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From: ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Nur Iskandar Taib)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: wing structure etc.
Message-ID: <1990Nov1.023444.10138@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 1 Nov 90 02:34:44 GMT
References: <1990Oct23.190713.7324@cbnews.att.com> <1990Oct26.015709.25351@cbnews.att.com> <1990Oct29.025029.6094@cbnews.att.com>
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From: ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Nur Iskandar Taib)
*>>NO! NO! NO! The Bf108 had a very angular wing, like the
*>>Bf109. The elliptical wing of the Spitfire, which was
*>>incidentally much more difficult to manufacture, has
*>>often been taken to represent British engineering's
*>>quest for the elegant solution and British industry's
*>>traditions of craftsmanship were fully exercised in
*>>making it. The Spitfire took fully three times the
*>>man hours to produce compared with a 109.

My apologies. It was the Heinkel He70 "Blitz" that had the
elliptical wing. Rolls Royce owned one, and used it as a 
test bed for the then-new Merlin. R.J. Mitchell drove by
one day and saw it. At least in Townsend's book, he was
inspired by it when he began design on what would eventual-
ly become the Spitfire.
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Iskandar Taib                        | The only thing worse than Peach ala
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