Very interesting post Trev, and apposite particularly as I am currently reading:
The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain by Stephen Bungay. I'm about halfway through it and it does reconfirm what an extraordinary aircraft the Spitfire was, and as the report says the elliptical wing and also the reliability and power of the Merlin engine was a world-beating combination.
It is a book ultimately distinguished by the trenchancy of its conclusions – that it was the British in the Battle who displayed all the virtues of efficiency, organisation and even ruthlessness we habitually attribute to the Germans, and they who fell short in their amateurism, ill-preparedness, engineering sub-standards and even in their old-fashioned notions of gallantry. An unputdownable read for the military scholar, the management consultant and the general reader alike.
I am enjoying it and heartily recommend it.
