re: Spitfire diving
That beautiful long taper into the fuselage along the sides really screwed up the aerodynamics under the plane where the fuselage kicks up past the trailing edge of the wing. The drag created there is tremendous. That is the cheif culprit on why the spit, with a higher hp motor, lighter weight, smaller frontal area, and thinner crossection wing was slower than the Mustang.
That is why even the huge Jug would leave a spit hangin wonderin what the heck is goin on when they pointed the nose down.
(the Jug was slower in a dive than a Mustang, even tho the airspeed indicator said otherwise ..M.I.T. checked 'em both on radar, turned out the Jug's airpseed indicator was into shockwave compression at hi speeds giving a false reading..compared to Mustang's which was more accurate)
-GE (ya .. I asked my aerodynamic instructor this stuff ..he usually told me to research it, write a paper on it, and I always got an 'A'
