Spitfire vs Hurricane Streamlines

For the first post of 2011, let's delve into Flight's fun archives once more. You might've opened your Flight magazine to see this spread* of the RAF's latest fighters in 1938. That art deco streamline look, works well for the Hurricane, while the unfortunate Spitfire, as well as going rapidly downhill isn't looking nearly as fast. Amazing what an artist can do for your aircraft's performance.


It's mildly ironic to see that both have the wooden fixed-pitched props that were discarded as quickly as possible to ensure the performance went up a critical notch, and the Spitfire's advertising for this ball-and chain of a prop it had, then, also mentions that it has a 'Schwartz Finish'. Wouldn't 'Black' be more British?

What make these two a bit more interesting I think is spotting the cheats from the real Hurricane design in the one illustration (for instance no ventral fin or fixed tailwheel - only K5083 was briefly like that) and the various items identifying our early production Spitfire.

Well, it passes the time, anyway.

*You wouldn't have really, as I made it up, combining two different issue's pages.