At 1500 hours on Monday 14th August 1944, Squadron Leader ‘Johnny’ Plagis, the Commanding Officer of No 126 (Persian Gulf) Squadron, roared into the air in his Spitfire from Harrowbeer airfield near Plymouth for a ‘Rodeo’ mission over France. He was leading 11 Spitfire Mk IXs, each of which was carrying a ‘drop tank’ containing extra petrol, endowing them with about 3 hours flight time.
From:
RAF BBMF - Spitfire ML214 and Johnny Plagis
Was the Mk IX capable of carrying a 'slipper tank'? The
PR Mk IX seems to have been so capable.
Wikipedia (normal wiki-caveats apply) says:
The capacity of the main fuel tanks was 48 gal for the upper tank and 37 gal for the lower, for a total internal capacity of 85 gal. Jettisonable "slipper tanks" of 30, 45 or 90 gal could be carried under the centre-section.[38] As an alternative a cylindrical 50 gal drop tank, adapted from those carried by long range Hawker Typhoons, could be carried on the fuselage bomb rack used on most Mk IXs of the Second Tactical Air Force. To further increase the combat radius some late production Mk IXs were fitted with additional internal self-sealing fuel tanks in the rear fuselage: the upper tank carried 41 gal and the lower 34 gal. When both were full this enabled a ferry range of over 1,200 miles (1,900 km), although they made the aircraft unstable in flight and only straight flight and gentle manoeuvres at low altitudes were recommended by the pilot's manual. The pilot was also warned to avoid instrument flying whenever possible.[39][40]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superma....28type_361.29