Spitfire: a Test Pilots Story Free

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Description Imported from UK. Review This new edition is published to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Spitfire in March Read more It was exactly as described and arrived when I expected it to. Very interesting and enjoyable read. What a brilliant job, Chief Spitfire Test Pilot! Its difficult to put this Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story down. A must for anyone interested in the Spitfire and Vickers Supermarine. Also a fascinating insight in to the RAF during the inter war years. This is a Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story book if you want to get inside the development of The Spitfire. It covers everything from the prototype build to the politics which held it back and the major players who ran Supermarket and Vickers. A classic. The volume to end all the empty speculation about the Spitfire. A gripping tale about a test pilot's trials and tribulations in the s and 40s, and his love affair with the fabled Spitfire. Truly a very brave man. A great read, highly recommended. I cannot comment on the veracity of much of the info because my research doesn't go that deep, but hey, am I going to argue Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story Jeffery Quill? Read and enjoy! Similar Products. Sigh for a Merlin: Testing the Spitfire. The Spitfire Society - Interviews - Spitfire | The Spitfire Society

This commemorated the little-known fact he once stayed at what later became the Tourist Information Centre, back when it was a hotel, in WW2. The other players who appeared in the airfield scenes were veteran Battle-of-Britain pilots more or less just portraying themselvesfrom and Squadrons based here. This last detail suggests that many location scenes with the three main characters ended up on the cutting-room floor. Posted to a secret forward-recon unit then training nearby at Poole, Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story had been given leave to star in the film, but was still so impressed by the young pilots that at the end of filming, he paid for a weekend for them all at the Savoy. For the finale, the pilots acted out a dogfight, performing various manoeuvres, including tackling enemy bombers played by a captured Heinkel. All footage had to be shot between combat operations, and some of the pilots you see at the beginning did not live to see Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story on screen. Left: Moyles Court manor outside Ringwood can be seen in the background of some shots. The young airman pictured was a real Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot. On 31st MayHoward and his manager took a commercial flight to Lisbon to attend the film's premiere in Portugal, where it received a best-film medal. He also discussed the possibility of an Anglo-Spanish co-production about Columbus, and flew back June 1st. It broke up in mid-air over the Bay Of Biscay, and everyone aboard was lost. Germany released a Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story the shootdown was due to a misidentification. That is, in one fell swoop the Luftwaffe publicly downed the producer, director and star of a current propaganda film promoting British air supremacy. The alternative explanation was offered by Churchill after the war that incompetent enemy agents at Lisbon had misidentified Howard and his chubby, balding manager as Churchill and his bodyguard, both of whom were visiting Algiers at the time "a tragedy which much distressed me ". This theory features in TV historical documentary series like Churchill's Bodyguard. The scenario here is that Churchill was due to fly home from the Algiers Conference that day in a US Liberator bomber flying the same route over the sea, but heard of the assassination plan via Enigma intelligence decrypts and flew home a day later, using Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story excuse of a mechanical fault to protect the Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story code-breaking secret. Portugal being neutral in the war, Lisbon was able to run commercial flights used by Axis as well as neutral and Allied VIPs Casablanca fans will remember how the plot revolves around the daily Lisbon plane. Being used by both sides at VIP level as well by neutrals, these flights normally operated without interference. Nevertheless, the flight out Howard originally planned to take was also attacked, managing to escape at wavetop level despite damage. Repaired, it was this same aircraft that was shot down on its return journey. Churchill himself later commented it was hard to understand the Germans could have been so stupid as to believe their agent's report he was travelling on a neutral civilian airliner. The idea agents believed Churchill, as the Nazis' number-one assassination target, would take an ordinary passenger flight via Lisbon over the Atlantic is a not very credible scenario. And the fact the plane was attacked on the way out contradicts the story. This seems to add credence to the scenario suggested by Churchill's Bodyguard the Prime Minister was able to fly home unmolested as the Germans believed for several days they Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story already shot him down, not realising or believing they had killed Howard. Howard's son, the Dorset-resident actor and art collector Ronald Howard, in his biography In Search Of My Fathersuggests the Germans actually got the idea of killing him in this way from Hamlet from which Howard did readings in Lisbon. In the play, the thoughtful young prince who disputes the legitimacy of the new regime is sent across the sea to be assassinated on a pretext. Earlier, the turncoat broadcaster known as Lord Haw-Haw whose voice is heard in the film, and who had in lived outside Ringwood, near RAF Ibsley where Howard would film had announced Howard was on a death-list, and would be liquidated in good time. The headline in Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story propaganda newspaper was "Pimpernel Howard has made his last trip, " a reference to his update of his Scarlet Pimpernel role in his previous anti-Nazi propaganda film Pimpernel Smith. There are also claims Howard had a real-life 'Pimpernel' role of his own, that he was on a secret diplomatic mission, the Columbus film project being a front for negotiating tactical concessions from Franco, who had been making discreet political overtures to Britain. The actor's son suggests the shootdown may have been a warning to Franco. German radio described the shoot-down as an "error of judgement. He was the very image of the gentle, normally Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story English aristocrat, and killing him would have done the Germans no good at all in the propaganda department. Howard was shot down just as the film premiered in the USA, and US as well as British reviews often mention the fact its director-star was killed when the Luftwaffe shot down an unarmed civilian passenger plane. The incident validated warnings by Howard and others that fascism Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story simply a veneer for a murderous tyranny. Mitchell, the film and the popular concert suite adapted from its music score thus also are a Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story to another talented patriotic Englishman, Leslie Howard. In the early scenes we see Mitchell struggling for recognition and having to resign in protest at a blinkered management who can't grasp the potential of his monoplane design "looks just like a damn bird with boots on". He also had his own pilot's licence. He did not simply work on a single 'dream' concept, but was a very practical man who designed over twenty different aircraft, from light planes to a long-distance flying Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story that flew round the world, and was working on a high-speed heavy bomber when he died. The plans were destroyed in a Luftwaffe raid on the Southampton Vickers plant which killed many workers. Mitchell's first design, an open- cockpit gull-wing monoplane with fixed undercarriage just as we see in the sketchwas rejected when it proved unable to carry the required 8-gun load. Mitchell then designed a new closed-cockpit prototype, with a Rolls Royce engine and the now-familiar elliptical wing with retractable undercarriage, which became the Mark I. Though Mitchell died inthe Spitfire continued to be developedthe Vickers design team carrying out regular modifications to keep the plane competitive as Germany improved their fighter designs. It was the only British plane that was in continuous production throughout the war. The pilot played by David Niven is a composite character, there being no single pilot who flew the seaplane races and tested the Spitfire. Quill also flew the plane in the recreation shot especially for the film in Novemberof the prototype test flight which impressed the RAF brass. Mitchell's illness in the film is delicately unspecified, and depicted as coming later in life than it did, with an implication it was something that could be alleviated if not cured by rest. In fact Mitchell had the Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story condition that comedian Will Hay survived in the year the film came out: bowel or rectal cancer. Mitchell was not so lucky as Hay. Inhe collapsed and underwent a colostomy, after having a malignant section of intestine removed. See still below. The German holiday depicted in the film was actually to convalesce from his operation, though the notion the trip alerted him to Nazi re-armament and bully-boy ambitions seems to have a basis in fact. Two days after the prototype's maiden flight on March 5,the first German troops marched into the Rhineland demilitarized zone. Inafter three years unstinting work on the Spitfire and his planned new high-speed bomber never builthe went to Vienna for specialist treatment, but returned soon after to die in Southampton. His year old son and biographer still campaigns to have the airfield renamed to commemorate this maiden flight. That Howard kept his slender Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story looks even at age 50 allowed him to credibly play a man ageing from his mids to age While thus on holiday watching the gulls wheel above the clifftops, Mitchell is inspired, in the manner of inventor Leonardo Da Vinci, Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story the possibility of a plane that would have the grace of a bird, and could swoop like one. One of the DVD issues of the restored film on the Odyssey label includes comments by the real Jeffrey Quill the basis of the David Niven character saying the idea Mitchell was inspired by gulls is fantasy. His Dictionary Of National Biography entry says his brilliance was the way, as a practical engineer, he integrated many refinements seen in various American Curtiss and German Junkers aircraft designs. The quote seems to be officially accepted as genuine, and was recently used as a question on University Challenge by Jeremy Paxman, who himself had nominated the Spitfire in as a British Design Icon. Mitchell's son and biographer has said "My father thought the name Spitfire was a bit silly. One reason he may have felt the name silly was that it had become associated with Hollywood. A series of films made from on, starring actress Lupe Velez, was known by her own personal nickname, the Mexican Spitfire. It was an old slang term for a type of fiery, Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story female who will fight to do things her way. At war's end, director Carol Reed tried to get a Lady Godiva historical comedy made under the title Spitfire. In fact the name itself had tremendous propaganda value it worked in German - as Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story 'Achtung, Spitfeuer! The rest of the film is flashbacks coveringstarting the day Mitchell shows his first sketch for a gull-winged monoplane, and ending the day Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story dies. Note there are 2 versions of the film, the shorter US version being titled Spitfire. Mouse over titles photo at left to see US main title. The film has been cut in many prints by up to forty minutes, and for study purposes I include below a breakdown of the main sequences and key scenes, with any relevant production notes in parentheses. I've bundled a few minor scenes in with the major ones to keep the listing of manageable length, but if anyone out there spots any significant omissions below, please email me. Note that the standard UK DVD release, with the minute version, lists only 19 chapters, but some of these incorporate several scenes as one. A lengthy documentary Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story portrays the current war almost as a religious crusade, against a return of 'mediaeval tyranny'. We hear excerpts of speeches of Lord Haw-Haw, Churchill, Hitler, Goebbels, and Goering, all setting the scene for this pivotal moment in history in mid - "a fateful summer for the world. An opening scene set on the climactic day of the Battle of Britain, September 15th 'Zero Day'as the Luftwaffe amounts its largest-scale onslaught. The RAF control room prepares for a large-scale air raid while the Spitfires seek out the enemy. At a front-line airfield supposedly 'Seafield' near the town of 'Ringford' in Sussexreal pilots exchange snippets of authentic banter. We see a flight returning, with one plane crash-landing. David Niven appears at this point, in his only surviving on-location scene. Waiting at their Dispersal Point a soundstage setupthe young pilots discuss the thrill they get just from seeing the Spitfire and exchange rumours about its legendary designer. Niven, as Geoffrey Crisp, Mitchell's former chief test pilot and now the older Station Commander, begins to tell them about the real Mitchell, and how the Spitfire came into existence. The flashback scenes begin with Mitchell on the cliffs in as he watches gulls hovering overhead, and tells his wife about his dream of a plane that will fly like a bird. The clifftop-picnic scene had to be shot Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story in Cornwall, at Polperro, this being the closest the crew could film coastline without WWII barbed wire in shot. Although the Sealion flying-boat biplane he helped design for Supermarine has just won the new annual Schneider International Seaplane Race flying at mphSpitfire: A Test Pilots Story gets sent back to the assembly shop for two years, his 'gull' style plane sketch ignored. The race, won by the US, is seen via a montage incorporating newsreel footage. Ex WWI pilot Crisp, an old school pal, arrives for a test pilot job at Supermarine, and Mitchell shows him his bird-style monoplane design. The still from this scene, used at the top of this page, was also used for the video sleeve. His monoplane Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story is turned down by the board, so he resigns. After a tense week, Supermarine management relent, and give him the go-ahead. His design is adopted in time for Supermarine to compete in the Baltimore race against the top American entry, Doolittle's Curtiss, but the monoplane's Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story in a tight turn causes Crisp to black out, and he crashes and is hospitalised. With the Italian race, Fascist politics first raise their head with Mussolini's spokesman played in caricature by a British studio chief. The Supermarine wins at mph. Vickers Armaments buys Supermarine Aviation to get Mitchell working for them. He announces he wants to build a plane for the future. Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story the celebration party for the new model S6 winning the trophy in the race, only glimpsedthe ultra- patriotic Lady Houston arrives from her yacht lit up with the sign "Wake Up England" and Mitchell tells her England is in danger not just from the sea but from the air. When the Government declines to help subsidise Vickers's enterprise, Lady Houston comes through with a large cheque. Crisp and the Mitchells visit a German gliding club, Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story then a 'Richthofen Club' dinner attended by Dr Messerschmitt. Indiscreet remarks by a drunken young Nazi aviator alert Mitch and Crisp to German determination to re-arm and conquer, convincing him England needs a modern fighter plane. He starts to lobby for a British fighter - "the fastest and deadliest fighting aeroplane Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story the world"which will use the new Merlin engine. His secretary tells Crisp she is concerned he is suffering from exhaustion brought on by overwork. Spitfire : A Test Pilot's Story by Jeffrey Quill (, Perfect) for sale online | eBay

REEL 5 Continues: presence of inexperienced pilots in squadron and squadron losses; impressions of Air Vice Marshal Keith Park; reasons for problems Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story aileron control on Supermarine Spitfire; opinion of calibre of German pilots; attitude towards Germans; lack of sense of importance of Battle of Britain; opinion of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Visit to Nazi Germany, Question of pre-war security at Supermarine Aviation. Oral recordings of those behind the scenes who contributed to the success of the Spitfire but rarely heard. REEL 3 Continues: [All] stories illustrating staff discipline at Supermarine Aviation, question of trade union activity; reactions to recruitment of women fitters, Recollections of period as employee of Supermarine Aviation Ltd in GB, obtaining apprenticeship at Woolston site, ; nature of apprenticeship; wages; lack of industrial discontent; obtaining work as metallurgist; construction of Supermarine Southampton flying boat; problems with first experimental high speed aircraft; R J Mitchell's insistence on thin winged Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story reasons for shape of Supermarine Spitfire's wing; initial Air Ministry order for Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story Spitfire; character of wing spars in prototype aircraft; memories of R J Mitchell; R J Mitchell's illness. REEL 3 Continues: skill of female workforce in dispersed factory; move of design team and laboratory to Hurstley Park near Winchester; memories of Joe Smith and his role in development of Supermarine Spitfire; destruction of experimental bomber aircraft; work on experimental reconnaissance aircraft; VIP visits; lack of contact with German aircraft designers post war; use Spitfire: A Test Pilots Story term 'boffin'; story of internal stresses experienced in development of Supermarine Spitfire wing. Aspects of period as designer with Boulton and Paul Aviation Ltd in Norwich, GB, memories of J D North; liaison with Air Ministry representatives; opinion of Boulton Paul Sidestrand; work on wings of experimental bomber; question of trade secrets; redundancy, Recollections of period as draughtsman with Supermarine Aviation in Southampton, GB, rejoining company, ; work on kitchen equipment of Turkish Supermarine Southampton; work on Supermarine Scapa and Stranraer; problems mounting cannon on Supermarine Spitfire; work on ducting hot air to Supermarine Spitfire guns to prevent freezing mounting cameras in photo- reconnaissance Supermarine Spitfire; emphasis from team leader on simplicity and accuracy; effects of pressure on workforce; work on wing of Supermarine Spitfire Mk IV, later Mk XX. Aspects of period as worker at Thorneycroft engineering works: relationship with male colleagues; duties; description. Recollections of period as worker with Supermarine Aviation Company in Southampton, GB, description of offices and factory; duties; memories of Captain Biard; construction of S4 for Schneider Trophy race; memories of R J Mitchell; opinion of S4 aircraft; social life; working atmosphere; flights in flying boats; memories of Schneider Trophy races; watching first flight of Supermarine Spitfire; opinion of Trevor Westbrook; memories of O E Simmonds and Lady Houston. Home Spitfire Interviews.