Supermarine Aircraft Spitfire Aircraft company and produce all-Australian homebuild aircraft kits. In the event, the constant-speed, four-blade propeller would be obtained from a specialist firm in New Zealand. Supermarine Aircraft is not related to the original British Supermarine company, although the owners of the Supermarine marque have given their permission for the name to be used. The first production model was named the Spitfire Mk25 and was a 75% scale replica of the original Supermarine Spitfire design. The stressed skin structure consists of 2024 aluminium alloy skins, formers and longerons with some fibre-glass mouldings for parts such as fairings and air scoops. The
Supermarine Spitfire against the Luftwaffe; however, because of its higher performance, the overall attrition rate of the Spitfire squadrons was lower than that of the Hurricane units, and the Spitfire units had a higher victory-to-loss ratio. The key aim of Fighter Command was to stop the Luftwaffe's bombers; in practice, whenever possible, the tactic was to use Spitfires to counter German escort fighters, by then based in northern France, particularly the Bf 109s, while the Hurricane squadrons attacked the bombers. Well-known Spitfire pilots included "Johnnie" Johnson—34 enemy aircraft (e/a) shot down—who flew the Spitfire right through his operational career from late 1940