Beyond the Spitfire: The Unseen Designs of R.J. Mitchell

Popular history has a tendency to simplify, and accounts of the life and career of aeronautical engineer R.J. Mitchell are no exception. Remembered most fondly for his epochal Spitfire design, his other designs – many of them failures and disappointments – have largely been ignored.

As a designer for Supermarine, Mitchell produced a huge body of concepts, projects and ideas that never left the drawing board. In Beyond the Spitfire Ralph Pegram brings Mitchell’s previously unseen work to ligh...