Smithsonian Air and Space Museum / The Spitfire, built by Supermarine in England, is a single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force throughout WW II. It was designed as a Richard Erwin                                           short-range high performance interceptor and its elliptical wing had a thin cross-section which gave the aircraft a higher maximum speed, 8/10/2009                                                  essential in defending against enemy bombers. Powered by a liquid-cooled V12 engine, it will always be compared with its main adversary,                                                                     the Messerschmitt BF 109.