Ezer Weizman – Spitfire pilot

As Moggy said Alex, welcome to our happy band. Why not start your own thread and tell us some of your memories. I feel sure you would be well read.

Mike

Black 57

Welcome Alex, do stick around.

I am sure many of us would be happy to read anything you’d like to share from your IAF days.

Moggy

Hi Moggy,

I feel that this thread is about the MAN and about Black 57. I do have of course lots of “Stories” after 22 years in uniform, but maybe there is another thread more appropriate for other such general things.

I will post here chapters of the construction story of my Black 57, maybe others out there are also involved with the sport.

Cheers
Alex

Welcome Alex, do stick around.

I am sure many of us would be happy to read anything you’d like to share from your IAF days.

Moggy

I am an ex IAF Lt. Colonel retired, living in Australia and involved with Radio Control Model Airplanes. I am about to start construction of a Spitfire and was looking for images of the Black 57, very happy I found it here.
Shortly after the start of my service, in 1962 I had a “Funny” encounter with Mr. Weizman and for all the years after that, we used to lough on this on various occasions. I loved and respected the man and this little toy I am now building is in his memory.

Hope to see the real machine in the air again one day…

Life is like a Box of Chocolate…

“Not looking great” is rotting in a field.

In a shop undergoing maintenance IS “looking great”!

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This isn’t looking so great these days. Photographed this morning in Tel Aviv.

A better picture of the Black Spit flying over Ezer Weizman’s tomb.

My grandfather knew Ezer Weizman, from the days of the Israeli independence war.
My grandfather was a member of Kibbutz Revivim, which was cut off from the rest of the young Jewish state. One member in Revivim was the daughter of the woman that in the future would become the first female Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir. When Meir wanted to visit her daughter, it was Ezer Weizman that flew her to Revivim in a Piper. When they landed, Ezer used to walk around the Kibbutz and talk to the ladies, and the Kibbutz members, including my grandfather, sat in a room with Ezer and Golda Meir, and they told them about what was going on in the rest of Israel and the war. My grandfather remembers Weizman as a happy young man, he used to grab Meir’s daughter and start dancing with her. He remembers him as an unusual combination of a rude and almost savage young man, but in the same time a loving person, with a great warm heart, a sense of humor and a man of honor. Ezer Weizman continued to be the same until his death.
One thing is sure – Golda Meir wasn’t too happy with him. “That Ezer”, she said, “is driving me crazy with his flight”. He used to shake the plane very hard to make her crazy 😀

‘The Times’ of London, today 26 April, dedicates 1.2 complete pages to an obituary to Ezer Weizman, the President of Israel who died on 18 April.

A Sergeant Pilot in the RAF flying Spitfires in WWII,

FWIW Yup. My dad said he was in his group/cohort/whatever at 73 OTU at Fayid, Egypt in 1945. I understand that Egypt at that time might not have been a terribly hospitable place to be for someone who was instrumental in founding the state of Israel a little later.

Mark12, if you ever get a chance you should ask Stan Colley (qv in earlier thread) if he knew Weizman when he was at Fayid.

Rob / Kansan

Get some photos, if you can (pretty please!). This is one Spit I can safely say I can’t get enough of! 🙂

I’ll do my best, if I’ll manage to get there 😉

Is this the only Spitfire to have remained in airworthy condition since manufacture and has never been through a major re-build?

I would think PM631 would be another that fits this specification.

Mark

Get some photos, if you can (pretty please!). This is one Spit I can safely say I can’t get enough of! 🙂

I don’t know exactly how many hours this machine has flown but I suspect that it is relatively few in any one year and there have been times when it has been ‘down’ for some period. The civilian contractors who maintain it went deeper than ever previously in the last round of maintenance following the x-ray procedure of another ‘friendly military operator’.

I have a copy of the aircraft logbook from July 1955, the end of its military service, and total time on the airframe was 486 hours. I doubt that its got more than 1000 hours total by now even 50 years on.

The Israelis have always been very protective of the hours flown and selective of the very few pilots that have flown it.

Renown test pilot Danny Shapira, who was the sole pilot for many many years, once told me that he always advised everybody what a tricky little aircraft it was to fly and winked.

Well he would say that wouldn’t he?

Mark

Actually it’s only flying during the holidays, so it doesn’t have a lot of flying hours in its history.
It also flew yesterday over Ezer Weizman’s tomb in the end of his funeral, very low and in two circuits, following some F-16s. Since it is Passover it’s also flying every day over the IAF museum. I hope to be there in friday.

One for Will (taken from www.militaryairshows.net)

Total time

I don’t know exactly how many hours this machine has flown but I suspect that it is relatively few in any one year and there have been times when it has been ‘down’ for some period. The civilian contractors who maintain it went deeper than ever previously in the last round of maintenance following the x-ray procedure of another ‘friendly military operator’.

I have a copy of the aircraft logbook from July 1955, the end of its military service, and total time on the airframe was 486 hours. I doubt that its got more than 1000 hours total by now even 50 years on.

The Israelis have always been very protective of the hours flown and selective of the very few pilots that have flown it.

Renown test pilot Danny Shapira, who was the sole pilot for many many years, once told me that he always advised everybody what a tricky little aircraft it was to fly and winked.

Well he would say that wouldn’t he?

Mark

Wow, a beautiful machine that I had not seen decent pictures of before. Since we have had Israel’s F15 over here for airshows, maybe it could be tempted over for Legends some day?

Which gets me thinking, it would look fantastic in formation with the silver Dutch Spitfire and the green Irish one, a flypast of ‘export’ Spits in highly distinctive liveries. Are there any other flyable examples in exotic colour schemes, or plans to restore one into a foreign scheme?

I suspected as much – thanks Erez 🙂

Hi Mark, thanks and yes I should have said excluding MH434 as it has at least had a major refurbishment (perhaps not as far as a ground up re-build but major work nontheless).

Just a couple of years ago there was a fear that the Black Spit would never fly again, as due to its old age it became risky to fly, but it was decided to put it in a rather long overhaul. However, other than that, this plane flew for long years before needing any major repair and it is one of the few if not the only Spitfire that remained in flying order since it was manufactured until today.

Hi Mark, thanks and yes I should have said excluding MH434 as it has at least had a major refurbishment (perhaps not as far as a ground up re-build but major work nontheless).

. Is this the only Spitfire to have remained in airworthy condition since manufacture and has never been through a major re-build?

Some might include MH434 in that category but I guess you would have to define ‘major re-build’.

A total rivets up restoration ?

Mark