...Spitfire Pilots...

[ParadiseRoad]

..."No 91 Squadron Spitfire pilots at the butts, Hawkinge, 23 July 1941. Archery was in vogue with several squadrons, a supplement to the more usual forms of recreational target practice"...

 

[mckenney99]

Their aim had better of been pretty good or they were going to have a hard time explaining to the maintenance chief why there was an arrow sticking out of the engine cowling. Note: never pi** off the guys that load your guns.

 

[M1A]

The English long bow was the machine gun of it's time.

 

[monsai52]

No attached picture.

Best regards,

 

[vigil617]

Lest we forget:

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." Winston Churchill

 

[ameridaddy]

..."No 91 Squadron Spitfire pilots at the butts, Hawkinge, 23 July 1941. Archery was in vogue with several squadrons, a supplement to the more usual forms of recreational target practice"...

No doubt they were anticipating a Chinese virus induced ammo shortage.

 

[Rudi]

Shooting a bow takes great eye/hand coordination. Just like flying.

 

[fordson]

A Spitfire Mk V, what a lovely aircraft. Grace, speed and lethality all rolled into one package. Although I don’t think they fired arrows.

 

[LVSteve]

A Spitfire Mk V, what a lovely aircraft. Grace, speed and lethality all rolled into one package. Although I don’t think they fired arrows.

The Mk Vb was the first model to get cannons from the factory, but they got badly mauled when the Fw 190 came into service.

Oddly enough, 91 Squadron was largely a weather recce/air-sea rescue unit.

The perfectly proportioned Spitfire for me was the Mk IX. Here's one in formation with a Corsair.

 

[UncleEd]

A Spitfire Mk V, what a lovely aircraft. Grace, speed and lethality all rolled into one package. Although I don’t think they fired arrows.

The bows and arrows were their backup weapons in
case they ran out of ammo or their machine guns
jammed.

 

[Dave_n]

The Mk Vb was the first model to get cannons from the factory, but they got badly mauled when the Fw 190 came into service.

Oddly enough, 91 Squadron was largely a weather recce/air-sea rescue unit.

The perfectly proportioned Spitfire for me was the Mk IX. Here's one in formation with a Corsair.

Yes the Vb had clipped wings to aid rapid movement, but the "Butcher Bird" ignored those to the detriment of a lot of Vb pilots. Personally I have always liked the PR Spitfires; no guns, highly polished and quite fast. Mind you, flying over Europe without guns took a lot of "cojones". Dave_n

 

[andy52]

OK.. without looking it up who knows why the F4 Corsair wings had that shape?

 

[Pondoro]

A Spitfire Mk V, what a lovely aircraft. Grace, speed and lethality all rolled into one package.

I always thought that if aerodynamics was judged by beauty and grace the Supermarine Spitfire and the Jaguar XKE would have been the most aerodynamic of all machines. Later I became an aerodynamicist, by that time more testing and the advent of computers had developed shapes with less drag. But I still love those two shapes.

 

[timjake]

OK.. without looking it up who knows why the F4 Corsair wings had that shape?

The designers needed to have enough ground clearance for the huge propeller, so they went with a gull wing rather than straight.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

Here’s our NM Corsair.
Don’t know of a Spitfire here.
There’s one over at Tucson at the Pima.

 

[LVSteve]

The designers needed to have enough ground clearance for the huge propeller, so they went with a gull wing rather than straight.

The Fleet Air Arm developed a curved carrier approach that allowed the pilot to see the carrier deck in the dip of the wing because visibility over the nose was a problem. The USN considered the Corsair unsuitable for carrier ops for some time.

 

[Camster]

Shooting a bow takes great eye/hand coordination. Just like flying.

While visiting the Maritime museum in Portsmouth, England once upon a time, and specifically the raised "Mary Rose," I found it interesting that they found boxes of long bows on her. If memory serves, hew was the wood of choice for constructing them.

 

[Texas Star]

While visiting the Maritime museum in Portsmouth, England once upon a time, and specifically the raised "Mary Rose," I found it interesting that they found boxes of long bows on her. If memory serves, hew was the wood of choice for constructing them.

No.It was yew. But you'd have to hew the yew, ha!

 

[LVSteve]

While visiting the Maritime museum in Portsmouth, England once upon a time, and specifically the raised "Mary Rose," I found it interesting that they found boxes of long bows on her. If memory serves, hew was the wood of choice for constructing them.

Close, the preferred wood is yew, with elm as the reserve.

 

[andy52]

The designers needed to have enough ground clearance for the huge propeller, so they went with a gull wing rather than straight.

Correct the F4 had the largest prop of any WWII fighter.