Spitfire BL655

I saw BL655 at East Kirkby earlier this year. It captivated me and I’m still not sure why.

The best reason I can come up with is I know what a beautiful machine it was (and to some extent still is), yet it represents such a violent end to a young man’s life and to the machine itself.

All I kept thinking of while I was looking at it were the words to “High Flight”.

All in all a very poigniant display of the remains.

Regards,
Richard

The show Most Haunted had coverage of this crash and the death of its unfortunate pilot.

How very tasteful and appropriate of them.

Cees, David.

When belts are being tightened I think it is policy to do work ‘in house’ rather than sub contract it out to people like me.

This is ‘list of lists’ researching.

The two that stuck out most to me were the HFL Burmese Mk IX listed as PV270, which of course is located in New Zealand and hasn’t been anywhere near the UK in 60 odd years and I see the myth of ‘ML411’/G-CBNU, the infamous ‘Turkish Spitfire’, is still being perpetuated.

Mark

Mark 12 – I was waiting for some comments on the list! It’s a little stray on some!

Cees

The list in the current Flypast doesn’t do anybody any favours.

I noted about 20 errors without even referring to files. 🙁

Mark

Mark,

I also noticed that the list was compiled by others than yourself. Has this something to do with the previous listing?

Just curious

Cees

UK Spitfire survivors.

I agree, but it’s strange to read that it is counted as a potential survior (meaning complete airframe in my book)

Cees

Cees

The list in the current Flypast doesn’t do anybody any favours.

I noted about 20 errors without even referring to files. 🙁

Mark

Because it’s a beautiful piece of wreckology .I cannot see any reason to scrap all the airframe parts and build a brand new Spitfire round the various parts that are servicable. It’s about preservation not profit.

I agree, but it’s strange to read that it is counted as a potential survior (meaning complete airframe in my book)

Cees

The show Most Haunted had coverage of this crash and the death of its unfortunate pilot.

Because it’s a beautiful piece of wreckology .I cannot see any reason to scrap all the airframe parts and build a brand new Spitfire round the various parts that are servicable. It’s about preservation not profit.

……… is this the one at East Kirkby? A very powerful display I have always thought.

Yes I believe it is, saw it during the forum East Kirkby/BBMF visit earlier this year, I did wonder at the time why it isn’t being restored to fly seeing as it is relatively complete compared to other Spit restorations 😉

Cees, Im afraid I have nothing to add except another question, is this the one at East Kirkby? A very powerful display I have always thought.

No, I’ll give you an answer.

BL655 was as I recall the subject of a fairly extensive dig, which ended up with the usual broken wreckage being brought to the surface. What you see here is the result of a convincing reconstruction of the wreckage. It is really very good. I was very impressed when I saw it some years ago.

Bruce

This post has been edited and the content deleted.

It was a malicious post from Robbo (space) not Robbo of “Pain Talk”, who has asked me to remove it immediately and track the IP address.

Funny old world. 🙂

Mark