March 5 , 1936 – The first flight of the Supermarine Spitfire . World War II produced some of the greatest piston-powered aircraft the world has known , and some have since become iconic symbols of that conflict . Perhaps no aircraft symbolized the British fight agains the Luftwaffe more than the Supermarine Spitfire . With war looming in Europe , the RAF needed to develop a new fighter that could intercept and defeat more advanced German aircraft . R . J . Mitchell of the Supermarine company , who had garnered much experience building fast planes while competing in the Schneider Trophy seaplane races , proposed the Type 300 , a single engine , low wing monoplane with retractable landing gear . After significant modifications , including the addition of an enclosed cockpit , it was the Type 300 that would be developed into the Spitfire . And the Spitfire was an immediate winner . Upon landing after the first flight of the prototype , Vickers chief test pilot Capt . Joseph “ Mutt ” Summers
reportedly said , “ Don ’ t touch anything .” The Spitfire was originally powered by a Rolls Royce Merlin 12-cylinder engine providing 1,030 hp . Later models of the Spitfire would be powered by ever more powerful Merlins , and eventually the Spitfire received the Rolls- Royce Griffon engine which produced up to 2,340 hp . But the early Merlin engines had an achilles heel . Unlike the fuel injected engines in use by the Luftwaffe , the Merlin had a carburetor . This made the Spitfire susceptible to flooding in a nose over dive or inverted flight . At first , pilots learned to combat this problem by first half-rolling the aircraft before a dive . But until a permanent solution could be found with the addition of a pressurized carburetor , it was Beatrice “ Tilly ” Shilling who saved the day . Shilling devised a restrictor , nicknamed Miss Shilling ’ s Orifice , that restricted the flow of fuel to no more than the engine could use at full power . While only a stopgap measure , the restrictor kept the Spitfire flying until the new carburetors could be developed . The later Griffon engines employed a pressure-injection carburetor . During the Battle of Britain , the Spitfire , along with the Hawker Hurricane , faced the onslaught of the Luftwaffe . Though the Hurricane fought in greater numbers , the Spitfire
became the better known fighter of the Battle , as the dashing RAF fighter pilots dueled with German fighters high in the sky while the “ Hurrys ” slugged it out with the bombers , as the Hurricane was no match for the Messerschmitt Bf 109 . Head to head with the 109 , the Spitfire pilot appreciated the firepower provided by its eight Browning . 303 machine guns . While not as powerful as the canon used by the Germans , Spitfire pilots could concentrate more firepower on the enemy . The Spitfire was continuously improved and produced throughout the war . Numerous variants were developed , including a carrier-based version which was nicknamed the Seafire . Exported Spitfires were flown by 35 countries around the world . In all , more than 20,000 Spitfires were produced from 1938-1948 , making it the third-highest produced military aircraft behind the Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik and the Bf 109 .