Yeah, I was impressed, even with the artistic license taken with some of the facts. This movie really makes you feel what it was like to be on the beach, or up in a Spitfire, trying to survive. Scary stuff.
As I watched that movie, I kept thinking about the fact that the Spitfire Mk. 1 had a gravity-fed carburetor - not the fuel injection that the Messerschmidt Bf-109 fighters had. So, when they did tight maneuvers in combat, their engine was often starved for fuel at the worst time.
This was the German pilots’ first real opportunity to face the Spitfire in combat, as many of you know. The Spitfire could out-turn the Messerschmidt Bf-109 fighter and impressed Adolf Galland, the German ace and eventual head of the German fighter defense forces, enough that when Reichsmarshall Goering asked him what further resources he needed for his fighter group during the Battle of Britain, Galland replied that he would like a staffeln of Spitfires. That didn’t go over well with Goering, of course. But the early Spitfires were at a distinct disadvantage versus their German opponents when it counted most, with regard to their engines cutting off in certain maneuvers.