Watched a DVD – First of the Few – last night, a freeby from the Daily Mail. It’s a wartime propaganda film about the development of the Spitfire. A great story although the film has a few porkies.
What has this got to do with Preston? Afterwards, I envisaged the English Electric factories in the 40’s ‘headhunting’ a visionary designer, Petter, to produce the Canberra. The work of the team to produce that pioneering jet bomber followed by the supersonic Lightning fighter and pondered about its future.
The film shows a young RJ Mitchell, of Supermarine Ltd near Southampton, having a vision in 1922 to produce a plane like a bird rather than the string bound bi-planes of the time. His vision resulted in a monoplane of single fuselage/wing construction that won the Schneider Trophy. Vickers then took over Supermarine and its designer and eventually the design became the Spitfire. The film touches on the private funding by people like Lady Houston and Mr Royce that enabled continuity in the ‘peaceful’ thirties. Mitchell had visited Germany and was allegedly aware of their work beyond the treaty agreement and this drove him to greater efforts despite his illness.
At that time the Spitfire and the Hurricane were the leading edge of fighter aircraft and designed at Supermarine(Vickers) and Hawker. It would be hard to imagine the changes in aircraft form just after the war with the jet engine and the decline of these companies. The all metal swept-wing, jet engined supersonic Lightning was built in Preston less than 20 years after the Spitfire. We can only wonder what lies ahead for our local aircraft manufacturing business.