Sopwith Camel and Spitfire flying in formation 

Ha! The spit during formation flighy is near stall speed and barely hangin on. The camel is right in her prime.

DavidELD It's all *relative* . The Spitfire was equally outdated by the dawn of fighter jets and all piston-engined fighters were deemed slow and obsolete by the Korean War of the early 50's already. A Sopwith Camel was a lethal plane at the hand of a skilled pilot in WWI, which is why it shot down more enemy planes than any other plane in WWI. The Wright Flyer couldn't even launch itself without a catapult and got some design elements wrong - such as the ailerons being at the front. By contrast the Camel was a practical aircraft with several times the range, altitude and speed of the Wright Flyer. As such you clearly know nothing. But alas silly people never deal in relatives and always in absolutes.

True True

@@SulCoCrazy I wonder why the pilot didn’t drop the flaps a bit.

16 years from the Wrights to the Camel. 17 years from the Camel to the Spitfire. 10 years from the Spitfire to the first jet fighter (Me 262). 5 years (yes, 5 years) from the Me 262 to the first supersonic flight (Bell X-1). 6 years from the Bell X-1 to the first supersonic jet fighter (F-100 Super Sabre). From the Super Sabre to the first Mach 2 fighter with supercruise (the Camel’s and Spitfire’s grandson, the English Electric Lightning), 6 years. From the Lightning to landing on the moon, 9 years.

30 mph above stalling speed, no need for flaps, it is a Spitfire not a P 47

With British accent of course Sir.

+John Lohr Try to think and put yourself doing the time of WWI pilots going through those take offs and landings and dog fights then look how the Sopwith Camel operates and maneuvers from the Allies point of view and the enemy axis. It Was a deadly Adversary in it's own rights during the WWI Era. 10 Kills was a Ace During WWI Cause of the way they worked and the pilots flew without air mask or anything to keep them warm except their clothes their wearing and their scarf and look how this taking and landing is so hard also. TOP of the line Performance Back Then. Not to mention Air Fighting was almost Unheard of back then it was just coming into existence.

+John Lohr God Bless ya John !!! I flew in a B-17 as a civilian in 1994 (50th anniversary), just an amazing experience. And so much better when no one is shooting at you ! : ) My father served in the Navy during WWII and Korea.

god bless you mr. lohr, thanks from an english patriot for your service...

That Spitfire Mk IX was not really a late model, they first entered service in 1942, they continued trough the war, there were 10 models made after the Mk IX.

Probably because the Camel was the top scoring fighter of WW I, the Spitfire the yop allied fighter of WW II, unfortunatelt there are no original Bf 109's.

Funny how the cheapest jet airliners today operated by small charter airlines in smaller nations can easily outrun them both. Heck, TGV trains can outrun the Spitfire at max speed.

I liked, now let me try

It’s remarkable that many WW1 pilots lived to see the moon landings and the Concord.

+AIDS Bjorn You are thinking of The Final Countdown!!!!! lol, the Nimitz, protecting America since December 6th, 1941!

Nah, they look remarkably similar in layout with a propeller driving the aircraft and wide wings up front. Now a delta-winged fighter jet *would* indeed look extraterrestrial because there is no propeller to propel it forward, no long-wide wings and no internal combustion engine sound. I don't think a Camel pilot would be scared out of his mind merely thinking he had encountered some new prototype metal-plane (those existed at the end of WWI already) - certainly not if he learned that it's British. It has a propeller and is clearly driven by a piston engine. In layout it's similar. Sleek body, wide wings up front. A 60's fighter delta-wing fighter jet would be a lot harder to place. How does it even fly with no propeller? (Thermo-jets or motor-jets were virtually unknown during both WWI and WWII). A WWI pilot could get into a Spitfire and learn to fly it immediately. Trying to handle a jet on the other hand... They had special jet pilot schools at the end of WWII (both the Germans and British) because they were fundamentally different.