Spitfire Summer 2018

The British public first saw the Spitfire at the RAF Hendon air display on Saturday 27 June 1936.

Although full-scale production was supposed to begin immediately, numerous problems could not be overcome for some time, and the first production Spitfire, K9787, did not roll off the Woolston, Southampton assembly line until mid-1938.

Britains' New Spitfire

This 2018 exhibition celebrates the 80th anniversary of that first production aircraft. In ten chapters, we tell the story of this remarkable aircraft in pictures and words, organised into two parts.

White Waltham airfield near Maidenhead was the home of the Air Transport Auxiliary. They moved more Spits than any other type.

Part 1

Introductory slides
The need to modernise
Supermarine Aviation Works Limited
The design
Battle of Britain
Fighting the 109
“Spitfire snobbery”

Supermarine Spitfire F Mk XIIs of 41 Sqn

Part 2

New weapons
“Clipped, clapped and cropped”
Spitfires in white, pink or blue
New roles
Higher, further faster
Maidenhead and the Spitfire

1942 film

The First of the Few 1942 — Click the image above to view the film (in a new tab)
Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes

First of the Few 1942 Howard / Niven — R J Mitchell played by Leslie Howard
Geoffrey Crisp (an invented character) played by David Niven

https://archive.org/details/TheFirstOfTheFew