Designed by Reginald Mitchell, and produced from 1938-1948 at Supermarine Aviation where Mitchell was employed as an engineer, the original Spitfire fighter-interceptor was the first ‘all-metal’ stressed-skin aircraft.
All of the glass reinforced plastic (GRP) aircraft body parts manufactured for this replica plane were moulded using laminating resins and structural adhesive materials supplied by the project’s principal sponsor Scott Bader, which donated the majority of the composite materials used to construct the Lesotho replica Spitfire.
This authentic, GRP replica Spitfire has been specially built in the UK for the Kingdom of Lesotho (formerly Basutoland) in southern Africa by a dedicated team of volunteers from The Spitfire Heritage Trust. The Lesotho replica Spitfire project came about in order to recognise and pay tribute to the generous ‘Gift of War’ given in June 1940 by the people of Basutoland, with a population of only 400,000 at the time.
The response to the war funds appeal was overwhelming, raising sufficient money from donations to pay for the (then) costs of manufacturing 24 Spitfires, so providing much needed new fighter-aircraft for two full strength Royal Air Force (RAF) Spitfire fighter squadrons. From this ‘Gift of War’ donation, No. 72 (Basutoland) Squadron was born in 1940 and continues today as an active RAF training squadron, in which trainee pilots now fly the RAF’s advanced trainer the Tucano T1, built under licence by Shorts of Belfast, before going on to fast–jet training.
<Replica production team>
The Lesotho replica Spitfire was manufactured in Victoria, close to St Austell, Cornwall in the south west of England, using factory space, facilities and GRP expertise provided by Paul Ching, Managing Director of Evolution Boats Ltd. Paul Ching is a master mould designer and keen Spitfire enthusiast, who brought invaluable experience to the team having previously built a FRP replica Spitfire IIa for the RAF, which is still on permanent display at RAF High Wycombe.
Being a volunteer-manned project, it took a little over four years for the small production team to complete the Lesotho Spitfire replica, which had to be completed and supplied this year to tie in with it being the 50th Anniversary of Lesotho’s Independence from Great Britain. Working alongside Ching, and the mainstay of the Spitfire Heritage Trust Lesotho project production team, was replica manufacturing veteran Patrick J. Mitchell, who has worked on many similar projects, including previously building four other replica Spitfires; while not related to the famous Spitfire designer, RJ Mitchell, with whom he shares the same surname, Mitchell feels connected ‘in spirit’, given his passion for the aircraft.
The team started from scratch, with the key first stage of the project being to fabricate the individual patterns and plugs. New moulds were produced for each of the GRP parts required to produce the replica propeller, and the monocoque composite sections which make up the fuselage, wings and tail sections; exact dimensions were achieved at this critical mould making stage by copying off an existing original aircraft. Once all the moulds had been produced and checked, the next stage of the project was to start laminating the FRP parts, section by section.
<FRP technical challenges>
For this static, display replica aircraft, using hand lay-up glass fibre - UPR resin based laminate systems were technically sufficient for moulding the GRP parts. However, there were still a number of technical performance-in-use considerations to ensure the correct choice of laminate system for specific sections of the aircraft to ensure that key areas would have the necessary mechanical and physical properties needed to cope with being exposed long term to the elements. Annual climatic conditions in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho where the Spitfire is destined as a permanent outdoor display show piece, typically have seasonal wet and very dry conditions, high winds, extensive periods of intense sunlight and a range of extremes in the ambient temperature from as low as -10°C (14°F) at night in winter up to average daytime of 28°C (82.4°F) in high summer, with maximum temperatures sometimes exceeding 35°C (95°F)
Crystic 489PA is actually a Lloyd’s approved marine resin grade, with proven long-term performance in composite boatbuilding for both deck and hull applications. According to published Scott Bader technical data, performance values for fully cured laminate test pieces made using Crystic 489PA back-up resin with four layers of 450 g/m2 PB CSM (31.8% glass content), include tensile strength figures of 128 MPa, with a flexural modulus of 7400 MPa and flexural strength of 212 MPa.
For the main fuselage sections and the tail, Crystic 2.414PA, a low styrene, low exotherm, rapid hardening orthophthalic resin (also a Lloyd’s approved marine grade resin) was recommended, being an easy to use, high productivity hand lay-up laminating resin.
<Structural bonding benefits>
The wing sections were also bonded together using Scott Bader’s primerless MMA Crestabond M1-30 structural adhesive, especially in high stress areas. Crestabond M1-30 was used to join the upper and lower FRP wing sections together, the internal FRP spars in the tail and fuselage, as well as for bonding in metal inserts where needed. A critical stress area where Crestabond M1-30 was used was to secure the underside rigid mountings on which the replica is permanently secured in its display position; the mounting must be able to withstand the very high stress loading coming through the wings in particular during high winds.
David Spencer Evans, Chairman of The Spitfire Trust and replica expert explained: “It is less well known that replica aircraft wings and mountings can come under higher loads than in flight during high winds. This is one of the reasons that the project team spent the time we did evaluating all of the technical requirements with Scott Bader, selecting the most suitable laminating resins and level of glass fibre reinforcement for each FRP part, and pinpointing where it was advantageous to use a structural adhesive.”
The finished replica Spitfire was shipped to Lesotho, reassembled and formerly handed over on Remembrance Sunday, 13th November, as part of the official Armistice Day events this year in the capital, Maseru.
<Reach for the Skies>
Today there is only a very limited number of surviving original, airworthy Spitfire fighter aircraft, totalling around 60 worldwide, with only half that number typically airworthy at any given time; so few planes simply cannot meet the huge annual demand for ‘Battle of Britain’ aircraft appearances at airshows around the UK and in Commonwealth countries around the world. To address this issue, over the past six years the Spitfire Heritage Trust team has been developing an airworthy full scale replica two seater Spitfire, that can be cost effectively produced in small to medium numbers. A prototype is planned to be ready for air-testing in 2019.
The full size, airworthy, near-identical replica, known as a Spitfire Type 2K, is aerodynamically very similar to the original Mk I Spitfire, but will be just over half the weight due to having a carbon fibre technology based monocoque airframe. As part of the critical design stage, all of the structural elements are being developed and optimised using finite-element-analysis software. Preliminary discussions have taken place between the Spitfire Trust’s project team and technical experts in Scott Bader to evaluate the use of an advanced, carbon fibre reinforced composite vacuum infusion laminate system, using the high performance Crestapol 1251PA urethane acrylate resin; in the USA, Crestapol 1250LV has already been used in a replica aircraft development project in combination with carbon/ Innegra hybrid woven fabric reinforcements, cores and other reinforcements to vacuum infuse outer composite skin CFRP fuselage halves which attach to the steel fuselage frame of a replica American WW2 fighter aircraft.
The Spitfire Heritage Trust intends to replicate the Tribute program across the Commonwealth, offering both static and airworthy replicas. The aim for the Trust, given sufficient funding, is to enable many more people and future generations to experience the thrill of seeing a Spitfire flying in skies across the UK and all over the world, and to remember and pay tribute to those from the Commonwealth countries who gave so much during the Second World War.
