Product Description

The definitive story of how the Spitfire was designed, built and tested, and how close it came to not happening at all.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37444 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Customer Reviews

The finest biography of Britain's greatest aircraft designer
This is the definitive biography of R J Mitchell, best known as the designer of the Vickers-Supermarine 'Spitfire', surely one of the most emotive aircraft of the last century, and the battle with his ailing health towards the end of his short (42 year) life, written with love and admiration by his only son, Gordon.

It details his early life, leading to an appointment with the Supermarine Aviation Works Limited. With Mitchell's brilliance as their chief designer, this company rose to the forefront of aviation technology in the 1920's and 1930's, assisted by the Rolls-Royce Company of Derby. Its triumph was the retention in perpetuitity of the Jacques Schneider Trophy in 1931, which was to steer Mitchell and the company towards the development of a high-speed monoplane fighter to Air Ministry specification F7/34, subsequently named the Spitfire, and which ultimately remained in front-line service from 1938 until 1952. But Mitchell's brilliance was to train a design and development team, who were able to continue the development of this aircraft long after his death in June 1937; he was by then designing what might have been far more famous than the Avro Lancaster, the Vickers-Supermarine 'Windsor' - a four-engined bomber with a designed maximum speed (then) of 360 mph - both prototypes were destroyed in the raid on the Supermarine works in Woolston in September 1940, and development was subsequently cancelled.

Dr Gordon Mitchell's biography of his father's life is written with great affection, but it also brings out the greatness of this designer, who has not entirely received full credit from, and the grateful thanks of the British Nation, which very possibly might not exist but for the work that was carried out by one of its greatest sons, and meticulously recorded in this book.

Schooldays and Spitfires.
I don't need the recommended max of 300 words. During the war we lived near Castle Bromwich and Merlin engines were a familiar sound, never to be forgotten. Since then, Spitfire books have multiplied but "Schooldays to Spitfire" is such a personal record. Sorry to lapse into cliche but anyone who has Spitfire books on the shelf needs this one.