BBC documentary on the BBMF Spitfire's visit to the USA!

[torejohs]

I was looking for any real life US Spitfire paints to fly with when I'm "over there". Surprisingly, no current airworthy Spitfires have been done for the A2A Spit. However, this cropped up, an interesting documentary on the time the Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight dismantled one of their spits and shipped it over in a Hercules. You get a slight sense of why it was so difficult and took so long to produce the Spit, the wing assembly looks pretty complicated. I think I'll try to avoid Nevada in the summer with the Mk I/II, I wonder how long it would take to overhead... This MK V managed fine though.

Part 1/3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnTLIkcTxiQ

Part 2/3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i19MSMB51gs

Part 3/3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viyuGXAsWso

[Norforce]

Awesome

[tbaac]

Thanks for that, it was really interesting.

I'm not sure if this Discovery documentary has been posted here before but I found it after watching your links.

Part 1 is here:
Spitfire, the legend, the facts and its opponent (1 of 5)

About 7 minutes in there's a clip where the wings are being put together and you can see the complicated insides again.

In Part 2, Squadron Leader Paul Day talks about flying in the Spitfire (around 5 minutes 35):
Spitfire, the legend, the facts and its opponent (2 of 5)
He didn't like the location of the landing gear, and noted that it was difficult to see in any direction.
But he obviously loves the Spitfire and is a big fan of it, flying it for the BBMF.
I found the video by googling for Paul Day's name as he appears in the clip in the OP as well as another video that I've seen.

And in Part 3 he gets into an Me 109 and says its mostly not as good as the Spitfire.
Spitfire, the legend, the facts and its opponent (3 of 5)

The other 2 parts are good as well, sorry if they've already been posted.

Thanks again for the link in the opening post. I loved Paul Day's comment in the video in the OP that the Spitfire has the ground handling capabilities of a supermarket trolley.
I'm off down to Tesco for a go on one of their Spitfire ground handling simulators

What do you think he meant by "ground handling like a shopping trolley?"
Just that its a tail dragger or is it unusually bad? Narrow undercarriage?