The Spitfire That Was Better Than the P-51 (Even Germany Agreed) скачать в хорошем качестве

The Spitfire That Was Better Than the P-51 (Even Germany Agreed)

Every argument about the best fighter of World War Two ends the same way. Someone says P-51 Mustang, everyone nods, conversation over. It's been like that for eighty years. Clean lines, bubble canopy, that unmistakable silhouette screaming across the screen in every documentary ever made about the air war in Europe. The Mustang is the poster child of American air power, and questioning its supremacy feels almost unpatriotic. But there was a Spitfire variant that was faster. That climbed at rates forty to sixty percent greater. That turned tighter, hit harder, and chased down things no piston-engined fighter had any business catching. Its pilots engaged Messerschmitt 262 jets—the most advanced combat aircraft on the planet—and won. It destroyed more V-1 flying bombs than any other Spitfire variant, racing after pulse-jet cruise missiles at treetop height to stop them from slamming into London neighbourhoods. The RAF's own wartime evaluation, conducted by professionals whose only job was telling pilots what would keep them alive and what would get them killed, confirmed it outperformed the Mustang in nearly every air combat parameter that mattered. You've probably never heard of it. It's the Spitfire Mark Fourteen. And the reason you haven't heard of it has nothing to do with how well it flew—and everything to do with how many were built.