- 13 hours ago
For educational purposes
This episode looks at the German Luftwaffe with its Messerschmitt Bf 109, the British Spitfire in the Battle of Britain.
And the U.S. entry into the Second World War with its P-38 Lightning.
Featured aircraft:
- Supermarine Mark 14 Spitfire
- Lockheed P-38 Lightning
Shooting Location:
Planes of Fame Air Museum, Chino, CA
This episode looks at the German Luftwaffe with its Messerschmitt Bf 109, the British Spitfire in the Battle of Britain.
And the U.S. entry into the Second World War with its P-38 Lightning.
Featured aircraft:
- Supermarine Mark 14 Spitfire
- Lockheed P-38 Lightning
Shooting Location:
Planes of Fame Air Museum, Chino, CA
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:01Hi, I'm Neil Armstrong. Join me for an adventure through time.
00:58The first German air attack
00:59of the Second World War destroyed most of the old biplane fighters. Pilots from Britain,
01:05France, and Holland fell from the sky at an alarming rate. Only the hurricane and spitfire
01:11survived the initial onslaught. Overnight, the monoplane became the standard for new design.
01:17Once again, there was a ferocious battle for speed. The first plane to reach the target won,
01:24and the pilots with the quickest reflexes were the survivors.
01:55After the fall of France to Hitler, Winston Churchill, addressing the House of Commons said,
02:02The Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. The whole
02:09fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have
02:15to break us in this island, or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may
02:22be free.
02:23But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and
02:30cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age.
02:39Winston Churchill's fear of the rising threat of Germany, and especially the Luftwaffe, was not exaggerated.
02:46It was the most modern air force of its time. Their showpiece was the VF 109. Designed by Willie Messerschmitt,
02:55the 109 was a small airframe built around a powerful engine. An 1100 horsepower Daimler-Benz engine
03:03gave her a phenomenal top speed of 354 miles per hour.
03:12Introduced during the Spanish Civil War, the German 109 showed that the speed kills.
03:19Carrying both machine guns and cannons, she out-flew and out-gunned any biplane put against her.
03:27Faced with the challenge of the Luftwaffe, the race was on for manufacturers in other countries
03:33to develop competitive aircraft.
03:39The key for the British proved to be the development of the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.
03:45The Merlin, like the Daimler-Benz, was a 12-cylinder, liquid-cooled power plant, but with even greater horsepower.
03:55Sidney Cam of Hawker aircraft was the first British designer to successfully employ the Merlin.
04:01His design utilized a fabric-covered tube-frame construction common for biplanes.
04:07This saved retooling the factory for his new monoplane.
04:11The result was the Hurricane.
04:15She was well-balanced, maneuverable, and easy to fly.
04:19But she was also 35 miles per hour slower than a 109.
04:23When the war started, the Hurricane accounted for half of all RAF operational fighters.
04:37A second design for the Merlin engine was created by racing seaplane designer R.J. Mitchell.
04:46Mitchell's design featured unusually thin wings.
04:49This reduced drag and permitted airspeeds of 355 miles per hour.
04:57Called the Spitfire, the British finally had a plane that was equal in speed to the 109.
05:14Based on the design of a racing seaplane, the Spitfire arrived on the scene just in time to help wage
05:22the Battle of Britain.
05:23In the early days, the Spitfire was a pilot's nightmare.
05:26Not properly tested, it developed dozens of teething problems.
05:31And its slow speed during takeoff and landing was almost uncontrollable.
05:35It was the first of a generation of aircraft that received its final testing under fire.
05:43Reminiscing on the Spitfire, RAF pilot John Nesbitt Dufort, DSO, described his first flight in a Model Mark I.
05:54Taking a deep breath, I gently pushed the throttle fully open.
05:59Speed built up surprisingly quickly, and we were airborne before I realized it.
06:03She went around as though she had been on rails.
06:06The little plane handled beautifully.
06:09On August 10th, the Luftwaffe began attacking airfields throughout southern England.
06:15Attacks were constant and almost succeeded in destroying the RAF.
06:18In just two weeks, Britain lost 466 fighters and one quarter of its pilots.
06:25Almost any young man who could fly a plane was put into the air against the Germans, being told to
06:32keep up and to watch for the Hun in the sun.
06:36Many young men were lost just from the sheer confusion of trying to fly an unfamiliar plane while watching for
06:42the enemy and engaging in dogfights.
06:45Wing Commander Jeffrey Page was one of the many who experienced losing his aircraft.
06:51That day, he said, I couldn't believe I'd been hit.
06:55Two more bangs followed in quick succession.
06:58The gas tank behind the engine blew up, and my cockpit became an inferno.
07:04My fear became blind terror, then agonizing horror, as the bare skin of my hands gripping the throttle shriveled up
07:12like burnt parchment.
07:21In a dogfight, the 109 was a serious challenge.
07:25Her fuel-injected engine allowed her to maneuver freely without losing power.
07:29But the additional wing surface of the Hurricane and Spitfire allowed them to out-turn the 109.
07:36Turning was the key that kept many RAF pilots alive.
07:40Air ace Peter Townsend constantly told his pilots,
07:45Don't climb. Don't dive. Just turn.
07:55When the Luftwaffe accidentally bombed the old center of London,
08:00an outraged Churchill ordered the bombing of Berlin.
08:03Hitler, in turn, ordered the destruction of London.
08:23The Blitz actually gave the RAF the break it needed to regroup and turn the tide against the Luftwaffe.
08:31By the end of October, Hitler ceased the regular bombing of London.
08:36Only a third of the RAF fighters had been Spitfires.
08:40But she had become the signature aircraft in the Battle of Britain.
08:51This is the Mark 14 Spitfire, one of the last models to fight in World War II.
08:57It has twice the horsepower of the early Spitfires used in the Battle of Britain.
09:02According to pilot Steve Hinton, the increased performance added to her effectiveness as a fighter.
09:09Well, I think the Spitfire differed probably from its enemy in the fact that it had just such a fantastic
09:14engine.
09:15The Rolls-Royce Griffin and Merlin engine, you know, far exceeded, I think, what the Germans had.
09:22It was capable of high horsepower at high altitude and put on a lightweight airframe like the Spitfire with a
09:27big wing and a great turning radius.
09:30You know, it was a really good combination.
10:13The Spitfire had a nickname, as far as I know, Spitz is what everybody called it when you're over in
10:18England and you talk to the guys, they all say Spitz.
10:21Affectionately, of course, though, I don't know anyone who could say anything bad about a Spitfire, anyone who's ever flown
10:25one or been around one.
10:45So far in the end of the case, what happens before the flight is a beautiful one or two.
10:48After that, we are also talking about race, the battle is going to have the same way to the new
10:48fight for the first one.
10:48There is even a little bit of the battle is in the original fight.
10:49We're out of course.
10:49Yeah.
10:50What are we looking for?
10:53We're looking for at least one.
10:57We're going to be looking for the first time.
11:21This Mark 14 Spitfire reminds me of a small person with big muscles.
11:25This airplane has a fantastic rate of climb and in the air it's a dream to fly.
11:30The airplane can turn on a dime and you can do Emelmans at 150 miles an hour, just pull
11:36the nose straight up and pull it over, I mean it's a fantastic machine.
12:10But here you are!
13:06One great claim to fame the Spitfire had that after the war when they got all the fighters
13:11together and tested them all in England, the Mark 19 Spit was said to be the very fastest
13:16of all propeller driven airplanes in a dive, it could exceed 8 tenths Mach number.
13:21The short term of that is, believe it or not, they tore the propellers right off of them
13:24on those dive tests.
13:25The wooden propellers and the whole nose case of the engines just ripped right off.
14:10I would say if anything would be a shortcoming on the airplane in my opinion would be just
14:13systems, but the airplane itself is just a real dream to fly.
14:26The American entry into the war mobilized an army of designers and builders who quickly
14:31produced an incredible range of aircraft.
14:34Everything from simple trainers to streamlined, futuristic warbirds.
14:39The P-38 was ahead of its time, a sleek, fast machine that opened the door to a new range
14:46of technical problems, like the effects of multi-engine torque and high-speed air flows.
14:52For test pilots, this airplane proved to be a dangerous challenge.
14:58In 1937, Lockheed designers Hall Hibbard and Kelly Johnson proposed a twin-engine fighter, the P-38 Lightning.
15:08She featured twin booms to house each engine and to balance the aircraft.
15:14Much larger than a Spitfire, her twin 1150 horsepower Allison engines gave her 413 miles per hour
15:23in level flight, 58 miles per hour faster than the Spitfire.
15:28Unfortunately, in dives, the aircraft tended to lose control.
15:32The problem proved to be compressibility.
15:35When air accelerating over the wing broke the sound barrier, it created a shockwave over her tail.
15:41The loss of control left the pilot all but helpless.
15:45Other planes would soon encounter this problem, as recalled by American ace Robert Johnson in his P-47.
15:52No man was strong enough to pull the fighter out of a compressibility dive.
15:57I've gripped the control stick in both hands, jammed my feet against the instrument panel for leverage,
16:02and hauled back with all the strength I had.
16:05The stick might have been embedded in concrete for all the good the frantic pulling did me.
16:13The solution for the P-38 proved to be a dive flap that changed the flow of air around the
16:19wing.
16:20This 1 by 5 foot flap did the trick.
16:25The Lightning was the first American fighter to enter the European theater.
16:30Her long range was ideal for convoy patrols in the North Atlantic.
16:35It was on such a mission that a P-38 shot down an FW-200 bomber, the first kill after
16:43the U.S. entry into the war.
16:45Other P-38s flew all the way to England for daylight bomber escort missions over Europe.
16:51Able to stay aloft for the long hours required on such missions, she was a welcome companion for the B
16:58-17.
16:59The P-38 was the first fighter escort on a bombing mission to Berlin.
17:24Sustained high-altitude flying introduced new problems for the P-38.
17:29Hastily designed in the comfortable dry climate of California, cockpit heaters and window defrosters had to be installed.
17:37Early oxygen systems left much to be desired.
17:41And turbochargers supplied by the Army were mismatched for the engines.
17:46This led to engine failures after only a few hours at high altitude.
17:51Still, the P-38 proved the value of long-range bomber escorts.
17:57But the same turbochargers, which damaged engines at high altitudes, performed well at sea level.
18:04The P-38 was an extraordinary ground attack fighter.
18:07It was in this use that the P-38 made her mark.
18:11Armed with both cannon and machine guns like the German 109, the P-38 was overwhelming.
18:17The Germans called her Der Gabelschwanz Teufel, or Forktail Devil.
18:21And her long-range let her bring the battle to the Germans.
18:27The P-38 enjoyed many firsts.
18:30She was a first fighter with twin engines, turbochargers, and tricycle landing gear.
18:36Her long-range ability made her the first fighter to fly the Atlantic for delivery to the European theater.
18:41She was the first fighter to exceed 400 miles per hour, and to encounter and outwit compressibility.
18:49In fact, it was the P-38 that served Ace Major Richard Bong in the Pacific theater.
18:56She was indeed a Forktail Devil.
19:05The planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, California, has a P-38 in its collection of fully restored warbirds.
19:13Of the nearly 10,000 that were built, this is one of the last existing in flying condition.
19:19It took 14 months to rebuild, and it's one of pilot Steve Hinton's favorite aircraft.
19:26The airplane is on the leading edge of design.
19:30Everything from the engine designs, turbo supercharger systems, and structures of the airplane were way ahead of their time
19:36and not really contemporary with other airplanes of that era.
19:39You don't get the engine heat in the cockpit like you do in some of the other airplanes.
19:42And the controls are really balanced real well.
20:12This airplane was designed by Kelly Johnson,
20:14and his design team, who later became the skunkworks at Lockheed,
20:19and they were the people that built the SR-71.
20:21That's the fastest airplane still flying today.
20:24You're welcome.
21:03P-38 was really one of the first planes flying that had to deal with compressibility, you
21:08know, the problem of supersonic airflow over the wings, and in this particular airplane
21:12it was a problem with a nose tuck, in other words, at these high speeds that they encountered,
21:17the nose of the airplane would want to pitch down, and the natural tendency for the pilot
21:21was to pull back to pull the nose up, but that actually didn't fix the problem until
21:25they got down to the lower altitudes when the air was thick enough.
22:14So, let's get started.
22:24A major bomb, we shot down more enemy planes than any other American fighter pilot in World
22:28War II.
22:29And if you look at it, you can see, look at the machine guns on the nose, it was easy
22:33to shoot.
22:34The airplane was twin engine reliability, if you had a shot out engine you could still
22:37get home.
22:38The airplane had really good speed, was capable of carrying a lot of fuel, a lot of endurance.
22:44You know, they dispatched a flight of P-38s and shot down General Yamamoto in the middle
22:49of the war.
22:49I mean, it surprised the Japanese that, you know, an airplane could fly that distance.
22:53You know, they thought they were safe.
22:55And so the airplane really has a lot of credit in its history, you know, it was a really important
23:00tool in our fight in World War II.
23:13We're on the flight, you know, an airplane could fly that distance.
23:20The airplane could fly that distance.
23:30And so, we could fly that distance.
23:31And so, we've got a really cool windlass on the side of it.
23:34We'll be playing on the way.
23:34The third time is also starting to look for us.
23:38We'll be playing on the way.
23:40We'll be playing in the way.
23:55This particular P-38 is a Model J.
23:58Nearly 3,000 were built toward the end of the war.
24:02The Model J was a long-range version capable of flying 2,600 miles.
24:07This one was originally built as a fighter,
24:10with a standard armament of one 20mm cannon and four .50 caliber machine guns.
24:54Other P-38s were configured as light bombers, torpedo carriers, night fighters, tank busters, smoke screen layers, and photo reconnaissance
25:05aircraft.
25:05The P-38 was the only American fighter in production on the first and last day of the war.
25:21Join me again next week for First Flights.
25:52First Flights
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