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Would be interesting to see those OOBs. There are some circulating in the internet, would be nice to compare them with other sources.
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The source is the RAF's official History of the Battle of Britain by TCG James. I will scan them and post them when I get the chance.
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my understanding is that the authors didn't make any conclusion
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No they just state the facts as they know them. That is one of things that makes their book so good and so far, everything in it has been correct. Their research into the technical development of the Spitfire is profound.
I remember when people loved to post the Mach .98 dives of the recon Spitfire that lost a propeller available on that website "Spitfire Performance" as representative of the diving ability of the aircraft. Anybody with some knowledge of aerodynamics who reads Morgan and Shacklady can immediately spot the issue with that. Not only does the A&AEE officially retract those measurements but it is very easy to spot the fact the A&AEE had their static ports in the wrong location to get any kind of accurate speed measurement from their rake in the original report.
Not their fault, we just did not know as much about transonic flight and the difficulty in obtaining accurate airspeed measurements.
I agree the 800,000 ton strategic reserve requirement be built up before any squadrons convert probably comes from a pre-war estimate.
If it is correct, then there is absolutely no chance a single operational squadron flew with the fuel during the Battle of Britain. England simply did not have enough 100 Octane fuel on hand to come close to that reserve requirement.
Again, that is just speculation on my part. Morgan and Shacklady just listed the two facts we know but they were not writing a book on the history of the Oil Committee and strategic reserves.
1. An 800,000 ton Strategic Reserve was required to be on hand before a single aircraft flew operationally.
2. 16 Squadrons converted in September 1940.
They were doing the technical development of the Spitfire. The 16 squadrons is a very important part of that technical development and inline with the subject they were research. One can look at the 87 Octane consumption on the documents in this thread and easily tell that it was not until after September that 100 Octane became the predominate fuel used by the RAF.