Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) The Silver Spitfire

In 22 days time G-IRTY will embark on a truly epic voyage around the world for this rebuilt Mk IX Spitfire. Godspeed.

Silver Spitfire story


And on Faceache .. https://www.facebook.com/thesilverspitfire

Wow that is quite a trip

Looks fantastic in the polished Alloy finish doesn't it? What a great trip, something special in a very evocative machine, the best of luck to all concerned.

I was down at Boultbee a couple of years ago with my 93 year old Dad who wanted to fly in a Spit again, he trained on them during WW2 but the war ended before he could be activated (possibly just as well for my existence!)

The Spitfire always has a special place for me as my late Father flew them in the war, every year at Revival I love seeing them in the circuit and walking amongst them all so this mammoth adventure I shall be following avidly.

I agree Richard, back in the 70's we used to watch the annual airshow at Booker airfield, long before any real control of aircraft and spectator positioning. I recall Ray Hannah flying a Spit wheels up at full bore just in front of spectators, with minimum height between the prop tips and grass. It still gives me a tingle.

Yes David many happy memories of flying displays full of aerobatics from the likes of the late Neil Williams, Barry Tempest whom my father taught to fly at Little Snoring. Neil turned up one day in a Zlin and no one could believe their eyes the stunts he pulled he was a complete master of his art. Father was CFI at Little Snoring, Seething and Felthorpe at the time.

Father, Mac McCaully and Barry would perform aerobatics at various airshows in East Anglia back in the day and occasionally at RAF Coltishall on their open flying days, heady old days they tied the Tiger Moths together with canvas tape and did the routines that way. Father was demobbed from that airfield in 1946 so it was poignant for him to be invited back to display.

Growing up among these giants is a great experience and makes you fear nothing and nobody.

If I concentrate really hard my mind adds another 4 pots to my Plus 8 on my journeys

Hearing an aero v12 certainly sends a shiver right through me, a wonderful sound and quite often they will overfly our house in Devon enroute to a display on the South coast. We always have a marvelous 2 day Airshow at Paignton including a lot of the BBMF exhibiting.

Fantastic memories, it must have been something special watching your Father fly in those displays. As a kid I used to chat to a couple of the Rothmans team who had a flat above Dad's work, lovely chaps one of them drove an old AM Ulster. It seems they had some good parties there too, but alas not invited to those!

You sure your exhaust is OK if it sounds that good, my old (1974) +8 used to split flames out of the exhausts on overrun. But the best was running it 2 miles up and down the A40 to my mates, when we were respraying it. Minus bonnet, cowl, doors, wings, windscreen, plates & oh yeh no exhausts. It felt amazingly quick and sounded like a dragster, thankfully the boys in blue must have been in the next county each time! Oh the irresponsibility of youth.

Funnily enough Barry Tempest flew in the Rothmans team with Neil Williams - he was Poacher turned Gamekeeper and went on to a career with Air Accident Investigations I seem to recall,

I have the Librands dual sports system on mine but it's nowhere as leary as yours sounded, it must have been fantastic with the system off, you sound like a right bunch of likely lads with great memories thanks for sharing some.

Rothmans Teams

Richard you've certainly witnessed some of the greats. In Australia, when I was learning to fly in 1972, Neil Williams was a hero. His book, Aerobatics, was read cover to cover numerous times. His greatest escapade was recovering the Zlin from main spar failure during aerobatics. The failure was in positive G so as he watched one wing beginning to fold upwards he rolled inverted, creating negative G on the spar then flew the aircraft back to the field inverted, rolled upright just before touch down and walked away from the damaged but intact machine. There are pilots and then there are the Neil Williams, Ray Hannas, Barry Tempests...

I remember hearing of that incident very clearly, the sheer presence of mind to think so accurately under pressure was I'm sure down to his RAF training superb talent being a given.

Kerry every one of these "gentlemen" were exactly that and would always take you up for some crazy stuff when they were practising, they were packed with fun and real characters unlike todays sterile PC world we exist in. The World is very much poorer these days I'm sad to say, but hey the kids know no different and the memories never fade.