Although the Spitty was a superb aircraft in Europe she met her match with the the Japanese Zero....
They found that the Zero had a lower rated altitude than the Spitfire, 16 000 feet against 21 000 feet, which delivered the Spitfire a good speed advantage at height – it was 20 knots faster at 26 000 feet. However, as had already been noted by RAF Fighter Command in Europe, the Spitfire had relatively slow acceleration, and thus the Zero was able to stay behind the Spitfire within gun range while the Spitfire gradually accelerated away out of range. Even in a dive the Spitfire still accelerated too slowly to avoid the Zero’s gunfire. Climbing away was also not an option, as the Spitfire’s climb superiority was too slight (not to mention the slow acceleration problem once again).
The only offensive solution for the Spitfire was to attack from a height advantage, to maintain a high IAS on the firing pass, to fight on the dive and zoom, and to pull high speed G. Slowing down, or being caught while flying slowly, would clearly be very dangerous, for the Spitfire would be unable to evade. Above 20 000 feet, so long as the Spitfire started with a 3-4000 feet height advantage, the Spitfire could make dive and zoom attacks with impunity.
It took a while to learn the above lessons... more on Spitfires over Darwin here....
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In August of 2004, Zappi, Homba, Bambam887, RedScorpion and MOOXE all pitched
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