Supermarine Spitfire Mk I / Mk II
The original eight-gun Spitfire that fought the Battle of Britain · First flight 1936 · In service 1938
The prototype Spitfire, K5054, first flew on 5 March 1936, and the first production Mk I entered service with No. 19 Squadron at RAF Duxford on 4 August 1938. The Mk I was powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin and armed with eight .303 in Browning machine guns in the thin elliptical wing; a cannon-armed Mk IB with two 20 mm Hispanos followed. Supermarine built 1,517 Mk Is between May 1938 and March 1941, with a further 50 from Westland.
The Mk II, with the more powerful Merlin XII, was the first version built exclusively at the huge Nuffield shadow factory at Castle Bromwich, which produced all 921 of them as eight-gun IIAs and cannon-armed IIBs. Mk Is and early Mk IIs fought alongside the Hurricane through the Battle of Britain in the summer and autumn of 1940.
Several early Spitfires still fly. The RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight operates Mk IIA P7350, a Castle Bromwich aircraft that flew in the Battle of Britain, while restored Mk Is such as N3200 and X4650 display at Duxford.
