Mitchell, Reginald Joseph

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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b. 20 May 1895 Talke, near Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England

d. 11 June 1937 Southampton, England

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English aircraft designer.

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He was the son of a headmaster who, when Mitchell was aged 6 years, set up his own printing business. Mitchell was apprenticed at the age of 16 to a locomotive builder in Stoke and also studied engineering, mechanics, mathematics and drawing at night-school. With the outbreak of war in 1914 he became increasingly interested in aircraft and in 1916 joined the Supermarine Aviation Works at Southampton. Such was his talent for aviation design that within three years he had risen to be Chief Engineer Designer. Initially Mitchell's work was concentrated on flying boats, but with the resurrection after the First World War of the biennial Schneider Trophy races for seaplanes he turned his attention increasingly to high-speed floatplanes. He first achieved success with his S-5 in the 1927 race at Venice and followed it up with further victories in 1929 and 1931 with the S-6 and S-6B, enabling Britain to win the trophy outright (See also Royce, Sir Frederick Henry). Using the experience gained from the Schneider Trophy races, Mitchell now began to design fighter aircraft. He was dissatisfied with his first attempt, which was to produce a fighter to an Air Ministry specification, and started afresh on his own. The result was the Supermarine Spitfire, which was to become one of the outstanding aircraft of the Second World War. Sadly, he died of cancer before his project came to full fruition, with the Spitfire not entering Royal Air Force service until June 1938. The success of Mitchell's designs was due to his ability to combine good engineering with aerodynamic grace.

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Principal Honours and Distinctions

Royal Aeronautical Society Silver Medal 1927. CBE 1931.

Further Reading

Ralph Barker, 1971, The Schneider Trophy Races, London: Chatto \& Windus.

CM