spit 5

[angelsandair]

Never hear of the CCC Spit V?

No, but I've heard of the spit V. It's in every magazine about planes basically. Never hear about anything else. Dont want it, just wondering.

[Squire]

2nd TAF did not operate mixed grps of Spitfires within squadrons. They operated either XVIs or IXs, not both.

443 RCAF and others operated standard tipped XVIs alongside clipped XVIs.

Wether the XVIs were "produced" clipped is a moot point, wingtips were modifed (on or off) at the squadron level, so on actual operations, they could be either.

...was going to add the reason why they did not mix IXs and XVIs was because the Packard Merlins on the XVIs were built to metric standards, and the tools needed to service the engines were different than the IXs. Also, many parts were not interchangeable, screw sizes were different (metric and imperial), ect.

[Guppy35]

I guess then my books must be wrong, but I found color picture of XVIs with non-clipped wings. So either the spit in question is not really an XVI or the caption is wrong.

I'm with Kev on this one.  They came off the line clipped as they were being sent in to 2 TAF for essentially ground attack work.  There were some that had tips fitted in the field.  Stan Turner's XVI had tips added.  He was a Wing Commander at the time.  Part of the problem with the photos is many of the squadrons went from IXs to XVIs and it's really only serial numbers that tell whether it's an IX or an XVI

Remember that it was a simple mod to add or remove the tips.  But Production line photos seem to show the XVIs coming off the line clipped for the job they were going to do which was down low.

[MiloMorai]

...was going to add the reason why they did not mix IXs and XVIs was because the Packard Merlins on the XVIs were built to metric standards, and the tools needed to service the engines were different than the IXs. Also, many parts were not interchangeable, screw sizes were different (metric and imperial), ect.

Agh? The Packards were built to ASA/USAS  (ANSI from Oct 1966) standards not metric afaik. British engines were built to BA standards

On tools for bolts, the Americans measure across the flats while the British measure across the points, for wrench sizes.

American Acme threads are not metric.