The Spitfire Mk Vb S/N EN830 was much like the many thousands of Spitfires to roll off Castle Bromwich's production line during the course of World War 2. Equipped with a Merlin 45 engine it would have most likely ended the war forgotten like so many other planes that served in the war had it not been for a series of events that would turn it into one of the most unique Spitfires, with a sad yet surprising story.

It was delivered to No. 131 (County of Kent) Squadron in early June 1942 at RAF Llanbedr where the squadron was undergoing operational training. Bearing the code letters NX X the plane was involved in a landing accident in late August and sat for a time while it was repaired onsite. It would later move with the Squadron to RAF Westhampnett when the squadron began combat operations.

November 18th brought weather ideal for a "Rhubarb" sortie, low cloud cover with poor visibility. During these missions fighters would cross the English Channel flying just below the cloud cover searching for targets of opportunity, both ground and aerial targets where fair game on these missions. On that particular day two Spitfires from 131 Sqn took off on one such mission. P/O Bernard Scheidhauer flying EN830 and P/O Henri de Bordas flying the second. Both pilots where part of the Free French Air Force flying as part of the RAF.

The pair of french pilots crossed the channel arriving at St-Aubin-Sur-Mer, Caen before flying on towards Carentan and Ecausseville in Normandy. It was near Ecausseville that EN830 was hit by flak and became separated from P/O Bordas. In and effort to save the plane P/O Scheidhauer made a forced landing in a field on what he mistakenly thought was the Isle of Wight, but was in fact Nazi occupied Jersey. Unable to locate any petrol to burn the plane both EN830 and P/O Scheidhaeur were captured by the Germans.

P/O Sceidhauer was sent to Stalag Luft III where, paired with Squadron Leader Roger Bushall, he would take part in the "Great Escape". On March 30th, 1944, four days after their escape, along with 48 other Allied POWs he was murdered by the Gestapo at the age of 22.

Despite its crash landing the aircraft was intact and after some repairs it was made flyable and it was flown to the Luftwaffe's test facility at Rechlin, Germany within a month of its capture. It would be given the code CJ-ZY and a number of changes were made to it, including replacing it's 12 volt electrical system was replaced with the Luftwaffe's 24 volt one, and removal of it's armaments. The plane was painted in Luftwaffe test markings and flown in comparative tests against Bf.109s and FW.190s.

Once comparative tests were completed the aircraft was modified to see how it would perform with a German engine. It was found that the Spitfire's fire wall was nearly the same size as the BF.109F, and as such installation of the DB.605A engine would be somewhat straight forward. After fabricating new engine mounts and another modifications the plane was once again ready to fly.

The aim of the experiment was to determine whether the engine would dramatically improve the aircraft’s performance to the point beyond that of the Luftwaffe’s then current BF.109G. The Germans knew they had an excellent engine in the DB 600 series and it was almost always slightly ahead of the Rolls-Royce Merlin series in terms of capability and technology. The results proved startling, with the Bf.109G proving to be faster at lower altitudes, due to the Messerschmitt's smaller dimensions, but above 11,0000 feet that speed advantage went away. The DB605A engined Spitfire proved to have a ceiling of 41.600ft, 5000 feet more the the original Merlin engine and nearly 3200 ft more then the Bf.109G with the same engine. Other results of the testing are unknown, most of the records lost during the course of the war.

The Spitfire ended up at the Messerschmitt factory in Echterdinged, Stuttgart and would spend the next two years as a test bed. It was ultimately destroyed in a United States Army Air Force bombing raid on August 14th, 1944.

<<<<Frankenspit Pack>>>>

Included in this package are two skins representing the same aircraft.

First is a skin for the tech tree, tier 6 Spitfire V wearing the camouflage and markings of EN830 NX-X. Second is a skin for the German premium tier 6 Spitfire Vb DB605 with the markings or Luftwaffe CJ+ZY.

NOTE: Neither of these skins will work properly on the Spitfire Vb IM and it is not recommended that you try this skin on that plane.