First blood in the spitfire

Forever, Britain's most cherished Crown Jewel
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Chairman
Airman
Posts: 16
Joined: 17 Nov 2014, 16:46

First blood in the spitfire

Post by Chairman »

Huge thanks to Dreamsofwings for the introduction to the Spitfire series of videos, warbirds have always scared the heck out of me and study level planes that bite if you get them wrong have always scared the heck out of me so I was more than a bit nervous loading up my shiny new MkII Spit and following along with his cockpit tour video, hey mine looks just like that, and I've managed a couple of successful flights in the T6 (what happens after the gear touches the arrival runway isn't part of the flight, right ?) so maybe this won't be so bad ?

We got into the engine start video and I was half watching the video and half reading the Shift-2 checklist and the manual, and out of curiosity I went a few steps ahead on the checklist and there was a bang and the engine was up and running ! I remembered the bit about not loading in miles away from the runway so the engine didn't cook in the taxi, so figured I should head cross country to the runway, not quite sure what went wrong but I did some donuts that any boy racer would be proud of instead - eventually tamed the beast and ended up on the runway with the temperatures about right and the shift-2 check items done so I slowly opened the throttle and OH MY GOD !!!!! the sound :shock: :o

Soon after the tail came up I pulled tentatively back on the stick (I'm sure the takeoff speed is mentioned but I hadn't spotted it) and the Spit went up like an express lift ! I set the climb power as per Sh-2 and did a couple of circles to enjoy the views inside and outside and suddenly I was at 10,000' - in everything else I've flown lately I'd have been at about 4,000 so that was quite a surprise. I came back to cruise power and headed across town to the local air force base, on the way I did a couple of loops and snap rolls without even thinking about it, then I had to work out how to descend. The tooltips said I was coming down at 4000fpm / 399 mph at one point so I think I worked it out, this is an absolute rocketship !!

I figured I probably shouldn't land at 300 mph so i did a couple of big circles while the speed bled off enough to throw out the gear and flaps then did a short (and for once deliberately) curved approach and managed to cross the piano keys at 80, chop the throttle, and whack it down on the runway heading more or less on the centreline ! I wasn't using trackIR because the sun was streaming in the window behind me but I was moving my head around as much as I could with chaseplane trying to see past the nose, that really is a mission !

After the plane skidded to a halt a couple of hundred feet off the side of the runway (don't ask, at least it didn't turn around!) I brought the flaps up then managed to make the engine stop on command, turned off everything I could find to turn off, checked the hanger (0.3 hours, still in beautiful shape !), and now I'm sitting here just listening to it crack and creak and tick while everything cools down. That was genuinely exhilarating, I loved everything about it and can't wait to do it again, maybe properly this time though :-D

Thank you A2A for this beautiful bird !

Artur
Staff Sergeant
Posts: 306
Joined: 12 Jun 2015, 08:37

Re: First blood in the spitfire

Post by Artur »

Try to land without flaps, for me it is smoother and there is no 'wall hitting effect' when deploy them.
Especially during take off u have to be 'ahead', otherwise u will not keep that beast on the runway :-)

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Paughco
Senior Master Sergeant
Posts: 2095
Joined: 30 Nov 2014, 12:27

Re: First blood in the spitfire

Post by Paughco »

Great post! Glad you're enjoying the Spitfire! Getting flaps up ASAP after landing helps keep the engine cool, and the right flap pretty much blocks off airflow through the radiator. Also, there are lots of good tips in the Spitfire forum.

Seeya
ATB
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