Making A Faster, More Dangerous Spitfire: Supermarine Spiteful

In this video, we take a look at the Supermarine Spiteful, a mid-to-late World War II British fighter aircraft that was intended to be an improvement to the Supermarine Spitfire. We first talk about aircraft wing designs, and how they have their benefits and downsides, before then talking about the Spitfire's iconic elliptical wing. We talk about why they were elliptical and why they needed to be improved for better performance down the line. We talk about the concept of laminar flow, and how the Spiteful came about because of that concept. We talk about the early stages of the Spiteful, in being just an improvement and modification of the Spitfire, and how the wing alterations led to the Spiteful spinning off from the Spitfire and becoming its own, unique design. We talk about the very sluggish work on the Spiteful, the first prototype that was more Spitfire than Spiteful, and the destruction of the first prototype. We talk about the increased performance offered by later prototypes, and how this boost was only temporary. We end by talking about the attempted naval version in the Supermarine Seafang, and how the laminar flow wings may have been pointless to pursue.