Spitfire

The Supermarine Spitfire is one of the most beautiful aircraft ever made. I have to sometimes remind myself that it is also a weapon of war, a killing machine that brave young flyers fought and died in.

This drawing was a commission for Jeffrey Quill, British Royal Air Force officer and a test pilot for "Supermarine Aviation Works (Vickers) Ltd" where he test flew and helped develop every mark of Spitfire.

He fought in the Battle of Britain, downing a Bf 109 and shared a victory over a Heinkel He 111 bomber. This combat experience helped him to make the Spitfire a better combat aircraft.

The Spitfire first became famous utilizing the war-winning Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, (The same engine that made the U.S. P-51 Mustang so successful) but by 1942 the German Focke Wulf Fw190 was gaining an edge over the Allied fighters and more speed was needed. Luckily the extra power needed was already in the works with the development of the new version of the Merlin, the Rolls-Royce Griffon.

The new Griffon engine was larger in engine capacity and had many updates improving it over the Merlin. It was also larger in size needing sheet metal fairings to be rivoted on to cover the taller cylinder heads, fairings that were remarkably simple and effective. The Griffon was shoehorned into a modified clipped-wing Mk.III Spitfire and designated as the Mark IV DP845. It first flew on 27th of November, 1941. A mock- up of a proposed six-cannon armament was fitted, three in each wing, so Mr. Quill was mindful about running into any German planes, cruising over the farms and fields. The aircraft was soon renamed Mk XX, to avoid confusion with a renamed PR type, then it became the Mk XII

Mr. Quill’s assessment of the Mk IV/Mk XII prototype DP845 was;

“...there was somewhat less ground clearance resulting in a slight reduction in propeller diameter; the power available for take-off was much greater; and the engine RPM were lower than in the Merlin.

“All this meant that the throttle needed to be handled judiciously on take-off but, once in the air, the aeroplane had a great feeling of power about it; it seemed to be the airborne equivalent of a very powerful sports car and was great fun to fly.

“Indeed, DP485 eventually went through many phases of development throughout and I, and others, flew in it a great deal; it became one of our favorite aeroplanes.”

Pilot conversion from Merlin- to Gr iffon-engined Spitfires was not without teething troubles, the most common problem being the ingrained habit of applying a starboard trim to the aircraft's rudder to offset the tremendous torque produced at takeoff power. As the Griffon's crankshaft rotated in the opposite direction to the Merlin, pilots needed to relearn their rudder “muscle memory” and more than one flyer ground-looped because of the opposite torque.

Mr. Quill didn’t want the commission to portray one of his kills but of one of his favorite moments in the air: whipping at high speed and low altitude over the English countryside in the first of the Griffon-powered Spits, prototype DP845, on 27th of November, 1941, knowing that the Fw 190’s time was up. When I did the commission, he sent me the actual Supermarine photos from that day taken by a spotter aircraft to help me capture all the details of that historical test flight.

Mr. Quill passed away in 1996, as youthful in spirit as the days he helped shape the Spitfire into a legendary war winner.

The print is a lithograph print, signed and numbered, limited to 250, on acid-free, museum-quality paper. Each plane is hand-shaded in graphite, making each e ven more special and unique.

The print sells for $50.

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