Supermarine Spitfire gas vents

[Airframes]

The wartime photos of this aircraft on the beach at Sangat, one of which is shown in post #5, show only one hole.
From memory, early Mk1 Spitfires had the single, smaller tank, thus a single hole. Later versions of the Mk1, and all subsequent Marks, had the additional, separate tank, thus two holes.

 

[Wurger]

Terry .. what about the grounding ? I have found a couple of shots showing the Spitfire refueling but any of them can answer if the bonding socket was used there. Also I have read somewhere that the grounding was on the left landing gear leg though.

 

[Wirbelwind]

To replay the second question ... as you may notice in the pics above there are two cutouts but there is one hole in the port one only. If the port cutout with the hole is the bonding socket but not the vent hole and there is nothing in the starboard one it is quite obvious that the starboard cutout is not needed anymore. And that's the reason it was omitted while making the new cover of the fuel tank compartment. One more hole to drill , more work to done and nothing to get. Just my opinion.

Makes sense for the rebuilt N3200 to have only one cutout in order to minimize work, but then again, the N3200 that's flying today is really more of a replica since the original wreck was damaged beyond restoration.

With that said, do you think that the original N3200 had two cutouts even if it had only one vent?

 

[waroff]

any fuel vent has the outlet on the lower of plane to avoid fuel flowing over the fuselage in the event of reflux.
On Mk I II & up, this outlet is in forward radiator fairing.
The holes behind the filler are no relation with the number of tanks and their vent

Detail of bonding socket

 

[Airframes]

The wartime pictures mentioned previously are those showing N3200.

 

[Wirbelwind]

Still confused, lol.

I'm creating a 3d model of the N3200, and the reason I'm asking this question is because I'm not sure what the vents/cutouts/sockets are supposed to look like on that particular Spitfire.

So far we've established that there's one hole, but I'm getting unclear answers on how many cutouts there should be behind the filler cap.

The N3200 replica flying today appears to have no cutouts at all, and that conflicts with what's being mentioned in this thread about all Spits having two cutouts regardless of what they were used for.

 

[Airframes]

The current (rebuilt) N3200 has one opening, aft of the filler cap, on the port side, as per the photos.

 

[Wirbelwind]

The current (rebuilt) N3200 has one opening, aft of the filler cap, on the port side, as per the photos.

Understood, but I am modelling the original N3200. I am not entirely sure how accurate the rebuild is.

From what I've read in this thread, all Spitfires have had two cutouts in the cowling regardless of how many openings (vents, bonding sockets, etc) there are.

Did the original N3200 look like this?

As you can see, there are two cutouts but only one opening on the port side.

 

[Wurger]

IMHO that's the correct layout of the cutouts for the original N3200. Two cutouts regadless the number of the holes in them..

 

[waroff]

....may be "dipstick" for the starboard hole on Mareng tank.

Spit Mk I
Filler position, Bonding socket position and ????? position ?
above, seen on Mareng type tank(steel)

but the fuel tank cowling has three holes to be universal regardless of the type of tank

 

[Wirbelwind]

IMHO that's the correct layout of the cutouts for the original N3200. Two cutouts regadless the number of the holes in them..

the fuel tank cowling has three holes to be universal regardless of the type of tank

Then that is how I'm going to model the N3200.

Thanks for the help guys. Learning something new every day.

 

[Airframes]

As mentioned earlier, the B&W wartime photo, in Post #5, shows N3200 on the beach at Sangatte, and appears to show a single hole / socket, on the port side.

 

[Wurger]

All is fine Terry. But the main problem is that the kite has the fuel tank cover removed and it is not possible to determinate how many cutouts in the compartmen cover were. However it seems that many of Spitfires had two cutouts in the cover but the one hole seen in the port cutout only though. Below is the full image of the Spitfire.

the pic source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CJd9LGAWIAARVxz.jpg

 

[Airframes]

I've been trying to find the other pics of the aircraft on the beach, at least one of which shows the tank cover and upper engine cowling in place, but so far I haven't discovered which of my many books these pics are in !
It's very probable that ARC, who re-built the aircraft, have got it right, with a single cut out, as they are renowned for accuracy, but I admit, I would suspect that there would be two holes.

 

[Wurger]

Same here my frined.

BTW I have found a couple of shots showing her port side but almost all pics were taken almost back back The only shot that presents her port side from the front is of very poor quality. As a result nothing can be seen

 

[waroff]

until to Mk IX we can see that cowling over fuel tank had two cutout despite that fuel tank was the model with ground socket only(Mk IX drawing of fuel tank(alclad) refers to Mk I drawing)

above: Mk V
below, left: Mk VI, right: Mk IX