Attention!
Cette vidéo est disponible en anglais seulement.
Description
Mr. Warren is in one of three squadrons trained for night fighting. He describes being nearly blinded by flames from his Spitfire's exhaust ports, which made takeoff and landing very difficult.
Transcription
Only three Spitfire squadrons were trained to fly at night. At the same we did daytime flying. But the Spitfire was a terrible airplane to fly at night. The flames from the exhaust, you’d sit around with dark glasses on, go out to the airplane, start up, taxi out. You’d have, I won’t say good night vision, but some night vision. You’d open the throttle, the flames would just come back and all your night vision was lost. Then you’d fly around, up in that sky why it wasn’t too bad because you’d throttle back and it was just little blue lights, sort of wasn’t too bad. But you’d come in to land and it’s awkward to land a Spitfire anyhow because the nose is so big and high. She comes up. And you’d throttle back and it would go pop, pop, pop and all the flames would shoot out and you would lose all your night vision again. It was just a terrible airplane for night flying.