Supermarine Type 333

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Supermarine Type 333

From Tony Buttler’s ‘British Secret Projects, Fighters and Bombers 1935 – 1950 Page 169.

The main difference between the Spitfire wing and the N.8/39 was that the elliptical planform had been discarded in favour of a form incorporating two straight tapers, which approximated very closely to the elliptical form and possessed almost identical aerodynamic properties. The big advantage of the straight taper was that the double curvature was avoided and the covering would require no working.


Why was this planform not adopted for the Spitfire?
 
Well, after looking at the 3-view of the September 6, 1939 configuration on page 158, I'm glad they didn't, for purely aesthetic reasons. ;D

The text mentions that development and construction of the first 333 prototype was expected to take 18 months, so even if you half that time to remodel the Spitfire to a similar wing planform you're looking at June, 1940 - if work starts in September 1939, add another six to nine months to get the new wing version into production... and so on.


Jon
 
Although I have 'Spitfire - The History' I can't recollect such project. Unfortunately I do not have ‘British Secret Projects, Fighters and Bombers 1935 – 1950'. Can anyone put a drawing of that project in this thread?

Regards
 
Any idea if this wing planform would have been retrofittable to the Spitfire?
 
No reason that a wing like that of the Type 333 couldn't have been retrofitted to the Spitfire fuselage. The Type 371 Spiteful shows what was possible.
 
Can anyone put some drawings of this project? I can't imagine how did it look like?
 
Apophenia said:
No reason that a wing like that of the Type 333 couldn't have been retrofitted to the Spitfire fuselage. The Type 371 Spiteful shows what was possible.
Apophenia
Tony Butler states that the "thin" or "laminar flow" wings of the Spiteful were proposed by supermarine as an experiment in 1942 and were to be fitted to a modified Spitfire Mk.VIII. The ministry requirement was that the wings should be applicable to the Mk.VIII or Mk.21. However, the "thin" wings design resulted in a major structural modification ( a change in the spacing of the wing spars through the fuselage ) which removed any hope of the new wing being directly applicable to the Mk.VII or Mk.21.

Malcolm
 
Malcolm: Not to second-guess Tony Buttler but there wasn't much to distinguish a Spiteful fuselage from a Spitfire. The main difference between the two was that, in the former, the main spar attached where the front spar had gone of the latter.

The first Spiteful prototype (NN660) was simply a laminar-flow wing and inward retracting undercarriage fitted to a stock Spitfire Mk XIV fuselage. Come to that, production Spiteful fuselages weren't all that different from the standard Mk 21 fuselage other than the Spiteful's raised cockpit position.
 

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