41,000ft in a MkIX!

[HawkerTempest5]

In my quest to take a Spitfire to new hights, I got this HF MkIXc up to the grand old hight of 41,600ft

41,600ft, full throttle and WEP. Just look at the air speed. It stalled just after this screen shot.

On the way down I almost made 600kts. And yes, I pulled out of this dive without paying a visit to the North Sea

[Katahu]

666 knots is the speed of sound? Oh god. :-/

[Craig.]

[quote]666 knots is the speed of sound.

[laurie]

just on an note of interest the speed of sound was actually broken by a Spitfire IV of the RAE (Farnborough) in 1943. this was when the sonic "bang" was first heard (of course they had no idea what it was or that they had broken the sound abrrier until 1947). it was performing dive tests, testing wing shapes (also tested were tphoons & early mustangs, neither of which acheived the same speeds).

the mk IV was a prototype version made in 1942 to test the RR Griffon engine & led to the mkXIV of 1944 (must not be confused with the PR IV, a derivated of the mkII). only 1 mk IV prototype was built & the supersonic dive tests wrote it off: the buffeting caused severe damage to the rear fuselage & the propellor was jolted to the extent that the engine almost came off! the pilot only just managed to pull it out of the dive.

[ozzy72]

Nice shots Roger, I think I'll be having to rival that this evening

Mark

[ATI_7500]

600 knots in a spit? never ever... :-/
at least at 500,it would have broken into pieces...

[GeForce]

Great shots, I'm gonna have to have a go at that

Jonathan

[HawkerTempest5]

Super Sonic Spitfire. Sounds like a new challenge

[ATI_7500]

oops! sorry,my fault.

[HawkerTempest5]

I did post this the other day, but for those that didn't read it:-
The fastest speed recorded by a Piston Engine aircraft was 690mph (Mach 0.93) by Spitfire PR MkXIX PS852 on 5th February 1952.