19.08.2009, 05:24
Lo mate,
I understand the difficulties involved in the process.
Being the first British fighter with an all stressed metal skin, the structure of the wings with decreasing sized ribs and the one piece rounded leading edge etc.
The problems came with the (lack of) Supermarine orginisation (some of which was of Mitchell's own making, he had a great distrust of authority).
The drawing office was to small with no recognised filing system, with drawing being pilled up and not cronologically stored, the factory had no (or very little) stores system with parts coming into the factory and being 'dumped' in parts bins. As one of the engineers said, there are over 10.000 parts to a Spitfire and we have to go hunting for every one.
Also Supermarine, at one point, were blaming the subcontractor who built the wings of poor workmanship and of not following the drawing specs. It was found that Supermarine had built the assembly shop on reclaimed land next to the quay side, and when the tide came either in or out the workshop floor rose or fell by a couple of millimeters, thus making the wing fixing points slightly out of allignment.
Vickers bought out Supermarine and attempted to rectify the problems prior to WWII, but it took Lord Beaverbrook in the end to push/bully/cajole the bosses into action.
It was a very complicated situation regarding the Spitfire and its near 'not' status, coming close to cancelation on several occasions, and without the backing and support of some very senior and powerful MP's and industrialists WWII might have had a very differant outcome (not saying in any way that the Spitfire won the war, but the Battle of Britain would have more than likely have been won by the Luftwaffe, the Air Battle for Malta would have been lost etc)
I understand the difficulties involved in the process.
Being the first British fighter with an all stressed metal skin, the structure of the wings with decreasing sized ribs and the one piece rounded leading edge etc.
The problems came with the (lack of) Supermarine orginisation (some of which was of Mitchell's own making, he had a great distrust of authority).
The drawing office was to small with no recognised filing system, with drawing being pilled up and not cronologically stored, the factory had no (or very little) stores system with parts coming into the factory and being 'dumped' in parts bins. As one of the engineers said, there are over 10.000 parts to a Spitfire and we have to go hunting for every one.
Also Supermarine, at one point, were blaming the subcontractor who built the wings of poor workmanship and of not following the drawing specs. It was found that Supermarine had built the assembly shop on reclaimed land next to the quay side, and when the tide came either in or out the workshop floor rose or fell by a couple of millimeters, thus making the wing fixing points slightly out of allignment.
Vickers bought out Supermarine and attempted to rectify the problems prior to WWII, but it took Lord Beaverbrook in the end to push/bully/cajole the bosses into action.
It was a very complicated situation regarding the Spitfire and its near 'not' status, coming close to cancelation on several occasions, and without the backing and support of some very senior and powerful MP's and industrialists WWII might have had a very differant outcome (not saying in any way that the Spitfire won the war, but the Battle of Britain would have more than likely have been won by the Luftwaffe, the Air Battle for Malta would have been lost etc)