: Does anyone know what the (WW II) British Spitfire airplane was constructed from?

The one my dad built was balsa and tissue paper, skin on frame I guess. Hung in the kitchen for years. The '48 Luscombe tied down out behind the barn was unique for light aircraft of the period in that it had an all aluminum fuselage. The '48 also had all aluminum wings, control surfaces and prop.

The Submarine Spitfire was also an aluminum monocoupe. Some of the Marks may have used a small amount plywood for interior structures but not any great amounts. Fighter aircraft, like kayaks want to be light. The early Marks had wooden props, which had a nasty habit of coming apart. By the time of the Battle of Britain they had been replaced with alloy props. Almost all the fighters and other aircraft produced in WWII were made of aluminum alloys. Some were skin on frame others monocoupe. Gliders were considered one mission aircraft. The American Waco models were plywood and canvas skins over wood and aluminum frames.

The Alcoa Company was producing large quantities of aluminum by the '30's. It effectively had a monopoly and kept the cost of the metal high. The federal government brought an anti-trust action against Alcoa to break it up. Like much anti-trust litigation this case dragged on for years, hell, decades. In the '50's the court ruled that Alcoa was indeed in violation of the Sherman Anti-trust Act. However the judge found that with the passage of time and the entry of the federal government into the aluminum production during WWII, Alcoa had lost its monopoly. He then dismissed the case. So all the lawyers who had spent their careers on the case went out and had a drink and agreed that it had been good fun.

The U. S. produced very large amounts of aluminum for aircraft and other production during the war. Britain and Germany both used wood in the production of aircraft due to inadequate raw materials and production capacities. The British Mosquito night fighter was probably the most advanced wooden aircraft ever developed for production. They were built of molded plywood and bonded by cooking in large ovens. After the war many production boats and yachts were successfully built using these methods. The German attempts were less successful.

An old sailing friend, who has now passed away, regaled me one afternoon with stories of his wartime experiences as a metallurgist for General Motors at their New Jersey torpedo bomber factory. He claimed to have been the first American to discover duralumin. He discovered it when he was assigned to analyze the skin on the first Mitsubishi Zero captured. To his surprise he couldn't cut the thin sheet aluminum covering the wrecked plane with metal shears. The skin turned out to be very high strength aluminum alloy that we were not aware of. Analysis of the alloy revealed its secrets and we began making it for our own aircraft. The alloy is what allowed the Zero to be built so lightly. Its light weight gave superior manuverability.