• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

High Flying Spitfires

jankees

jankees

SOH-CM-2025




Spitfire IXc MA504, which was one of three Mk IX Spitfires that was converted for high altitude interceptions by No 10 and 41 squadrons SAAF, while based at St Jean and Idku, Egypt. The other two aircraft were MA792 and MH946. They were stripped of paint and machine guns, and all other equipment that was not deemed necessary to reach high flying Junkers JU-86 bombers that flew in excess of 40.000 ft. MA504 is reported to have reached 47.000 ft with wing commander Dereck 'Bill' Kain at the helm during a test flight. After a successful interception of a Junkers, the Germans stopped the high altitude flights.





Spitfire IXc BS273 was one of the Spitfires modified for high altitude interceptions, based at Northolt, 1942, and regularly flown by F/O Prince Emanuel Galtzine. The prince was a Russian immigrant, a great grandson of Tsar Paul 1. After the Russian revolution, his family fled Russia, ending up in England. He wanted to fly, and when the Russian attacked Finland, he decided to join the Finnish Air Force. However, on hearing his mother was killed in the London blitz, he returned to the UK (via the US and Canada) and joined the RAF, becoming a Spitfire pilot with the Special Service Flight in Northolt. On 12 September 1942, he intercepted a JU-86 above Southampton at 41.000ft and attacked it. The battle went up to 43.000 ft, and was the highest recorded air battle of WWII. His spitfire only had two cannons, and one of them was frozen solid, giving a very unbalanced flight while shooting, combined with excessive vapor trails of his ammunition. It is believe he managed to hit the German aircraft, but in the end it got away safely. However, since the Germans now knew they could be intercepted, they launched no more high altitude attacks on the UK.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top