Public Release
Several people were involved in the creation of the RCAF Spitfire II paint scheme. The project would not be possible if it weren't for the excellent series of Freeware aircraft created for CFS2 by Graham and the VB Planes team. Graham even went as far as tweaking his model to allow the wings to be repainted with the yellow identification stripe for this project! Well known aircraft painter Tom Stovall kindly provided his talents for the project and went above and beyond the call of duty by providing Virtual RCAF unit members with individually lettered aircraft. Andrew (Chaos) Gallagher spearheaded the project and did extensive photographic research to provide Tom with appropriate references for the paint scheme. "Krazy" provided exhaust smoke effects for the Spitfire as well as a "roll-fixed" damage profile. A huge "thank you" goes out to everyone involved -- especially to Graham and Tom -- and we hope you enjoy flying a Spitfire IIa with a RCAF paint scheme.
Supermarine Spitfire Mk. IIa ~ circa September to October 1941
As recorded in RCAF Squadrons and Aircraft by S. Kostenuk and J. Griffin:
Formed in Canada as No. 1 (Fighter) Squadron on 17 May 1937, the squadron arrived in England in June 1940 and was renumbered No. 401 (Fighter) Squadron at Digby, Lincolnshire on 1 March 1941. It flew Hurricane and Spitfire aircraft on offensive and defensive air operations; and in support of Allied ground forces in North-West Europe. The squadron's final score of 195 enemy aircraft destroyed made it the top-scorer among RCAF fighter squadrons, and it was also the leading fighter unit in the Second Tactical Air Force with 112 air and 15 ground victories. It also held the record for the number of sorties flown. On 5 October 1944 the unit scored the first RAF/RCAF victory over a German Me.262 jet fighter. The squadron was disbanded at Fassberg, Germany on 10 July 1945.
The Supermarine Spitfire was the darling of the Commonwealth Air Forces during World War II and for many years to come. Even today, it often holds the spotlight at air shows in the company of other fine contemporary aircraft such as the Mustang and the FW 190 as well as the more modern jets.
401 Squadron converted to Spitfires in September 1941 initially using the Mk. IIa for two months before converting to the more powerful Mk. V. The paint scheme represents a transitional machine in that it bears the yellow identification stripes on the leading edges of the wings introduced in August 1941 but it has not yet been repainted in the new Dark Green, Ocean Grey, Medium Sea Grey paint scheme adopted by Fighter Command in the European theatre during the Winter and Spring of 1941 - 42.
This is a complete plane. To install:
That's it. You're ready to fly your new RCAF Spitfire IIa.
The RCAF Spitfire Mk IIa aliases the CFS2 P-38F Lightning sounds to keep the download size as small as possible. It's highly recommended that you update the sound folder with one of the Merlin sound packages which are available for a more enjoyable experience. One package is this update of Mike Hambly's recordings by Joe Nageotte available at CFS2 Online. There are other good Merlin sound packages available as well at the various download sites. Experiment with them to find one which suits your tastes.
The VB Spit V panel include with the original MK I release has been updated with a Master Switch to allow you to save your battery after you land and shutdown. Their panel already includes features such as navigation panels and panel switches to access them without going through the menus. If you prefer to use the CFS1 Spitfire panel with the VB Planes series of Spitfires, an alternate panel configuration is included in a separate folder in this package.
In addition to the folks already mentioned above, special thanks go out to Ed Struzynski for his awesome CfgEdit panel configuration utility and Martin Wright for his suite of graphics tools which are absolutely invaluable to the flight simming community.
James J. Halley, The Squadrons of the Royal Air Force and Commonwealth 1918 ~ 1988, Air-Briton (Historians) Ltd., 1988.
S. Kostenuk and J. Griffin, RCAF Squadrons and Aircraft, Canadian War Museum, Samuel Stevens Hakkert & Co., 1977.
Dave McIntosh, High Blue Battle: The War Diary of No. 1 (401) Fighter Squadron, RCAF, Stoddart Publishing Co. Ltd., 1990.
Eric B. Morgan and Edward Shacklady, Spitfire: The History, Key Publishing Ltd., 1987.
Jerry Scutts, Spitfire In Action, Squadron/Signal Publications, 1980.
The contents of this package are © Andrew Gallagher and Rick Rutherford (the authors), not withstanding the additional © of the authors of the individual components, and are released as Freeware. The authors were kindly granted permission by Graham and Tom to repost the VB Spitfire MK 1A plane's contents and the repaint textures as deemed appropriate.
As a condition of use you agree that you will not upload this package to another site without the express permission of the authors. Requests for posting should be directed to Chaos via woody_creek@msn.com. As a further condition of use you agree the authors will not in any way be held responsible for the use of these files.
The RCAF Spitfire IIa update package was prepared for distribution by Rick (Gunner) Rutherford. Please direct any questions regarding installation to Gunner via rc.rutherford@shaw.ca.
Rick (Gunner) Rutherford
rc.rutherford@shaw.ca
February 2, 2002