Last use of Spitfires

Armed conflicts in the history of humanity from the ancient times to the 20th Century.
paul.mercer
Senior Member
Posts: 1224
Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2010 10:25 pm

Last use of Spitfires

Post by paul.mercer »

Gentlemen,
I read in a paper the other day that the Spitfire was last used by the RAF in 1963 when they brought some out of mothballs to take part in exercises against the English Electric Lightning. Apparently GB was having some sort of argument with Indonesia who still had P51 Mustangs as their main air force and the RAF wanted to use the Spitfires to give the Lightning pilots experience of fighting against slower propeller aircraft.
Does anyone know what the results were?
I would imagine that pitting an aircraft like the Lightning against another which was around 1000mph slower would have been interesting if not hilarious to say the least, bearing in mind that it was basically a rocket with wings designed as an intercepter rather than a dogfighter, in fact I would be surprised if a Lightning could manouver quickly enough to catch the Spitfire, perhaps speed is not everything!
I would be grateful for any of your comments.
mike1880
Member
Posts: 71
Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2005 9:00 pm
Location: UK

Re: Last use of Spitfires

Post by mike1880 »

There's a bit of information here:

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/ ... tning.html

Although it takes a while to get to the point...

Mike
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