The footage of the recent flypast marking the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33970545) is inspiring stuff for any engineer, but I think it also offers a lesson on product development and the need for innovation.
The 1930s saw aircraft performance race forward, fuelled by a potent mix of new materials, more powerful engines and a global arms race. As today, companies were driven to bring products to market under greater pressures than ever before.
Hawker, a company with a history of producing successful biplanes stuck with what they knew and made the Hurricane. Although a huge move forward in terms of performance over the planes it replaced, design wise – with its tubular fuselage and canvas skin – the Hurricane was just an incremental improvement over them. This is where I’ll likely start upsetting the very passionate bunch that are plane spotters (I should know, I am one!), but if you remove the top wing of the biplanes it replaced it’s hard to tell the difference (http://daniel-wales-images.deviantart.com/art/Hawker-Sea-Hurricane-and-Gloster-Gladiator-551887375).
Supermarine took a different approach. Maybe because their main product line had previously been large seaplanes they found it easier to innovate, but what they created in the Spitfire was truly revolutionary. With its composite thin wing and stressed skin fuselage the plane was something new and looked it. Supermarine had left behind the gradual evolution which had not fundamentally progressed since the First World War and advanced to the still yet to arrive jet age. That the Spitfire was a class apart was reflected in not only its beauty but also its performance.
It would be wrong though to suggest that the Spitfire appeared out of nowhere. Supermarine had invested heavily in developing a series of racing planes for the Schneider Trophy races, culminating in the S.6B of 1931 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_S.6B). As today, back then the commercial product was only possible after a research and development programme which developed both the technical skills necessary to build the aircraft and the relationship with engine provider Rolls Royce, who would power both the S.6B and the Spitfire.
Historians continue to argue over the significance that each plane played in the Battle 75 years ago and, for balance, I have to include the facts that Hurricanes significantly outnumbered Spitfires in service and downed more enemy aircraft. But while the last Hurricanes retired from the RAF shortly after the war, the Spitfire’s potential for development meant it would serve until the mid-fifties.
The public fell in love with the Spitfire and still are to this day. So the lesson for innovation and product development? If you want to make a product that will not only be remembered but seen as a national symbol nearly 80 years after its launch, not only must it truly be a leader its field but also move that field on to the next era.