Why were spitfire wings clipped

But since at least medium altitudes were mostly required during missions, pilots hated this plane even more, as the smaller diameter, higher geared supercharger would drop off fast in performance. Those late Marks were fast enough for the pilot to induce excessive wing twist and flexing when really working the controls.

Those Marks were also powerful enough to compensate for the increase in wing loading, hence there is mostly little difference in performance beyond facilitated roll. At very high altitudes, the clipped wings will be noticed though. So would you say it's basically the same in level speed and climbing performance at lower altitudes, just with the addition of a more responsive roll rate?

I find this machine quite an interesting experiment in aerodynamics - such an iconic airframe, and clipped of it's wings just like that. Reduced strain on the wings or somesuch. So, I have the clipped wings spit being marginally faster in level flight at all tested altitudes.

Presumably, the full wings are better the higher up you go. So maybe the full-winged Mk. IX is faster at 10km. I was too lazy to check it. In laymen's terms, does that mean a squared wing tip like the P and Fockewulf will be less efficient at low airspeeds, e. As Bremspropeller says, induced drag is not that much different at higher speeds. In case of the Spit, she really has very big wings for going fast, but they also have a very thin profile.

So the possible speed gains can only be modest and have never seen them specifically mentioned. They are only mentioned in context of the higer boost of the single stage Merlin the LF Mk.

V Spit used. What the wingtips do is produce a significant amout of lift at low speeds that was felt by the crews, hence she wasn't as good in low speed maneuvering.

This is in fact an alteration that is ofen done. There are glider planes allow you to chane the outermost wing section and add another 2 meters or so. The performance is altered by such. You can see here:. There is a speed range, where 15 m wingspan is very near 18 m wingspan in performance.

The gap opens up at slow speed as well as at higher weight. I'm not so sure if the wingtip really reduced the vortex as a winglet would. Camm slightly clipped the Tempests eliptic wings as well.

Again, depends A less than optimal winglet might create a virtual wing-stretch higher aspect-ratio - depending on how well it is integrated into the 3d-flow of the entire wing. A really cleverly designed winglet has a forward lift-component, creating "thrust", hence reducing drag on top of influencing the tip vortices.

Doesn't the DG also have flaps? There is little gain between a 15m "Rennklasse" wing and an 18m bolt-on job onto that wing. Things only get really interesting beyond 20m wingspan on gliders - those tend fly like pigs, though. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the clip wing Spit variant accelerated faster, was quicker in a dive and the wing could withstand greater air speed.

Also, better visibility due to reduced wing area I find this helps in IL-2 GB when hunting for contacts below and when flying in formation with other aircraft in my squad. I guess a better way to express what I was getting at: The addition of the wingtips to produce the elliptical wing produces surprisingly little additional drag in spite of the increased surface area. The exact contributions to this phenomenon aspect-ratio, lift-distribution, spanwise flow, tip vortices might be debatable That's not how this was planned.

The Spitfire is a plane of the old days that was supposed to fly of a patch of grass with a fixed pitch wooden propeller. To make the aircraft fast, this propeller is very coarse pitched, making it terribly inefficient at take off.

Hence they required the Spit to come off the ground easily. You do this by giving it a very low wing loading. The Spitfire in an incredibly handy plane for it's weight. So if you own a golf course, you're fine using it from there as well. Mitchel now was confronted with the task of making a wing that is essentially too large at full speed: he made the profile as thin as possible and he chose the eliptical shape as this was known to have little induced drag. From here on, the engine got more powerful, the propellers vastly more efficient.

Having more power enables you to increase wing loading without significant performance penatly. Think Fw here again. In reality, the surface of the Spit is far less than perfect, probably rendering theoretical truth like the eliptical outline being more efficiant as the tapered trapeziod shape irrelevant for practical purrposes.

Several planes got their wing clipped as well, very prominantly the A6m3 Hamp Zero. There, they omited the very corresponding part as was omited in the Spit.

Fortunately, ever since the first Spitfires, the wingtips were a separate piece constructed from wood with an aluminum skin, often by Rolls-Royce coachbuilding firms such as Freestone and Webb. They were attached with two bolts and a number of small screws to hold a covering strip where the wing and the tip joined, so naturally, it was an obvious idea to unmount them and fit a simple fairing in its place.

All you needed to do was remove the two bolts, undo the screws, remove the tip, remembering to disconnect the wingtip light and replace it with a simple cover fairing, which was held in place by the same screws. With the light reconnected the job was done. Simple, and effective — but just how effective? It was discovered that the clipped Spitfire wing made the aircraft 5mph faster at 10, feet and slightly faster at 25, feet, but with better acceleration across the board.

In a dive, the clipped wing aircraft could pull away from the standard version and in a dogfight, the improved roll rate meant it could shake off the pursuing unmodified Spitfire. Clipped Spitfire wings improve the downward view considerably. From a combat perspective, a downward view becomes a sideways view at large angles of bank. Having improved the performance of the Spitfire Mk V, in conjunction with supercharger modifications although losses were still heavy against the FWs , the latter stages of the war saw the clipped wing configuration became a very common, almost standard specification on Mk 9 and Mk16 Spitfires, as high altitude sorties became fewer and low altitude missions such as ground strafing became a priority.

Internal structure of the Type C wing as fitted to the Spitfire Mk. The leading edge fuel tank was peculiar to this mark and was not mounted on Spitfires Mk. V and IX. Interestingly, both this and the subsequent drawing produced by Supermarine of the Mk. VII show the downward identification lamp. However, this item was deleted in the Mk. Click to enlarge image [Crown Copyright]. Corresponding structural drawing of the Spitfire Mk.

This designation applied to the unarmed long-range wing for reconnaissance versions. Its otherwise empty interior was converted into an integral fuel tank capable of carrying 66 imp gallons. On hot summer days, so large amount of fuel inside the wing would produce a substantial volume of vapour, so relief valves were fitted to the tanks in the outboard rib position.

IV and XI. Starting with the Mk. V, some Spitfires had their classic elliptical wingtips replaced by shorter, squared-off fairings reducing span to 32 ft 2 in 9. Shortening the wing span substantially enhanced the roll rate, closing the gap in this respect between the Spitfire and the formidable German Focke-Wulf Fw Formally, this is a misunderstanding as the LF designation referred to the low-altitude version of the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine and while many LF Spitfires had the clipped wings, a number did not.

Pointed, triangular wing tips were designed especially for high-altitude versions of the Spitfire, starting with the Mk. The idea with both clipped and extended wing tips was taken further in Mk. VIII production, when the tips became easily interchangeable and theoretically could be swapped to suit the preferences of an individual pilot or tactical requirement. Internal structure of the extended Type B wing of the high-altitude Spitfire Mk.

Identical in outline, the wing of the Spitfire Mk.