As more and more Spitfires arrived in Ihe Island Continent in the 1940s, their pilots were soon found adapting to the local conditions, in fact, with their bucket-beaked Tropical filters, Darwin's ...um "Finches" were soon evolving convergently into "Warhawks" with elliptical wings, quite a different prospect from their brothers dancing acrobatically above the hedgerows of England. Early experience confirmed what everyone had told them, that it was suicide for less experienced pilots to try dogfighting Zeroes, let alone going on-on-one with Zeroes flown by crack pilots of the 3rd Kokutai who were regularly excorting daylight raids in force over Darwin and surrounding outback airfields. While Spitfire pilots tended to look down upon the gutsy Curtiss P40 with disdain, the USAAF's 49th Fighter Group had already set the bar pretty high operating Warhawks over Northern Australia from almost the outset of hostilities. But as the 49'ers moved on to New Guinea, their "niche" in the skies over Darwin was taken up by RAAF's fledgling No. 1 Fighter Wing, a mix of rookies and European Theatre veterans. With improvements in early warning radar and heavier AA defences in Northern Australia, the infrequent heavy daylight raids in 1943 not only had to draw in large numbers of IJN fighter pilots (that it must be said were probably needed elsewhere), it meant the intruders also had to stay very high, really at the upper bounds of the Mitsubishi A6M2 and A6M3's comfort zone. Where of course they found the Spitfire pilots, somewhat wiser, still looking down at them... Rendered in Vue 8 Esprit Assets Bazzes Spitfire VB with my Vc "Tropical" filter substituted Beyond VRs Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" with my texture Thanks for viewing and comments.