Supermarine Speagle - REALLY done!

[PR19_Kit]

Here's the posher pics of the Speagle.



It still looks sort of like a Spitfire from this view.




And from the rear 3/4 view even more so, but there's something not quite right about that engine.....




From underneath it's pretty obvious it's different, with that socking great intercooler under the cockpit!




From aft the size of the intercooler is even more obvious.




From head on you can just see the annular air intake behind the spinner, making for a low drag factor.




And here you can see just how big that Eagle engine is. It's 1.25 times as large as the F22's normal Griffon, and shoves out in excess of 3000 bhp!




And here's what it SHOULD look like with its prototype 'P' marking as well.

I'm just knocking up a rather more entertaining backstory for it now too.

[scooter]

 

[perttime]

Great lines!
I was a bit worried about how the spinner arrangement was going to look. It looks great too.

[Vulcan7]

Looks THE business           

[Rick Lowe]

Agree - looks great!
And the annular radiator idea works perfectly, too. 

[PR19_Kit]

Great lines!

I was a bit worried about how the spinner arrangement was going to look. It looks great too.

It worried ME too until I tried it in place, and it just seemed to click. 

[The Wooksta!]

My complaints would be the lack of sky fuselage band and the yellow wing leading edges, plus the non standard camo scheme pattern.  These were adhered to the letter, even on prototypes (see the Spiteful prototypes).

The take off swing without a contraprop would be horrendous.  Can that prop be replaced with a Seafire contraprop?  I'll see what I have in my Spitfire spares boxes.

[The Rat]

Absolute cracker! I want to see that at Telford!     

[major]

Ooooo! I think that is rather splendid! 

[Wardukw]

That beast shouts pure power..love it Kit         

[Old Wombat]

Nice!


"My what a big nose you have!"

[Rick Lowe]

Nice!


"My what a big nose you have!"

"All the better to VVRRROOOOOWWWWW!! with!."

[PR19_Kit]

My complaints would be the lack of sky fuselage band and the yellow wing leading edges, plus the non standard camo scheme pattern.  These were adhered to the letter, even on prototypes (see the Spiteful prototypes).

The take off swing without a contraprop would be horrendous.  Can that prop be replaced with a Seafire contraprop?  I'll see what I have in my Spitfire spares boxes.

You haven't read the backstory yet. 

The camo's not THAT non-standard anyway, just modified a bit..................

[PR19_Kit]

And here's the backstory....

Supermarine 'Speagle'

The most powerful Spitfire ever.

VA250 was always destined to be 'different'. The very last Spitfire F22 of a production batch ordered by the Air Ministry toward the end of WWII, along with all the others in that batch she was cancelled in early 1946 when many of the massive orders then in place were deemed no longer necessary. The Assembly Shop Superintendent at Vickers' South Marston plant near Swindon didn't want a number of part completed airframes cluttering up his Finals area, he had a hefty order of Seafires coming along that hadn't been cancelled, and there was no way an RAF Spitfire F22 could be 'converted' into any sort of Seafire, so the partial F22s airframes had to go. But to keep their hand in he got the assembly crews to finish off the very last 22 on the line and that was VA250. They didn't follow all the Air Ministry rules on how she should be painted but they made her look ALMOST like a Spitfire.....

She did seem a little out of place with her Ocean Grey and Dark Green camouflage scheme amongst the Extra Dark Sea Grey and Sky Seafires sitting outside on the ramp, but there was hopes that she'd be useful to some part of the industry, even if the RAF didn't really need her any more, and so it came to pass. At around the same time Rolls Royce were developing a really powerful engine to replace the 37 litre Griffon, and this was the H-24, sleeve valved, 46 litre Eagle, which was meant to poke out over 3000 bhp and was destined for a 'Super Seafang', the Vickers Type 391. The Eagle was considerably larger than any engine yet developed and RR needed a test bed to prove the concept worked. There was only so far they could go using the engine test stands at Derby and Hucknall, and someone somewhere remembered VA250.

Representations to the Air Min were made and VA250 was quickly allocated to Hucknall's test fleet and made her only flight under Griffon power up there in mid-1946. The RR Experimental Shop made the required changes to the airframe and the massive Eagle was soon hanging off the nose of the now transformed Spitfire F22. The already long nose was now even longer and sported a deep fairing underneath to contain the large intercooler required by the power enhancing supercharger, and the existing F22 propeller was fitted with larger blades which operated at greater pitch angles to absorb the torque of the Eagle. Uniquely the air intake for the Eagle's fuel injection system was an annular ring behind  the prop spinner, but this feature was not repeated on the Westland Wyvern TF1, the only aircraft to actually use the Eagle engine in service as the Type 391 never left the drawing board.

VA250 made a number of test flights, by now being nicknamed the 'Speagle', proving the capabilities of the huge Eagle engine, but was considered to be very difficult to fly, not the least BECAUSE of the Eagle! The massive torque of the engine loaded the already fragile outward retracting undercarriage of the Spitfire to its limits and on two occasions the aircraft's wings were damaged by coming in contact with the ground when the aircraft hadn't even taken off! It was recommended that only 65% throttle was used for take-off to prevent the torque induced problems, and this proved more than adequate to get the Speagle airborne.

As the Eagle engine project never really 'took-off' there was no extensive test flight programme, and what there was took place at Yeovil with the Eagles installed in the few Wyvern TF1s that were built. VA250 carried on in her test role, being fitted at various times with the Trent turbo-prop and even an early Dart engine, but she never lost her 'Speagle' nick-name.

[Vulcan7]

Wow now that is a back story