Kelvingrove Museum Spitfire LA198

LA198

As a young lad of 13 and a half I used to sit in LA198 and help start her up! Sounds unlikely I know but I was an air cadet then with 187 City of Worcester Sqn ATC. I was quite new to the sqn and six months later the ac went to take part in the movie The Battle of Britain. To our dismay she never came back but was replaced by a Javlin. I can still hear the raw of 198’s Griffon engine. It used to scare me but I liked the thrill. We couldnt take her up to full throttle or she would have jumped the chocks and ended up in the main billit hall! Someone had to sit on the tail to stop it rising. They would have been blown off too!. She was in bare metal then, all silver. Can you imagine a 13 and half year old being allowed to do that today? Talking of today im now 54 and a flying instructor at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. Anyone fancy a lesson?? Regards, Steve

The restoration is pretty good, but the fastidious will notice a couple of minor errors – notably the lack of yellow warning bands on the tips of the rear of the props!

I also suspect the roundel reds are wrong, but that is more subjective!

The Elephant goes by the name of Sir Roger..strange but true!

I was involved in the process of getting LA198 strung up in the roof of the Kelvingrove a couple of years back. The place was a building site with much refurbishment work going on, quite a task to get the Spit from the Transport Museum across the road, through the narrow entrance of the Kelvingrove.

Whilst this was all going on Sir Roger lived in a large wooden box to protect him from the ongoing work. He has lived there since the early 1900s, just too large to be moved out during the work.

Must admit I was also taken aback by the concept of it all…but what the hell.

No I have not been drinking…check out the Kelvingrove website for details on the effylump.

Chumpy.

From the angle of the first pic, ‘198 looks like she’s helping to further endanger the Indian elephant! :diablo:

I was there last year. Fascinating museum.

I disagree – it looks like it is coming into land

Like all the Spits sitting on the ground doing nothing.
Put the wheels up and it looks like its horsing through the sky-like a Spit should be.

If you ask me it looks like those birds are cacking themselves! “Squawk! I’m about to get chopped up by a honking great plane!”

Cant help thinking it would look better with the wheels up.

I disagree – it looks like it is coming into land

Cant help thinking it would look better with the wheels up.

FlyPast covered various stories regards her restoration at East Fortune over the years, had the very great pleasure of being allowed to sit in the cockpit when she was nearly finnished.

It was restored at East Fortune (Museum of Flight) over a 5 year period 98-2003. Was housed temporarily at the Transport Museum until Kelvingrove’s own restoration was completed and ready to take the Spitfire in 2006.

looks surreal…..i like surreal so looks cool!

It’s certainly surreal in there – hanging in the space in the identical hall opposite there’s a few dozen floating heads with various expressions on their faces!

Supermarine Spitfire F.21 Serial LA198 one of 120 delivered between July 1944 and January 1946 by Vickers-Armstrong, South Marston and Eastleigh.

No.1 Squadron – No.602 Squadron – 3 Civilian Anti-Aircraft Cooperation Unit.
Preserved 19 February 1954.

I last saw LA198 in the transport museum about four years ago – not seen her since then.

Nice pics 🙂

I dont normally like to see aircraft hanging from the rafters but as rocketeer says this is rather surreal and an impresive setting.

looks surreal…..i like surreal so looks cool!