Hi everyone, and a very happy new year to all the members of the forum.
I am currently working in Argentina and I have heard several yarns about a pilot named “Capt Story”.
The tale goes as follows.
Capt Story (a Brit living in Argentina at the outbreak of the war) returns to the UK to do his bit, eventually serving in PR Spits. After the war he returns to Argentina and having a close contact in the Argentine Government secures a contract to “map” the more remote areas of the country. Accordingly he returns to the UK and finds himself a suitable Spit which he aims to fly back to Argentina. The initial route takes him through Europe but the bit I find incredible (read unbelievable) is that he makes a trip from Dakar to Recife, Brazil – direct!! Now I don’t have my GPS with me or I could pump in some airport codes and find out the exact distance but even looking at a map this appears an incredible distance. The story continues that he crash landed somewhere in Brazil damaging the aircraft and had to wait several months for spares to arrive, fix the aircraft and complete the journey. The story has a sad ending as upon arriving in Argentina (several months late) he found that they had awarded to contract to someone else.
Now all this has merit as a charming tale of daring do but my question is does anyone know if this is possible? What was the still air range of a Spit when flown at a maximum range power setting?
According to a “calculate the distance” do-dad on the web the distance is:-
1,975 miles (3,175km or 1,717nm)
Does anyone else know of this story? And yes yes I’ve already asked – his aircraft so say ended up in a technical school where it was eventually scrapped…
🙂
By: Steve T - 5th January 2005 at 07:07
Hi–
Hey, neat to see pix of the Argentine Spit XI again. I did a painting of this one flying over the sea in her Argentine civvies. Ran across the Storey story in Alfred Price’s “The Spitfire Story”; LV-NMZ not only carried the kingsize 170 gallon “slipper” tank (like an oversize version of the 90-gal one more commonly seen) under the centre section, but two custom-built 20-gal tanks were fitted in the wings, additional to the Mk.XI’s usual tankage. She carried over 400 gallons total, the most fuel any Spit ever carried, and did indeed go Dakar-Natal nonstop (about 1800 miles), the longest Spit flight ever. That leg was flown on May 5, 1947. I’d wondered what had eventually happened to LV-NMZ…had assumed she’d got the chop, sad to be proven right!
S.
By: paulmcmillan - 4th January 2005 at 11:00
PS. A little bit more information on LV-NMZ is in the latest issue of Air Enthusiast. Apparently she was used to film the test firings of the AM-1 Tabano air to air missile fired from a IAe 24 Calquin (the Mosquito lookalikey) in the early 1950s
By: paulmcmillan - 4th January 2005 at 10:54
Air Britain’s ‘Spitfire International’ devotes 3 of its 480 pages to Argentina.
A must for Spitfire devotees interested in the non RAF and post RAF use of our favourite – and still available.
Mark
(a contributor to the book but not a member of A-B)
And is available via this web site
http://www.air-britain.com/newbooks.html
Paul
(who was NOT a contributor to the book but IS a member of A-B)
By: Mark12 - 4th January 2005 at 10:41
In praise and support of a fine book.
Air Britain’s ‘Spitfire International’ devotes 3 of its 480 pages to Argentina.
A must for Spitfire devotees interested in the non RAF and post RAF use of our favourite – and still available.
Mark
(a contributor to the book but not a member of A-B)
By: Stieglitz - 4th January 2005 at 10:23
Interesting story Taifun. How long did it take to complete such a very long flight? Just curious.
Greets,
J.V.
By: Firebird - 4th January 2005 at 10:07
According to a “calculate the distance” do-dad on the web the distance is:-
1,975 miles (3,175km or 1,717nm)
Apprently the MkXI is listed as having a range of 2,000 miles…….. 🙂
By: paulmcmillan - 4th January 2005 at 09:37
I think this was Spitfire PR XI LV-NMZ (PL972)
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January 3, 2005 at 9:15 pm