http://spitfiresite.com/2010/04/supermarine-spitfire-variants-the-initial-merlin-powered-line.html/2
"All panel lines were filled and smoothed over,
all round headed rivets on the wing surfaces were replaced by flush rivets and an elongated "racing" windscreen was fitted. A tailskid replaced the tail wheel. Finally the "Speed Spitfire" was painted in a highly polished gloss Royal Blue and Silver finish. As it turned out, the finished aircraft actually weighed some 298 lb (135 kg) more than a standard 1938 vintage Spitfire..
The Speed Spitfire was the 48th production Spitfire, so quite what your point might be is rather lost; also it was flush-rivetted throughout, which is rather different from your nonsense about domed rivets, which never existed in the first place,
except on the rear fuselage.
"According to an old MAP publication I own, from MK XII onward all rivets were of the flush type. Wing leading edge rivets back to the rear of the "D" section were also filled and sanded smooth as this area was found to have a pronounced effect on top speed."
Unfortunately, MAP got it wrong (research moves on, as you'd discover if you tried it); the 100% flush rivetting started, from June 10th., 1943 with the Vc., and the wing + painting improvements started even earlier, from 25-9-42.
Certainly I have read that the lower parts of the Spitfires wings were not flush rivetted, at some point anyway.
Not everybody gets their facts right, which is why it's best to find more than one source, and cross-check. The Mk.I had wooden strips on the bottom of the ribs, to which the skins were attached by countersunk (which equals flush) screws.
My statement that the retractable tailwheel versions was "little produced" stands, even by your own figures which claim 22%. My statement that production of the Spitfire was about 25,000 also stands if one includes the Seafire
.
If you wish to repeat a falsehood, I can't stop you, though it reduces your credibility by a significant amount.
Quite a few of those retractale tailwheel types were post war griffon engined Spitfire/Seafire I would say that most folks can see through the squid ink of the hair splitting.
Which proves what? You said they were few in number, and I said they were 1 in 5, and a fair number of the "post-war" Spitfires were already in production before the war ended, very suddenly, in September 1945, when everyone expected it to continue for much longer. If you're worried about the "squid ink of hair-splitting," perhaps you should stop using it.
History of course records that few Spitfires had the retractable tailwheel and non had full wheel covers. Both would have had a significant impact on speed. Both were standard on most other fighters of the era.
History, of course, records nothing of the sort, since there were 3985 Spitfires with retractable tail wheels, out of 20,334, which = 19.59%, and the first fighters were some of the Mk.XII all VIII airframes (yes, they really were that early.) The 21, which just entered service in 1945, also had full wheel covers.
Tests on the Me 109G indicated the following.
1 Covering Up the Remainder of the exposed Wheels: +10kmh.
2 Retractable Tail Wheel over non retractable: +12kmh
3 Extended Retractable Tail Wheel, if fitted +17kmh.
4 Loss due to MG 131 bulges -9 kmh.
5 Loss due to faired over MG 131 bulges -3 kmh.
Applying 1 and 2 above as indicative for the Spitifre we have a potential loss in speed of 22kmh, or about 13-14mph.
No, "we" don't, since the VII, VIII, and XIV (slated to take over from the IX, which is why so many IXs were given away, especially to the USSR) all had retractable tail wheels, so your "loss" drops to just over 6mph, and that is "chump change," when you add in multi-ejector exhausts (gain of 5-7mph,) removal of ice guard (+ 3mph,) round, faired mirror, instead of square (+ 3mph.) cut-down ejection chutes (+ 1mph,) narrow, instead of broad, blister over cannon bay (+ 1mph.) You see, it wasn't just the super-efficient Germans who considered ways to improve aerodynamics.
In fact Hitler wanted Britain to keep its empire as he saw only someone worse taking it over should a German victory be used to liberate it to itself.
So Britain would have surrendered, but still been allowed to run the Commonwealth? That's pure Hollywood-style fantasy, and you know it.
An amphibious assault for which Germany lacked the Navy (paltry 36 submarines) would take a long time. By then the cabal of "human interest" journalists likely would have brought the US to Britains side and Germany would face the Soviets and the US/Britain.
Well, here goes "likely" (= guess) again.
Take out the fear of the US entering the war and the Soviet Union both German Navy and Lutfwaffe resources would have been applied and there would be no victory at the BoB, just historical notes about how the RAF had favourable attrition rates for a while but lost when tactics were changed
Would've, should've, could've, here we go again, with the never-ending guesswork; try returning to the real world, and its ice-cold facts; we won, you lost.