take a look if you get a mo.

Yes Duncan, by the time the Merlin Mustang (the first decent fighter variant) entered RAF service in February 1944, the RAF found it useful for particular applications but not urgently needed. There were plenty of Spits by then and some other good types too.

 

And of course the P-51 is not ugly in absolute terms; just relative to the Spitfire (and several other WWII fighters).

 

Even after a very brief foray into into this forum, specifically WWII related pictures, it is blatantly obvious that many of the folks who post the shots are also (perhaps foremost) extremely knowledgeable and studious afficionados of aviation and/or military history. Posting an idiotically ignorant comment like that in response to someone's opinion on relative aesthetics is something I am sure you're quite emabarassed about, in retrospective. If you're not... then I suppose anything I write here is a waste of time and space (which I suppose, in that case, would be amusingly fitting on some metaphorical level...).

 

But, forever the optimist, here I go (and please, I hope no one takes this as a slight to the US war effort and their contributions to the conflict):

 

The North American P51 Mustang was, in a way, a British invention. When the British Purchasing Commission visited the USA in order to make decisions on purchases of American equipment, they were somewhat underwhelmed by what was the state of the art in American land-based fighter aircraft, the P40. To make the long story short, North American was the only company which took on the near impossible task (given the time constrains) of making a fighter which would address all of the shortcomings of the P40 in the short ordered required by the British. No one else was willing to try. They made the Mustang. When the USA noticed what they had, they simply bought into the concept. A very flawed one, but one with a great potential. The P51 was an extremely mediocre fighter in its initial iteration, and as is generally known and already mentioned, it was the addition of the RR Merlin that made it the world beater it became. It does stand to be mentioned that when the war really hit, everything that could fly was employed, and many a P40 fought in British markings, as well as P38's, P39's, B17's, etc...

Also, the Spitfire was never outclassed outright. Various marks may have been out of step with their opposition, but the only notable example of that is the FW190/MkV disparity, addressed by the MkIX. And lets not forget that the tide of the German offensive was very much turned before a single Mustang fired a round in anger. Not many Mustangs over British skies during the Battle of Britain. Yes, fewer than "the Few", to put it mildly.

If you want kill ratios, kill numbers (claimed, disputed, according to German, British records, war-time, post war - you tell me which), broken down by year, theatre - you name it - let me know, I'd be more than happy to provide them... but in the interest of time, I suggest you take my word (as well as some basic WWII history) at face value. It will save you a great deal of time during which you will only lose self esteem continuosly faced with your own ignorance.

No one should be silly enough to dispute the P51's significance, but no one should be stupid enough to make off hand comments about statements they didn't take the time to understand, either - so let me spell it out for you:

The Spitfire was never outclassed. The Mustang was not meant to, and never did REPLACE the Spitfire. They both played their own, pivotal roles in the air war - side by side, often in different roles due to their designs stemming from totally different requirements (drop an e-amil if you want to know what those are, or better yet - read any book on the subject).

And the P51 can only be seen as attractive in a form-follows-function kind of way. Let's face it: that belly scoop made all of them look pregnant and obese, ungainly. The Allison engined variants looked like someone in need of a nose job, and before the (very brief due to stability issues) P51C model, the high-backed, Malcolm hooded Mustangs just looked fat.

 

Then there is the Spitfire, the most beautiful object ever crafted by human hands. And that is an indisputible fact :)

 

Man, I get long-winded when I get pissed off...

Well now, Peter, Mr Pilkington's comment was misinformed - and that particular misconception is not even a common one - but no need for all that invective. Many of us have issues with the persistent overrating of the P-51, both as a weapon and as a thing of beauty, but we can debunk the P-51 myth a little more gently.

 

And aesthetically I will say this for the P-51, the cowling over the Merlin was a work of genius, as good as even that on the Spitfires, and the Merlin was a difficult engine to cowl cleanly, especially on an airframe not designed for it. Yes, the rest of the airplane was a combination of lumps, bulges, and angular straight lines that never went together quite right, but it had its merits. Heck, I've seen fit to point the camera at Mustangs a few hundred times, so I must like something about it.

 

The Spitfire and the Mustang both made their mark in widely differing ways during WW2. The B17/B24 force of the 8th AF suffered horrendous losses until the spring of 1944 when a true long-range escort in the shape (admittedly functional rather than beautiful) of the P51 appeared in Northern European skies. The 8th AF bombing mission was in a ctitical state with unacceptably high losses and a mounting morale problem - almost 200 B17/B24 aircraft landed 'damaged' in Sweden and Switzerland during this phase of the bombing operation. The P51 enabled the 8th AF to penetrate, at an 'acceptable' loss rate well into Germany, and more importantly brought the Luftwaffe to combat, fighter against fighter. The P51 enabled the American bomber offensive to survive in much the same way the Spitfire/Hurricane enabled Britain to survive some four years earlier. It is invidious to try to 'compare' two such thoroughbreds when they operated in such diverse ways and in quite different combat situations. Finally, would all our North American cousins please note that Britain, not England, is the correct term to refer to the British Isles - we Scots get a bit ***** off at being lumped in with our less fortunate colleagues south of the border. Regards to you all - a bit quiet at the moment, in the throes of moving house.

August, Pat, point well taken - and agreed, I did fly of the handle. I just can not stand the whole "you should be thanking us for winning ole dubya-bubya two for yous, or y'all'd be speaking Nazi by now"... however thinly vailed. Especially if that vail is composed of a misconception about a subject so dear to my heart.

 

Bottom line is, when the Spitfire was built, it was meant to defend against incoming threats, corresponding to the British policy of night-time strategic bombing which did not require fighter escort.

When the Americans came with their lofty and misguided ideas of daylight bombing (ignoring lessons learned by their allies by that point because... well...anyhow), the British bailed them out by screwing a Merlin to a Mustang (thus getting the airplane they ordered all those years ago...).

 

Mind you, I have to brag a little, its a seldom mentioned fact that a Polish pilot from the 309th squadron had a central role in letting everyone know exactly how capable the Merlin engined Mustang was with a little unauthorized foray to Norway... Interesting story, that. I just don't know if there is any good descriptions of it in English.

 

Sorry about that little bit of national vanity:)

Peter, you have every right to revel in the contribution that the Poles made to the RAF in WW2 - and much later. The pic I posted of the Meteor formation was taken from a Meteor piloted by Fl. Lt. Fitzpatrick - he was a Pole who came to the UK via France in 1939 and flew right through WW2 - some time, I think, with 3Sqdn which was a tough billet. He remained in the RAF, as he was unable to return home, and officially changed his name to Fitzpatrick, claiming it was the only English name that had a at least one z in it. In 1963 his daughter, whom he had never seen - born in early 1940, got permission to visit the UK for two weeks but had to give a hard committment to return to Poland and the rest of the remaining family. That was the sort of backgound that made our task in the Cold War so much easier - we owe a lot to those guys. Dziekuje - Pat.