WD74W2

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The Spitfire Company at Biggin Hill held the restoration
to exacting specifications that would see her emerge in as close
to wartime stock condition as possible. Items included in the
restoration were original radio equipment, external VHF aerial
wires, and even gun brackets in the wing, to allow for de-milled
guns to be fitted following delivery to the U.S. Interestingly,
fabrication and installation of the gun brackets required drilling
the main spars in the original mounting points. Being a very early
Mk. IX, BR601 retains some unique characteristics not normally
seen on later examples, including an early-style elevator, along
with a smaller profile Mk. V rudder. (Later production Mk. IXs
had elevators with extended mass balance horns, whereas BR601
has elevators with a 45-degree break in the hinge line. The later
pattern has an additional 45-degree break, resulting in the
forward part of the hinge line pointing straight ahead, parallel
to the fuselage.)
Collings has high praise for The Spitfire Company, and their
craftsmanship, “Peter and his crew were very meticulous, and
made sure everything is authentic to the date of the aircraft. At the
beginning, I didn’t really appreciate how different this aircraft is
from a standard Mk. IX. I have a much better understanding now.
We couldn’t just put this through the ‘standard’ Mk. IX rebuild,
and have it come out looking like the rest of the survivors. They
did an excellent job. There is a lot of originality in this aircraft
that is not yet appreciated by American warbird collectors. You
must keep in mind that when this plane was built in July 1942,
the war was going on, the factory was being bombed, and people
were dying in England. At that stage in the war, I think the only
factories that were being bombed, Allied or Axis, were British.
We weren’t reaching into Germany at that point. The RAF wasn’t
yet targeting factories in Germany. Russia was still safe, Japan
hadn’t been touched, and of course the U.S. never did really
get bombed. These were the only workers that were feeling the
effects of being bombed, and they had gone through that for a
few years. I think it was by March 1942 that fuel rationing in
England ended. That doesn’t mean there was fuel; that means
there was no fuel for anyone. You look at the dietary sources like
protein, and they were eating whale blubber. A Spitfire is not
built like a Mustang; it’s not the quality of a Mustang,” quipped
Collings. “They were just getting them out through the door, and
they were progressing a lot by trial and error. I read there were
no wind tunnels in England. When they would come up with a
new design or engine, or whatever, it was put on the air frame
and tried out.”
“This is one of those aircraft that is a hybrid. It has a Mk. V
fuselage, a Mk. V wing, and they strapped on a bigger engine. We
reused as much as we possibly could from the original airframe.
It’s thought that the wings of this airplane are on the one in New
Zealand, but those aren’t its original wings. They were separated in
South Africa before that. The airplane in New Zealand has a later
Mark wing. BR601 has .303 guns, since basically it had a Mk. V
wing. We have those parts because Peter Monk is pretty good about
going and finding everything original. There were three early Mk.
IXs that went to South Africa. There is a one in three chance that
these are the original wings to BR601, at least the leading edge and
so forth. We will never know for sure, but we used what we could
find from those three early South African Spitfires. I think that’s a
pretty high-water mark for this type of airplane.”
As Collings mentioned, BR601 is a unique survivor and
contains many interesting characteristics, including the earlystyle,
single-piece chin cowling, featuring a smaller carburetor
air intake thus making her the only airworthy Spitfire with this
feature. Early Mk. IXs had these short carburetor intakes that
were both shorter and significantly bulkier than those fitted to
the Spitfire Mk. V. During 1944, the longer Vokes Aero-Vee filter
unit became more or less standard, both during production and
as retrofits. This unit was installed as standard equipment on the
Mk. VIII, which mainly served in tropical theatres, but the basing
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