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Can be suspended or displayed on a decorative stand (stand included).
Structurally the Spitfire was a straightforward design with a light alloy monocoque
fuselage and a single spar wing with stressed-skin covering and fabric-covered
control surfaces. The Spitfire was adapted from Reginald Mitchell's aesthetically
pleasing 1925 F.7/30 design. To preserve the clean nose-cowling lines originally
conceived by Mitchell, the radiator was located beneath the starboard wing with
the smaller oil cooler causing some asymmetry beneath the port wing, and the
carburetor air intake under the center fuselage. A DeHavilland two-blade wooden
fixed-pitch propeller was employed by the prototype and the first Spitfire I's
had the Airscrew Company's wooden fixed-pitch two-blade. Later a DeHavilland
three-blade, two position propeller was adopted after trials on the first prototype.
The new propeller gave a 5 mph increase in speed. In 1940 DeHavilland three-blade
constant-speed propeller were substituted. Production Spitfires had a fixed
tail wheel and triple ejector exhaust manifolds. The X80 HP Rolls-Royce Merlin
II and later the Merlin III engine was installed.
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