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View Full Version : When Did Rotol Get Introduced?



=FI=Murph
Mar-26-2014, 19:43
Lately I have been building missions for myself and a few friends loosley based on fighting during Operation Dynamo. We have mostly flown the HurriI Rotol-100oct. in these missions but I wonder if the Rotol system was in use by then, or were most British fighters still using the DH 2-positon prop at that point in the battle?

=FI=Murph
Mar-27-2014, 00:48
Answering my own question;
http://spitfiresite.com/2010/06/battle-of-britain-1940-constant-speed-propellers.html
It appears all Spit squadrons had them by July 20, all Hurricane and Defiant squadrons by Aug 16.
It looks as though we'll have to learn to fly with the DH5-20 if we want to be historically accurate.

RAF74_Buzzsaw
Mar-27-2014, 04:09
The Hurricane Rotol began to be delivered in numbers in March of 1940.

They were still in a definite minority at the start of the Battle for France in May, and by the end of that month, at the time of Operation Dynamo, they were becoming a larger and larger part of the Hurricane inventory. I would say you would be in the ballpark if you had a 60/40 mix of Hurricane DH5-20 100 octane and Hurricane Rotol 100 octane.

Almost all the Spitfires used during Operation Dynamo were Spit I's. The Rotol equipped Spit IA's arrived much later than the Hurricanes, most of the constant speed Spit I's were converted De Havilland props. These aircraft are actually not in game... as the Spit IA basically is the same. The Spitfire constant speed conversion was done by mid July 1940 after Operation Dynamo.