'95% original' film star Spitfire could be yours for a mere £4.5m (or 0.05 Pogbas) Fancy buying an almost-original and flyable Second World War Supermarine Spitfire? If you've got £4.5m gathering dust in the bank, today might be your lucky day. Spitfire LF Mk.IXB MH415 is up for sale, with various news outlets reporting its sale price as around £4.5m. Built in 1943, the veteran of two wars and several …
In 2017 I went up in a dual-seat Spitfire (thanks Aero Legends), only finding out just before take-off that I would get to actually fly the plane.
Without a doubt, the BEST two and a half grand I have ever spent!!
The only problem is - when the first plane you've flown is a Spitfire, where the hell do you go after that? (Answer, start saving up for another trip)
Yes. But it costs a lot more. Inspiration4 Mission
So true!
After the physical experience of flying it, I had almost-physical flashbacks for a few months while dreaming - anyone else who has skied had "skiing dreams" like I used to?
I like to think that there's a little bit of that physical feedback still hiding away in my spinal column somewhere.
Wot? A 40s era fighter -> 60s - 80s V bomber.
I'm a fan of the "back room boys" but I'm not too sure how you go from single prop engined local air defence fighter to eight jet engined long range nuclear nasty delivery platform.
I suggest the Lightning instead if you are going for that era - the one that was a couple of fireworks ... er engines ... with a pilot strapped on as an afterthought, rather than the modern funky thang.
I sort of grew up in the era of muscle strike aircraft, in West Germany (I'm a Brit). As a child I watched say two flights of four Phantoms on full afterburners playing silly buggers just after take off, because they could. I was in a playgound at the time. I saw Star Fighters, Jaguars and other exotic beasts. Buccaneers for the Navy. My dad flew around in various odd "staff cars". He started off with a Sioux - his pilot in that was called "big skin" a big lad, so he had to take a bit of a run up to take off - not too much power there. Later on a Gazelle - GB + France's prettiest ever heli.
Whoops, I digress.
Fun Fact: the Vulcan, despite being the awesomely renowned catastrophic ear-destroyer partypiece at airshows/shows-in-general (almost unbelievable if you've been there), could also operate in a very effective "stealth mode".
I discovered this while hiking through the Hampshire hangers (low steepish hills), pausing as I exited one valley and looking sideways. A bloody Vulcan appeared, completely silently, climbed (clumb?) over the opposite ridge at no more than 100ft, flying nap-of-the-earth, dropped down into the valley, climbed with the hill and went directly overhead of me. I've been in position to precisely determine a Hurricane at less than 30ft directly overhead (someone taking an illegal jaunt early one morning --scudding about under the radar just above the forest top and dropping down as the forest broke for fields-- came back and belted over the top of thumbs-up-waving me with his wings slightly above the low 2 storey rugby club we were beside) and I'd estimate that Vulcan around 50-60ft overhead: around a 5 storey building.
It was completely silent until it reached the bottom of the valley -- if I hadn't been looking that way, I'd have missed it entirely. Even then almost entirely inaudible until it was past me. As it climbed up the hill towards me, there was a verrrrry faint wind whistle --literally-- and as it got quite close a slight hum. Only attributable to the plane if you're looking directly at it, barely noticeable. Once past me, though: suddenly you could clearly hear recognisable jet engines (briefly), albeit even then not loud despite climbing with the hill slope.
But if it's coming straight at you, it's low, and it's only doing a coupla hundred miles an hour, it's essentially silent.
Damndest thing.
You want a silent warplane, look no further than the A10 Warthog. It will fly over your head for hours, and unless you look at it you wouldn't know it was there. If you see its shadow it looks like a bird of prey lazily floating along. The plane itself can putter so slowly it almost looks like it's hovering.
If you're on the wrong side, the first thing you'll see is the 4 acres of land you're standing on explode for no apparent reason. A few seconds later, you'll hear the plane. BRRP! Just 2-3 seconds worth of noise and it sounds like it's burping, not firing. You can almost hear the "pardon me."
When I was a kid back in the 70s, we used to go on holiday every year to a seaside town that was a few miles from an RAF base where Vulcans were kept. They were still in active service then,
They were a magnificent aircraft, and I used to love watching them fly overhead at low level, coming and going on whatever it was they were doing over The North Sea.
I'm a fan of the "back room boys" but I'm not too sure how you go from single prop engined local air defence fighter to eight jet engined long range nuclear nasty delivery platform.
The Vulcan only had 4 engines, maybe you are thinking of a B52. But if you'd seen the Vulcan doing a full air display in the 70's or even the more limited displays after the return to flight from 2007 to 2015, you could try telling the thing it was just a delivery platform and not a fighter, but it wouldn't have believed you.
"Wot? A 40s era fighter -> 60s - 80s V bomber."
Depends on the personal preferences of the OP. Is he in love with fighters of the same era or iconic British aircraft in general? I was assuming the latter, you are assuming the former. We might both be wrong.
When in the Royal Navy (several decades back), one of the most enjoyable aspects of my job was to fly in aircraft with 'rogue' problems.
This is the case when aircrew report a problem with the aircraft but it simply will not show up in ground testing no matter how hard you look and usually it had happened multiple times.
The absolute highlight was flying the back of an F-4 being launched from an aircraft carrier.
I remember sinking into the seat at breakout (that is when you start travelling down the cat).
The recovery was interesting - on approach the carrier looked about the size of a postage stamp and although the aircraft pitches nose down after taking the arrester wire by perhaps 5 or 10 degrees, it felt more like 60
Icon because...
Was lucky enough to see the last flying Vulcan at air shows when they were still able to put the engines on full chat as they climbed away.
And on its farewell tour it came along the north Kent coast and did a 90 deg turn towards Manston pretty much right over our house - sad day.
I was filling my Range Rover Classic with LPG at a facility way out in the sticks, when I heard a low whistling noise coming from over the fields. I looked up and watched a Vulcan (last one, I think) gracefully and almost silently approach at low level, pass directly over my head, and disappear off to the North.
Similarly, more recently I was mowing the lawn and heard the unmistakable music of four Merlin engines. I switched off the mower and stood and watched the last Lancaster flying in this country pass slowly by a few hundred yards away over the village. I later went on the webpage to discover that it was on its way down from an airshow in Blackpool to another one near Bristol. As they had all week to make the transfer, they were only loafing along, so I had a good long look at it.
Many years ago, I was on holiday with my family. We were driving west towards Cardigan Bay, and my route took me off the main A road and onto a B road that ran parallel but descended the side of a valley and along the river at the bottom. As I turned right off the A road and then left to descend the hill, I glanced in my mirror and was astonished to see a Hercules galloping down the valley. It passed me on the right hand side, so low and close that I could see into the cockpit.
I sometimes go to a music festival near RAF Coningsby, and as festival season is also air-show season, you can often see the BBMF flying back and forth.
Nothing like relaxing with a beer in the sun, when a Lancaster zooms overhead at what felt like 50m :)
No connection, but I can heartily recommend Aero Legends at Headcorn aerodrome - my pilot "Parky" is ex-BBMF and Red Arrows and an utter gentleman.
And flying out of Headcorn (previously RAF Lashenden) you and the Spit take off and land on a grass runway - somehow to me flying one from tarmac wouldn't quite be the same.
It has always puzzled me why when after RR had developed a two speed two stage engine they went and cropped the impeller. The whole point of the Merlin 60 series was, to the best of my knowledge, an attempt to boost the high altitude performance of the engine. So why alter it to boost low altitude performance?
I note the the Seafire L3 was not fitted with this engine but a Merlin 55 also with a cropped impeller, so why the difference? Surely it would be better to settle on one engine mark optimised for low altitude performance than to spread your energies in producing a lot of variants.
I am sure that there is a reason for this but I have not been able to find it after looking for years.
I think it had to do with the changing tactical and strategic needs as the war moved on in Europe. The air war was being won and the military needed ground attack aircraft as well as bomber escorts. Best to modify what they had and were building than to design a new aircraft.
was dominated by the Mosquito and Typhoon in the latter years of the war. The mosquito could carry more bombs than a B-17. The Mossie attack on the Amiens prison is one of the outstanding raids of WW2. If it sounds like I'm a Mossie fan then I am. My Uncle flew them from 1943 to 1946.
Well the Mosquito was a damned good looking aircraft, as most of De Havilland aircraft are but the Spitfire is surely one of the most beautiful things ever made, and to watch them going through their paces over my house in the summertime is a thing of joy,
But best ever aircraft of all time? It depends on what you mean by best. The Spitfire could not carry the load of a Mosquito but it was a better interceptor. It did not have the legs of a P51 Mustang but then it was not designed for long range work.
But in one thing the Mosquito was the best, it was there at the right time, with the right people flying and maintaining it and we all owe a debt to the machines and people for keeping us free of the evils of Naziism.
The Spitfire is without doubt a thing of great beauty and I am an admirer but the Mosquito is not without impressive statistics. When the Mosquito first flew in November 1940, the chase plane, a Spitfire, could not keep up. The Mosquito was, at that time the fastest aircraft to have ever flown.
Assuming it's OK to plug an organisation I volunteer for here, then have a butchers at https://www.peoplesmosquito.org.uk/ if you've not already done so. Plans are in place, and construction of an airworthy UK-built Mosquito is well underway.
We should have the stall and the collecting buckets out again at UK airshows in 2020 - pay us a visit if you're at a show. We need your support.
I remember one of the pilots describing how, as they belted along just above the buildings, he looked up and saw one of the other mozzies directly above him, and dropping lower. So he went lower, and they went lower, and... and he did the last of the run actually flying down the street _between_ the buildings with another chap just above him.
What is the saying? Ship of Theseus? Since this airplane used to be used for airshows instead of being stuck in a museum, it had so many parts replaced ove the decades that at this point is more of a functioning reproduction that the original plane.
And you can get a functioning replica for less that this.
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