Yes: it's a PR XIX, so Griffon powered. Mk XII, Mk XIV, Mk XVIII and PR XIX were Griffon-Powered, as were Mk 22,23 and 24. (And Mk XV, but it was a Seafire). PR XIII and Mk XVI were Merlin-powered. The Griffon rotates in the opposite direction as the Merlin. Rgds
Seeing a man picking up pieces of the prop means that somewhere they are going to have to dig up (find) another pressed wood 5 bladed prop. Also it looks like the right wing primary structure took a lot of deep damage...spar and attach points, right hand gear, too. Then there is the cowling, spinner, engine mounts, forward fuselage, and an engine tear down. Then there's fin and rudder along with canopy and possible fuselage tweeks. Big bucks. Reading Jeff Ethel's article about operating that mark of Spitfire , he strongly warns of the monster torque of the Griffon and how it cranks the right wing down at full boost. I feel certain that the pilot applied too much power too early and shouldn't have raised the tail until adequate airflow over the empennage had been established. I 'll bet F4U Driver has some valuable comments here because my flight in Worry Bird showed a gradual increase in power until the airplane was moving pretty well before full power was applied.
The pressed wood five bladed props can be ordered here, Bob, should you need one...(I have no personal interest in this business...). "Hoffman Props" of Germany manufactures almost all the propellor blades models in pressed wood ("Jablo" for british airplanes, on Rotol props), on order. On the page displayed with the second link, there is actually a pic of a five bladed prop dispalyed in their workshops... Propeller_Vintage_Aircraft | Hoffmann Propeller GmbH & Co. KG http://www.hoffmann-prop.com/en/18/Manufacture#blade As for the Griffon-engined Spitfires models, the great Jeffrey Quill, in his autobiography ("Spitfire, a test pilot story") said that although a much better performer than the Merlin-engined marks, the Griffon-engined models were not as nice to fly. His favorite Mark from a flying point of view was the Merlin-engined Mk VIII (with standard wing tips). Rgds
- Right wheel digging into the wet runway due to torque and not enough aileron? - Inadvertently applying right (heel/toe) brake while using rudder? - Parking brakes stuck/not released completely? Very sad to see, but happy to see the pilot walk away. Hope the hurt lady spectator will fully recover. http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/supermarine-spitfire-134209906/
Thanks for the info, I should have known so I'm glad now that all they have to do is to rebuild the airplane and I would love to be able to work on it. Those days are past, however, so now all I do is make up paintings and stories.
Well, that was just to entertain the discussion: I discovered this firm in Germany a long time ago, reading an article in an aviation magazine which was saying that, thanks to these guys, almost any propeller having compressed wood blades could be restored, on order (it probably isn't cheap...). As for the Spitfire itself, well, rebuilding it would be a major task. The wings are single spar, and the attachement points looks distorted. I know that with a lot of money you can rebuild an aeroplane almost from zero, but that one looks badly bent indeed. To say nothing of the engine, but usually compressed wood shears in shards and avoids shock-loading it. I don't think that it could be rebuild in France, I would be surprised that the facilities exist here for such work; if it will be rebuilt, it will probably be done in the U.K. Rgds
Some interesting footage of the manufacturing in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1v8EAKf4Y8
Woah, didn't know that. The number of times I have sat and hit pause trying to look at stuff is ridiculous. Thanks, Kurt!
Interesting... the base of the prop is compressed hardwood at the hub with lighter spruce finger-jointed in for the rest of the blade. There's a pic in the link. I would assume engine damage would be less (or nil) with a wood prop than with a metal prop.
When it nosed over at full or near full throttle, the spinner chewed into the ground pretty hard and the engine was displaced sideways. That had to have done something to the shaft and I would at least want the runout checked .
heh no problem. I don't know when YT introduced the feature I just stumbled on it probably 6 months ago. Definitely comes in handy BTW do you know about YT's online video editor? It's kind of hidden and won't do advanced stuff like video-in-a-video or other fancy things but for clipping and mixing vids, adding transitions, photos, titles and music, decent stabilization and even converting clips to slow or fast motion it works great. I put this vid together with it in about 30 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x5s_7qrDH8 You can get to it through Video Manager, then "Create", or just go here: https://www.youtube.com/editor
Pilot should be held carefully stationary and then every single Spitfire fan throughout the world allowed to punch him fair and squarely in the face! But wonderfully it can be fixed Pete
