Plagis' Spitfire LF Mk IXc

Description

John Plagis was the highest scoring Southern Rhodesian ace of the Second World War, achieving at least 16 aerial victories. Plagis flew the Spitfire LF Mk IX (coded "5J-K", tail number ML214) between 20 June to 7 October 1944 and scored four air victories. While participating in Operation Market Garden, he was shot down by anti-aircraft fire over Arnhem, Netherlands, though he was able to walk away with only minor injuries. His squadron was later re-equipped with Mustang IIIs, in which he served in bomber escort roles until the end of the war. After the war, he flew Gloster Meteors and other jet aircraft until his retirement in 1948.

Introduced in Update 1.49 "Weapons of Victory", Plagis' Spitfire LF Mk IX is very much a short range, point interceptor fighter and the stand-out fighter in the mid Spitfire line-up. It features an exceptional rate of climb, whilst still retaining the manoeuvrability of its early lineage. The LF Mk IX is considered by many to be the perfect Spitfire due to its balanced all-round performance and impressive statistics. The last of the Merlin-engined Spitfires before progressing on to the Griffon-powered variants, it has the perfect balance of turning performance (second only to its Japanese counterparts) as well as its "Boom and Zoom" capability that becomes more possible with later model Spitfires. However, being equipped with the "C" type wing, the Mk IXc is armed with four Browning .303 machine guns to accompany its twin Hispano cannons, which are rather weak compared to the twin .50 cal M2 Browning and Hispano format of contemporary Spitfire models.

Plagis' Spitfire was removed from the Gaijin store in May 2016. It has been made available again in the store for the 2020 "80^th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain" event and the 2021 May sale. It has also been available in-game for Golden Eagles for a limited time during the British 2018 "Royal Air Force Centenary", the 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 "Battle of Britain Day" and the 2022 "Spitfire Mk.IX first flight" mini-events.

General info

Flight performance

The Spitfire LF Mk IX is very much a short range, point interceptor fighter and the stand out fighter in the mid-Spitfire lineup. It features an exceptional rate of climb, whilst still retaining the manoeuvrability of its early lineage. The LF IX is considered by most to be the perfect Spitfire due to its balanced all-round performance and impressive statistics. The last of the Merlin engine Spitfires before progressing on to the Griffon powered variants, has the perfect balance of turning performance (second only to its Japanese counterparts) as well as its "Boom and Zoom" capability that becomes more possible with later model Spitfires.

Details

Survivability and armour

• 38 mm Bulletproof glass - Armoured windscreen
• 4 mm Steel plate in pilot's seat
• 6-7 mm Steel plate behind the pilot
• 3 mm Steel plates above and around the fuselage fuel tank
• 3 mm Steel plates around the wing ammunition

Modifications and economy

Armaments

Offensive armament

Plagis' Spitfire LF Mk IXc is armed with:

• 2 x 20 mm Hispano Mk.II cannons, wing-mounted (120 rpg = 240 total)
• 4 x 7.7 mm Browning machine guns, wing-mounted (350 rpg = 1,400 total)

Suspended armament

Plagis' Spitfire LF Mk IXc can be outfitted with the following ordnance:

• Without load
• 1 x 250 lb AN-M57 bomb (250 lb total)

Usage in battles

Plagis' Spitfire is a capable fighter which plays similar to the Spitfire Mk.IX, but with minor changes.

A recommended play-style is climbing directly through the enemies climb path to cut it off and get directly above them using your superior climb rate. This will stop them from getting above you into their favourable territory.

If this fails, try baiting the enemy planes down to a lower altitude and turn engaging in a turn fight with them.

Some tactics to drag them down without getting shot down yourself are these:

• When they are diving on your six pull up to a 40-degree angle, when they are 0.80 km away from you, please note that this only works when they approach from a high angle, otherwise roll down and then hard left.

• When they engage from the sides roll and go towards their direction, do not perform a head-on but dive under them, if they follow they will burn a lot of energy.

• If they engage from the front for a boom and zoom dive down and turn hard left and then immediately a hard right shaking them off or wasting their energy.

As for climbing, the optimal airspeed is 240 km/h, or use 20 degrees for a rush and 30 degrees to gain altitude fast. Do not dive over 700 km/h if this happens, pull up slowly. Wings will rip with positive G forces at 540 km/h after that make small turns. The aircraft can not handle negative G forces at all, only perform under 300 km/h recommended to roll over.

Manual Engine Control

As with all the other British planes, this plane is also very forgiving when using Manual Engine Settings.

• Prop pitch: This should be set to 100% when climbing to utilize its superior climb rate. This will come in handy both at the start of a match and during combat. However when in level flight or chasing another plane this can be set back as far to 70-80% to get a few more km/h (or mph).
• Radiator: as soon as you unlock the radiator module you can set this to 30% and leave it there for the entire match. On Sicily however, you want to set it to 35-40% until you reach 6,000 m (19,685 feet).
• Supercharger: Switching this at 2,000 m (6,561 feet) will give you quite a boost in performance and it will retain it's climb rate up until 4,500 m after it will suffer miserably but still climb better than almost every plane. Therefore the supercharger gears should be switched at 2 km (6,561 feet) altitude.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• One of the best climb rates of any propeller driven aircraft in the game
• Excellent low altitude performance
• Great all around manoeuvrability
• Good low-level performance (below 7 km)
• The .303 Brownings have similar ballistics with the Hispanos and can act as a guide when aiming
• Good dive control
• Great energy retention

Cons:

• Not a lot of ammo, must be conservative when shooting
• Hispanos tend to jam quick, leaving you with only the machine guns
• Poor mid-high altitude performance
• Fragile, will not take any punishment at all
• .303 Brownings don't do much damage
• Really low flap ripping speed
• Average acceleration

History

Describe the history of the creation and combat usage of the aircraft in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too long, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the vehicle and adding a block "/History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Vehicle-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref></ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article with <references />. This section may also include the vehicle's dev blog entry (if applicable) and the in-game encyclopedia description (under === In-game description ===, also if applicable).

Notable pilots

Top scoring Southern Rhodesian ace pilot John Plagis and highest scoring pilot of Greek origin of WW II. Plagis flew the Spitfire Mk IXc towards the end of the war before transitioning to Mustang IIIs.

Media

Skins

• Skins and camouflages for Plagis' Spitfire LF Mk IXc from live.warthunder.com.

Videos

See also

Other late Merlin-engine LF variant Spitfires

• Spitfire LF Mk IXc (USA)
• Spitfire LF Mk IX
• Spitfire LF Mk.IX Weizman's (Israel)

External links

• [Article Series] Weapons of Victory: Plagis' Spitfire Mk. IXc
• Official data sheet - more details about the performance