G Forces, noise in Spitfire during dog fight
All - tried to Google this but not much insight.
Was watching the David Jason show on Battle of Britain last night.
Two things that aren't often mentioned in discussions about Spitfires are the G-forces, and the noise.
I remember Mark Hanna saying piston engined fighters will generate G-Forces that will rival a fast jet.
Does anyone have a sense of the sort of positive g's a Spitfire pilot might have pulled during a dogfight - I would have thought 4 to 5 at least in a tight turn or pullout (aware of the limit on negative g's due to the Merlin being starved of fuel). I guess they saw the beginning of G-LOC as a phenomena back then. What were the positive g limits on the airframe? And no speed jeans in 1940...!
Also the noise - I imagine 1100hp of Merlin, plus 8 .303's must have been absolutely bloody deafening for a 22 year old lad - yet surprisingly, a lot of the few who are now interviewed seem to have pretty good hearing for old blokes, as opposed to say, the Mitchell crews - many pilots of which were deafened by proximity to exhausts.
Only increases my admiration for them - sweat, noise, cordite, g-force and fear...