SpitfireHardcover, 1 March 2015

The ancestry of the Spitfire can be traced back to the failed Supermarine Type 224, designed to meet the Air Ministry specification F.7/30 by Reginald J. Mitchell, creator of the magnificent Supermarine seaplanes which won three successive Schneider Trophy contests. The Type 224 was a gull-winged monoplane with a fixed "trousered" undercarriage, powered by a 600-h.p. Rolls-Royce engine, and Mitchell was dissatisfied with it even before it flew. He began to design a new aircraft as a private venture; the conception was revised twice, to incorporate the new P.V.12 (Merlin) engine and an eight-gun battery and the final design was accepted by the Air Ministry in January 1935, the new specification F.37/34 being "written around it" for contract purposes. The prototype first flew on 5th March 1936. Little book of Spitfire provides a concise history of this great WW2 fighter planes.