My First Spitfire

RAF serial – MA863
RAAF serial – A58-246 (54 Sqn DL-K)

Originally posted by Tbirdman
PS Voytech: If you can give me the date you took that pic at ILA 92 I can name the P51 pilot for you.

It was the first week of June 1992 I think, but I am not sure if I will be able to check the exact date.

Originally posted by Tbirdman
Late 50’s I had sneaked through a gap in the hedge at the Cardiff(Rhoose) Air Races. Just about everything had launched and indeed the slower ones were already completing their first lap. I recollect my chum punching me in the arm and pointing straight in front of us with his eyes out like organ stops. There, as if in slow motion, was G-AIDN ‘rising’ out of the grass straight towards us with the gear retracting. It was virtually silent at this point but that state of affairs changed the moment it flew over us at about 100′. I HAD NEVER HEARD A SOUND LIKE IT IN ALL MY YOUNG LIFE! I believe the pilot was Viv Bellamy.

So, Tbirdman, you and me share the same aircraft and you went on to fly them
WHERE DID I GO WRONG . . . . .

Joking aside, I used to go and see Viv when he was at Longparish, near Andover, and he was a great character. One of the unsung greats of British Aviation.

Melvyn

Late 50’s I had sneaked through a gap in the hedge at the Cardiff(Rhoose) Air Races. Just about everything had launched and indeed the slower ones were already completing their first lap. I recollect my chum punching me in the arm and pointing straight in front of us with his eyes out like organ stops. There, as if in slow motion, was G-AIDN ‘rising’ out of the grass straight towards us with the gear retracting. It was virtually silent at this point but that state of affairs changed the moment it flew over us at about 100′. I HAD NEVER HEARD A SOUND LIKE IT IN ALL MY YOUNG LIFE! I believe the pilot was Viv Bellamy.

I didn’t know quite how but I knew I had to fly one one day. The sky gods have been kind to me.

T

PS Voytech: If you can give me the date you took that pic at ILA 92 I can name the P51 pilot for you.

Col Pays Scone NSW Australia early1980s

My First one was Col Pays Spit at Scone NSW in the early 1980s after watching it being rebuilt over a few years and it was something to see as we were all anticipating it for so long. It still flies although sadly Col has sold it and it now flies out of Temora Museum. It is now in a Grey Nurse Color scheme with Shark mouth and looks tremendos.

Kindest regards
john Parker

Well done Dave !

I think this was the first Spit I saw fly also, along with the Mark 14 at Wanaka in 1994 (I think !)

Best display I saw was watching Ray Hanna in MH434 at Biggin Hill, I think in about Sept 1997.

I found a photo of my Spit Sit… Warbirds Over Waikato airshow, Hamilton International Airport, 1995

So, it was not only my first sight of a flying Spitfire, but also first look at the MH434, and the first time I met Mark Hanna.
Some years later he told me that he remembered it well. A guy he had never met has come to him, and asked straight away “Tell me, why is your Spitfire painted this way? It is not correct for a Mk IX.”

My first Spit sighting was 1992, International Luft- und Raumfahrt Ausstellung (ILA) in Berlin. I with a couple of friends went to Berlin mainly to take photos of latest Russian types. I was busy taking pictures of Sukhoi Su-24 ‘Fencer’ which had its public debut there (and it took some persuasion to make the Russian guys allow us to get across the line and take good close-up pictures). When I heard the Merlins, I simply dropped everything, said something like “I’ll be right back”, and ran towards the runway. Three warbirds arrived: MH434 flown by Rolf Meum, Buchon flown by Mark Hanna and with the P-51 ‘Old Crow’ flown by I don’t know who.

My first (and so far only) “Spit sit” was back in the early(ish) 1980s, sitting in the Museum of Flight’s Spitfire XVI TE462 🙂

My first ever encounter with a Spitfire was probably with MH434 at a Great Warbirds Air Display, West Malling in the mid eighties. Though one of my most treasured moments with a Spitfire was back in 1997/8 when with the RAF CCF i spent a day marshelling at the Old Hay airshow. At the beginning of the day, early in the morning, my friend Tom, my father (volunteer taxi and helper for the day) and myself were approached by Guy Black (HAC) who needed a hand rolling out his new Spitfire from the hanger to take part in the air display. This of course was Spitfire Mk.Vb BM597 now based at Duxford. I believe it was one of its early public displays, if not it’s first. We rolled it backwards out of the tiny hanger by the wing leading edge with relative ease and parked it up where later in the day it would be joined by Rob Davies’ Mustang (Big Beautiful Doll), a Lysander (i forget which one) and a Hurricane (I think it was Mk.XII Z7381 now also with HAC).
It was a superb day, and i’m sure i could write an essay on it, but i won’t bore you with that just yet!

I did get to fly with Charlie Brown in a Stearman at the end though…… 😀 😀 😀

My Spit Sit

My first and only sit in a Spit was, again, TB863. Having met him several times before, I was having a chat with Sir Tim after he’d done an awesome display at the Wings Over Waikato aishow in Hamilton in 1995, and he invited me to have a sit in it. The late, great display pilot Tom Middleton helped me in and showed me the ropes. I have several photos of this, much treasured.

I had previously sat in Sir Tim’s Corsair while it was stored in the RNZAF Museum’s restoration hangar, and I was rode brakes in his P40 at Wigram when no-one else was around to do it (both a thrill and bloody scary for me as I’d not done it before, not being an aircraft tech), and I had also flown in his TBF Avenger (amazing trip, pics coming soon), but sitting in the Spit was a real special event for me – especially because there were so many envious onlookers at the airshow.

Thanks Sir Tim for such wonderful memories

My first Spitfire sighting would have been around the late seventies / early eighties, when something rather noisy flew over our back garden in Potters Bar. It was a good couple of thousand feet up, and heading towards Elstree, which makes me think it was Spencer Flack’s G-FIRE. First (and so far, only) one I sat in was ML427, when she was in at Skysport a few years ago being refurbed prior to going into Birmingham’s Millenium Centre.

AR 213 at Silverstone in late 1970s. Patrick Lindsey was racing his ERA in Vintage Sports Car Club events. He flew into the track in his Spitfire. Tony Bianchi took it up in the lunch break and beat the s**t out of the track, flying between the grandstands etc. Wonderful. 🙂
mmitch.

AB910

My first spitfire was AB910 at Woodford airshow in1969 this was probably one of the first aircraft pics i ever took.
It bl**dy rained at every other airshow there ——:D :D:rolleyes:
Phil.

The first Spit I saw fly was the Mk.VIII MT719/I-SPIT at Abingdon in 1990,not long before she was snapped up by Jim Cavanaugh and shipped off to Texas.It was also the first time i’d heard a Merlin “in the flesh”.Saw P7350 later in the same day when the BBMF displayed and landed,luuurvelly. 😀
First time I saw a Spit in any condition was K9994 at the Science Museum,South Kensington sometime in the 80’s,complete with bent prop (!) when I were but a mere whippersnapper. 🙂

A wannane Spit pilot’s dream….short of a flight in a two seater

I remember it like yesterday. In the cockpit of P7350 at Coltishall. Peter Cowell took the photo

Dan

P7350, RAF Coltishall during the 41 Squadron reunion in July 1986. I got a chance to get in that Spit during that time and vividly recall coming out of the base chapel memorial service with some of the Pilot vets and having P7350 marked as EB-Z whistle over at low alt.

Chills up and down the spine.

First flyable Spit I saw was AR501 at Duxford in 1980 when I was in England for school, but it didn’t fly the day I saw it.

Dan
Photo is one from the reunion in 86 with P7350 and a 41 Squadron Jaguar

Hmm, that centre spot on the fuselage roundel looks a little small!

AR213 always has been a favourite since going to see her at Booker, sometime after the Blue Max Museum opened (92?). She was the first Spit that I could touch that was actually flyable, as opposed to slowly collecting dust in a museum!

Still never seen her fly, though! 🙁