As fine a ship as the Spitfire was I amazed the Brits haven't mentioned the Hawker Hurricain. In of itself a remarkable aircraft. I believe that Douglas Bader had a soft spot in his heart for the Hawkers.

My Dad was a line chief for Bell and Lockhead during the war. He built the P-39 Aircobras and the P-38 Lightnings. He said that the P-38s were really just gun platforms in the air, very fast and very stable. They so much turn about as skid sideways in the air until the stabilizers bit in and they could straighten up again.

The P-39s were determined to be obsolete when they were built but the AAC took em anyway. No very fast and no great ceiling they stayed on the ground in the Pacific after the first year of the war. The AAC gave a mess of them to the Russians who discovered the real potential of the 39 was not as a pursuit fighter but as a tank killer. It could fly on the deck and jump hedge rows because of its lower speed. It had a 47mm cannon in the prop crank that was easy to arm and fire quite quickly. The pilot sat in an armored tub and so was well peotected from ground fire. A very similar story is the A-10 Warthog which was determined a second rate ship until desert storm and it came into its own as a workhorse in the desert for the same reasons as the P-39.

Don