A turret equipped Spitfire?

[maxmwill]

A few months ago, I treated myself to a new book, titled "Beyond the Spitfire, the unseen designs of RJ Mitchell", by Ralph Pegram. I bought this book after I saw the dust cover, which showed a large four engine flying boat with gull wings and sponsons instead of wing floats. And yes, I was judging a book by its cover, because after getting the book, that strange flying boat was indeed in there,along with many more, all designed by RJ Mitchell, and all of them "never have beens", but each one gorgeous in one way or another.

One of Mitchell's designs, the Type 302 had elements of the Spit; the elliptical wings, and the same tail, but was a two seat fighter, turret equipped, kind of a Defiant.

Had it been produced and deployed, I think that it might've suffered the same fate as the Boulton Paul Defiant, but with a Vickers Supermarine twist.

This came before the actual Spitfire. It was designed to Air Ministry specification F9/35. I tried to find a three view, but the only one was in Secret projects forum, and I could not cross post.

But as a kit bash project, it might be a lot of fun to do, especially as a what if

 

[pbehn]

Supermarine couldn't change the laws of physics, any Merlin powered single engine two man turret fighter would be similar to the defiant and suffer the same problems. There was little interest in the turret armed Mosquito, probably because it was a bomber with no payload, or a slow heavy lightly armed and expensive fighter.

 

[maxmwill]

Supermarine couldn't change the laws of physics, any Merlin powered single engine two man turret fighter would be similar to the defiant and suffer the same problems. There was little interest in the turret armed Mosquito, probably because it was a bomber with no payload, or a slow heavy lightly armed and expensive fighter.

I am in full agreement with you. It'd still be a fun kit bash project, though. You'd probably have to fashion a new fuselage for the model, unless you find one that's reasonably close for a match(even in stand-way-off scale, something common in rc models, that looks acceptable were one to stand a few meters from it and squint your eyes a lot).

 

[ole_a_hoel]

A few months ago, I treated myself to a new book, titled "Beyond the Spitfire, the unseen designs of RJ Mitchell", by Ralph Pegram. I bought this book after I saw the dust cover, which showed a large four engine flying boat with gull wings and sponsons instead of wing floats. And yes, I was judging a book by its cover, because after getting the book, that strange flying boat was indeed in there,along with many more, all designed by RJ Mitchell, and all of them "never have beens", but each one gorgeous in one way or another.

One of Mitchell's designs, the Type 302 had elements of the Spit; the elliptical wings, and the same tail, but was a two seat fighter, turret equipped, kind of a Defiant.

Had it been produced and deployed, I think that it might've suffered the same fate as the Boulton Paul Defiant, but with a Vickers Supermarine twist.

This came before the actual Spitfire. It was designed to Air Ministry specification F9/35. I tried to find a three view, but the only one was in Secret projects forum, and I could not cross post.

But as a kit bash project, it might be a lot of fun to do, especially as a what if

I actually did a kit-bash of this turret fighter a few years ago, from figures in Morgan & Shacklady's magnum opus "Spitfire - the History". I based it on the old airfix kit with a self made turret and canopy. It seems that the rest of the version would be almost indistinguishable from a normal spitfire, except for the radiator being placed under the nose. Eveb the size seems to be exactly similar. Hope you enjoy the pictures. I imagined the model as a prototype (the air ministry was fond of ordering single prototypes or mock-ups), so painted it silver, similar to the defiant prototype.

I think this would actually have been a better aircraft than the Defiant, since the turret is smaller and the whole aircraft more streamlined, but remote turrets failed on all bombers where they were installed, so it would maybe not be a better combat machine than the defiant. After all, they were both meant to fill a tactical role that turned out to not exist in the real world.

Ole A. Hoel, Norway

 

[maxmwill]

I like that.

In the book, "Beyond the Spitfire", there are two profiles of Mitchell's Type 305 , one being a twin Vickers gun turrent, the other had 4 Brownings. There is also mention of a Vickers design which was very close to 305, including the skewed elliptical wing.

I recommend this book, because there are a lot of possibilities.

 

[rochie]

great conversion