This is an old chestnut!
Referring to “Spitfire: A test Pilot’s Story” by Jeffrey Quill, page 267 has the details.
Sqn Ldr Martindale in a specially modified and instrumented PR Mk XI Spitfire flying from RAE Farnborough achieved M 0.9 in 1944 while diving to obtain wing data at high Mach numbers.
See the book for the rest of the story, which in my opinion is the most believable of those concerning the Spitfire and compressibility (the “sound barrier”).

Ian, no doubt you have a copy of “Three Steps to Victory”, the entire story of early radar, including AI, by Sir Robert Watson-Watt, Odhams Press 1957. If not, I could lend you my copy.

and photo 2

“Seems like I recall Fiske, Don Finlay, Roger Bushnell and some other B of B pilots participating in the Olympics prior to the war? Didn’t Fiske have an English wife? Wasn’t he a bit of a flamboyant character anyway?”

According to the AM article, at the age of 16 he became and remains the youngest Winter Olympic contestant to win a gold medal, as a driver of an American bobsleigh at St Moritz. He married Rose Bingham, the former Countess of Warwick and is said to have had it all, good looks, money, fame, fast cars and an infectious personality.
Sounds like a good candidate for a film!

I must confess, NCL rules, that I had no idea which airline it was, I just liked the colour scheme! That was the day I spent 6 hours waiting for my flight, and would have really appreciated having the spotting map! It was a scorching day in July last year and I was returning from a month’s aviationfest in the USA.

. . . and the other while waiting to board this aircraft departing to Göteborg Säve, one of the smallest airports in Sweden, I would guess, consisting of a tin shed. There appears to be only one guy to handle the luggage, and he loads the outgoing aircraft before dealing with the incoming luggage, so it’s always a 45 minute wait to get your bags, off a single aircraft movement!

Hi Snapper!
The movie worked on my RealOne Player software, if that helps.

Good point, Bhoy, did she wander around with it in her hand all the time?
The Americans never cease to amaze me.
On my first ever trip to the USA last year, despite previous written confirmation of our visit from Base commanders, at certain ANG bases our coachload of British aviation enthusiasts were refused entry by armed guards. In one extraordinary case they even would not let us take photos of the gate guard (aircraft on a pole), despite the fact that it was next to a public highway! Naturally we all took our photos through the bus windows!
At others we climbed all over aircraft under repair in the hangars.
Security in the USA seems to be all or nothing and subject to individual discretion!