Spitfire Mk. V turn performance

[daHeld]

Hi,

does anyone know the sustained turn rate and the radius at that speed?

All the documents I found are only stating climb speeds/time to altitude and level flight performance, but not the turn performance.

Also, I read somewhere that the turn performance of the Mk.IX was very similar to that of the Mk.V. Is that correct?

Much appreciated.

All the best,
Andy

 

[CORSNING]

Hi daHeld,
The only thing I have been able to come up with at this time is the Russian turn times. These trials were conducted at 1,000 meters altitude.
Spitfire Mk.Vb: 18.8 seconds/360 degrees.
Spitfire F.Mk.IX: 17.5 seconds/360 degrees.
Spitfire LF.MK.IX: 18.5 seconds/360 degrees.
Unfortunately I have no particulars like speed or weight of the aircraft. I can only guess that the lightest of the bunch, Mk.Vb probably had the shortest turning circle but at a lower speed than the more powerful Mk.IXs.

Jeff

 

[eagledad]

Hi daHeld and Corsning!

From a British test in late 1942 with a clipped wing Spitfire, standard wing spitfire and FW-190:
Turning circle at 20,000 feet:
Spitfire V, standard wing 970 feet
Spitfire V, clipped wing 1025 feet
FW-190 1450 feet (RAE Farnborough figures)
No info on time or speed however.

Eagledad

 

[daHeld]

Well thank you both very much for the answers!

That is very nice of you.

Actually, it strikes me as odd that there isn't more info on the turn performance. Since the Spitfire was devised as a turn fighter / dogfighter, it is somehow strange that no one tested the later marks more thoroughly in this respect...
Did they assume that turn performance was the same than in the early Spits or was the ability to turn less important as the war progressed?