Achtung Spitfire!

[roadking]

There I was, just a few minutes ago mowing grass at the back of the house, and I hear the distant slightly off beat sound of a Merlin.

It's a Spitfire from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight flying over the house...resplendent in it's D-Day landing stripes.

You might say"what has that to do with Retrobikes?". Good pub quiz question...what does the Supermarine Spitfire have in common with retrobikes?

Answers on a postcard please...tee-hee.

Roadking.

 

[Lysander]

I'd say some of the production was done at Raleigh/BSA/other classic GB bike manufacturers.

I do know that the Sten Gun was manufactured by Tri-ang!

 

[roadking]

You may well be right Lysander (a relative flew one of those in Burma), but I was thinking of the Reynolds tubing and Sptifire connection.

Reynolds made tubing for Spits during WW2.

Cheers, Roadking.

 

[Lysander]

Ahh.........tubing right enough- I was thinking of the spitfire having a monocoque frame, but it would have tubes lengthways to brace the frames.
The Lysander was rubbish for what it was designed for, but yes indeed was just the job for agent drops and operating on short nasty runways like the far east.

 

[Old Ned]

Didn't Carpenter in his original premises, not the Kingston one, use airframe tubing for his early frames in the late 30's?

 

[hamster]

Certainly the Hawker Hurricane has 531 tubing in it...not sure about the Spitfire.

 

[David B]

Certainly the Hawker Hurricane has 531 tubing in it...not sure about the Spitfire.

As does the E-Type Jag....OK, that's not a plane, but a tenuous connection is that the present-day Jaguar works in Castle Bromwich started life as one of the WW2 "shadow factories" that built Spitfires (there is a commemorative sculpture nearby).

David

 

[hamster]

And Thrust 2 has a 531 spaceframe chassis...that's almost a plane!

 

[Goldie]

I love that about 531. I know that, as a grown up, I shouldn't really be going gooey at the idea of the same type of steel being used in cracking bikes, world record breaking cars and war-winning fighter planes. But I do.

If I play the same association game with carbon fibre I (unjustly, I know) think of Halfords' carbon fibre effect car air fresheners.

 

[ekallus]

It was also used for the famous Norton motorcycle 'featherbed' frames...