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Spitfire VIII - fuel cooler and gun camera


Steve in Ottawa

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I'm hacking away on a Hasegawa 1/48 Spitfire Mk. VIII of 152 Sqn in India and I'm down to sorting out the last small details before heading to the paint booth.

 

I'm digging around trying to figure out if a fairly early (e.g., JF835) Mk. VIII ever had the port wing fuel cooler and/or the starboard wing gun-camera opening(s) at the wing root leading edge. The photos I've found don't seem to show any fuel cooler opening (the online references seem to indicate that a non-visible solution was instituted), and the one clear photo I've found of a wartime Mk. VIII shows absolutely no indication of a gun camera. Anybody have any good intel on these features of the Mk. VIII? I'm looking for wartime aircraft confirmation, not on restored modern warbirds, thank you.

 

Link for this photo is https://previews.agefotostock.com/previewimage/medibigoff/f36c07d985014ab0640de005e023b370/mev-10839921.jpg


mev-10839921.jpg

Edited by Steve in Ottawa
add URL; corrected duplicate text
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Spit F VIII powered by Merlin 61, 63 or 63A had fuel cooler.

On LF(M66) and HF(M70) not need fuel cooler, the aperture in port wing fillet receive a cover plate.

 

On all Mk VIII the G45 camera was fitted in starboard leading edge

Edited by BS_w
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Hi Steve,

I concur with BS-w. Only the Spit F.VIII with the Merlin 61, 63 engines had the oil cooler. These aircraft were in the early JF serial range. A/C after that did not have it. The cooler was in the port wing root as shown in photo from Ettiene's website. 

 

c686f507-4da2-4193-9f5d-2c8441ca3804.jpg

 

The gun camera was fitted in the starboard wing root of LF and HF Spitfire VIII aircraft, as shown in this shot of a RAAF Spitfire LF.VIII that has come to grief. The covering patch, (fitted to keep out the coral dust), is lifting showing the open camera port. The keen eyed will also notice the two different types of U/C leg fitted to these A/C. That above has the splined type leg while that below has the later type with torque links on the front of the leg.

 

09725ffa-ef24-489a-9446-9a090e3bd145.jpg

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Hi BS,

 

I'm not finding any photos of Mk. VIII's with the fuel cooler opening on the port wing.  The photo above clearly shows that it does not have a camera in the starboard wing and I've found one photo with what appears to be a fabric patch cover over the camera opening, but no photos of an actual camera on a Mk. VIII.

 

(apologies, I didn't notice Magpie's post before I hit 'send' on this one.)

 

Magpie, for those early JF-serials, do you have any sense of the serial range that might have had the fuel cooler?

 

 

Edited by Steve in Ottawa
didn't notice post above this one...
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JF xxx serial and engine(4th column) : 

http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/p045.html 

http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/p046.html

M61, 63and 63A had fuel cooler and coffman crank case

 

M66 and M70 had'nt the coffman crank case, so it's not sure that starboard engine cowling had the bulge.

 

 

Edited by BS_w
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Interesting that JF835 was the only Merlin 63 F. Mk. VIII built within some 150 Merlin 66 LF. Mk. VIII's completed between JF743 and JF893. Good info to know when trying to find 'like' serials near JF835 to suss out the details. Thanks!

 

edit - I checked into that production list link and found that my posted photo of MD249 was an LF Mk.VIII and it does have the Coffman starter bulge on the cowling.

Edited by Steve in Ottawa
additional info on MD249
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ALL Mk.VIIIs had the so called 'Caufman (Coffman) Starter' bulge. This was because the factory building them used a standard panel on all the airframes built there (including Mk.VIIs), whether the type being built required it or not.

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From the Pilots Notes Part 1 para.2

"...On Merlin 63 and 64 engine installations there is a fuel cooler, and on Merlin 66, 70 and 71 installations a de-aerator in the carburettor which is vented to the top tank."

 

(The notes are for VII and VIII- F Mk VII uses Merlin 64, HF Mk VII uses Merlin 71.  Merlin 61 is not mentioned, which I find interesting.)

 

There was no discussion in the text (that I noticed) about a camera gun, but the cockpit photo (port side) shows "Wedge plate for camera gun footage indicator" (empty in photo), "Socket for footage indicator plug", and, at 6 o'clock inside the ring grip, "Camera gun pushbutton".  (Also, "Camera gun heater switch")

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in "Spitfire Mk VIII, AP 1565H" it is wrote in several chapter:

 "2 - A camera gun is mounted in the leading edge fillet of starboard main plane"

"43 - A G-45 camera gun is mounted in starboard leading edge fillet, and is pneumatically operated by a puh-button on the spade-grip..."

The loadind & CG diagram show G-45 camera and give the weight: 8.5lb

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Gingerbob and BS, thanks for the details, very interesting and informative stuff.

 

I'm dutifully carving an opening for the camera, but I'm still not sure if the fuel cooler on JG835 would have been externally visible or had been 'internalized'.

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On 3/30/2019 at 10:52 AM, Steve in Ottawa said:

Interesting that JF835 was the only Merlin 63 F. Mk. VIII built within some 150 Merlin 66 LF. Mk. VIII's completed between JF743 and JF893. Good info to know when trying to find 'like' serials near JF835 to suss out the details. Thanks!

Yes, it is interesting, and I don't have any particular explanation to offer at present.  However, I don't have any reason to doubt at present, either- what checks I could quickly don't set off any warning bells in my mind.  Maybe I'll play around with the Spitfire-O-Matic a bit more later and see what I can see...

 

I'd go with external, and interpret the "internalized" to mean the de-aerator.  There's a vent under the wing, too, if you want to get prissy!  Hmm, someone posted a photo showing that in a thread once, and I probably saved it...

 

bob

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I saw some nice fuel cooler and gun camera drawings that I think were kindly provided by BS (thanks for that, BS!). They nicely showed the intake and exit under the wing. If I don't find anything convincing one way or the other I guess I'll have to toss the coin to decide which way to go on the visible fuel cooler or not.

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OK, I've got something of an explanation (or is it a supposition?) about the "outlier" F.VIII in a sea of LFs.  I thought to look at production programmes, and found one dated 29 July '43 (JF835 first flew on 7 August, and went to (or was allocated to) 39 MU two days later). 

 

This is the very tail end of F.VIII production- per that programme the last 6 F.VIIIs were scheduled to be delivered in August.  To the end of June only about 25 LF.VIIIs had been delivered, but they now ramp up quickly to approximately 90 per month.  But that's not all- the Mk.XIV is scheduled to begin coming off production in September.  At that time, believe it or not, there were only 50 XIVs total in the schedule, though a revision of 24 August doubled that figure.

 

Those 50 Mk.XIVs were supposed to be delivered by the end of '43, but in reality it was the middle of February; meanwhile JF835 was the sole F.VIII delivered in August, with 3 more in early September (by my analysis- could be slightly off) - but then 19 or 20 more came in November.  Clearly there was some eleventh hour (or is that eleventh month?) adjusting!

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Gingerbob,

 

Once again my sincere thanks for the detailed info. If I'm reading the contract tables at http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/production.html correctly there were only 272 F. Mk. VIII's produced (I was surprised that it was this few, but I guess the LF's and HF's made up the bulk of the Mk. VIII production) With JG835 being at the tail end of the production, this makes me less inclined to put the 'visible' fuel cooler vents in place.

 

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