Quote:
Originally Posted by Crumpp
They did rush it!!'
If we take January 1942 as the time the conversion for Spitfire Mk I's was complete that represents about two years and four months between initial flight test and 100% ground operational adoption.
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We don't..
Just found this. From the list of mkI serial numbers in M&S...
All spitfires built after the 1/6/1939 were Merlin III. Only 74 were Merlin II
On the 22nd March 1940 a letter from MAC ordered the change of production and specified that all MKI's were to have the Merlin X installed, starting from Serial Number R7023. This was to bring them upto MkIII standard. events overtook this instruction and from R7258 Merlin 45's were fitted, thus bringing the Mk I upto MkV spec. Why would they do this in march
R7023 was built on 28/1/1941 R7258 was completed on 5/4/1941
Every single spitfire produced after that date was a Merlin 45.
Simple fact is there were no operational mkI's around in 1942. Any that had survived that long were in OTU's all the others were converted to MkV's or PR's or whatever..