Stability and Control characteristics of the Early Mark Spitfires

[Crumpp]

Spin trials by RAE on the MKII and MKI (as posted earlier in this thread) generally considered spin characteristics as normal ... no real drama.

Except that spins are prohibited.

They never changed the Operating Notes. It is not because they are lazy. Nor is it because they want to "reduce risk" by not training their fighter pilots in spin/upset/unusual attitudes.

Spin training, upset, and unusual attitude training is essential to a fighter pilots core mission.

I said from the begining, any engineer can look at a design sitting on the tarmac and know if the airplane has a high chance of normal spin recovery assuming the CG is normal or forward. The Spitfire has all the characteristics required to spin normally.

Therefore, the only real issue is the longitudinal instability.

The never changed it because a high speed dive is generally the result of spin recovery and a Spitfire pilot could break the airplane rather easily.



I was just curious if spin trials were done after the longitudinal instability was fixed in the Spitfire Mk I's.

The approval to train after being checked out by a Squadron Commander or CFI at an OTU certainly did not appear until the airworthiness directive fixed the instability.