Battle of Britain: Turn Around Time

stona · Jul 28, 2009

This all seems reasonable. I am totally ignorant of RAF procedure but is it assumed that rearming simply means reloading? Reloading and cocking the weapons without any other cleaning or procedure (like replacing protective patches on the leading edge) would obviously be quicker in an emergency. The problem with cutting corners like that is that the weapons are more likely to malfunction in some way with potentially fatal consequences. I suppose in a single seat fighter aircraft you are less likely to have other people dependent on your fire! Also simply "running away" may be an option, one which is not open to soldiers operating a machine gun on the ground.
Steve

michaelmaltby · Jul 29, 2009

Great input, all.

Clearly the Hurricane was a simpler plane to re-arm than even the 8-gun Spitfire.

MM

Hudson MkIII · Jul 30, 2009

This is from Spitfire Ace-Flying the Battle of Britain by M.Davidson and J.Taylor. It's a long quote but has some relevant information in it.

On a Spitfire, to do the daily inspection and put the plane to sleep at night, you had eight panels off the top of the wings, eight panels underneath the wings; and when you rearmed it , you had an additional four flaps covering the underside of the ammunition tanks. Now, in the hurricane, you only had five panels altogether, one each covering four guns and one covering the ammunition tanks. They were much much easier to maintain, but the Hurricane couldn't be armed as quick as a spitfire, because in the Hurricane you didn't take the ammunition tanks out and put a full one in, you had to put the belt of ammunition in the tank whilst it was in the aeroplane. But from the point of view of maintenance, the Hurricane was a much much easier plane. Another thing with the Hurricane, you could kneel on top of the wing and do all the maintenance. On a Spitfire, you couldn't, you had to get on your knees on the wet grass and take all these panels off to do maintenance.

Grampa · Jul 30, 2009

Whitch one of the fighters in WW2 had the fastest and the slowest turn round time?

stona · Jan 1, 2010

Reviving this thread on a slightly different tack I was going through the 8th AF documents posted by Micdrow,looking to dig out any Luftwaffe (or GAF as they keep saying) stuff and found an interesting intelligence report on German turnaround times whilst they were fighting a defensive battle.

"P/w estimated that the time for refuelling,rearming and take off of a Gruppe (usually 20-25 aircraft)on a second sortie as a maximum of half an hour;drop tanks are never carried on a second sortie"

It doesn't specify which aircraft but a half hour to get the entire Gruppe airborne again is impressive. Surely the RAF, a few years previously, would not have needed any longer.
Good to know that they didn't carry drop tanks second time around as I usually leave them off my models!
Cheers
Steve

Battle of Britain: Turn Around Time

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