Saw a Spitfire up close yesterday...

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  • lasermonkeylasermonkey Frets: 1940
    Many years ago at the Shuttleworth Collection, we were standing behind their Spitfire when it started up. The prop-wash was intense! We were all covered in gass and ants by the time it had moved off, but I'd not have missed it for the world.
    My wife asked me to stop singing Wonderwall.
    I said maybe.....
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  • darthed1981darthed1981 Frets: 11673
    Chalky said:
    Drew_TNBD said:
    Jalapeno said:
    Drew_TNBD said:
    Emp Fab loves the sounds of spitfire engines being revved the fuck up.
    Don't we all dearie ? ;)

    I live right next door to the RAF Museum in Colindale, but I've never actually been in it!! The wife and kid have been!
    If they still have the quiet little room with the descriptions of how folks won the Victoria Cross, go take a quiet look. Like visiting the cemetries of northern France, it can change a man's outlook on life.
    The galleries seem to still be there but not to be open, which I've always wanted to know the explanation for.  As you said, they were wonderful little places to lose oneself.

    Sadly, every time Hendon goes upmarket it loses a little character, the atmosphere created by the security guards recreating Nazi Germany in there doesn't help!
    We have to be so very careful, what we believe in...
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  • VibetronicVibetronic Frets: 1036
    here's my flight. (This was actually last year, the camera date is wrong!). Doesn't really do it justice - the sound of the engine cranking up properly before take-off was brilliant. Victory roll is at about 13:20ish on the youtube video. I had the control column for about 10 minutes of this and was bricking it quite a lot, it was so sensitive to any movement.



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  • BridgehouseBridgehouse Frets: 24579
    You need to come and live in Lincolnshire, we get the BBMF and all sorts of other weird and wonderful stuff flying over nice and low very regularly. 

    We pause the telly when eurofighters fly over as we are on the approach to the ranges they have on the Wash.. no point in trying to listen to anything through that.. 
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  • cruxiformcruxiform Frets: 2533
    here's my flight. (This was actually last year, the camera date is wrong!). Doesn't really do it justice - the sound of the engine cranking up properly before take-off was brilliant. Victory roll is at about 13:20ish on the youtube video. I had the control column for about 10 minutes of this and was bricking it quite a lot, it was so sensitive to any movement.



    I am very, very jealous!
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  • BlackjackBlackjack Frets: 227
    The flights from Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar are £2550.00 for 30 mins, £3900.00 for 45 mins or 
    £4800.00 for 55 mins.  They are a fabulous operation, a truly lovely bunch of guys.
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  • FretwiredFretwired Frets: 24601
    Fretwired said:
    Spits are amazing planes .. I was luck when I was a kid as the Battle of Britain film was made a cycle ride from my home. They used a local aerodrome to shoot take-off's and landings and my friends and I would cycle over to watch as the Spitfires were fired up and took off ....



    I remember seeing some of the sets at Hawkinge aerodrome when I were a lad, too. The place is now a massive housing estate, and the museum is pretty much all that's left.

    The film was made at a lot of ex-RAF bases .. my local aerodrome was used for the take off sequences when the main squadron in the film had to decamp to a 'field' ... there were only a few Spits and three Hurricanes so they were filmed over and over with different numbers ... there's a great film with a Scots guy who put the film's aircraft together to create what amounted to one of the world's biggest air forces.

    Riddley Scott has just signed on to make a new Battle of Britain film .. CGI will no doubt be used.

    Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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  • lasermonkeylasermonkey Frets: 1940
    They blew up one of Duxford's hangars during the filming of The Battle Of Britain, and I bet they're regretting that at the IWM to this day!
     I'm intrigued by what Ridley Scott will come up with. I very much hope they will use as many real aircraft as possible, as although there's no reason that CGI couldn't do convincing aerial combat, nothing I've seen so far has impressed me.
    My wife asked me to stop singing Wonderwall.
    I said maybe.....
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  • Drew_TNBDDrew_TNBD Frets: 22445
    Chalky said:
    Drew_TNBD said:
    Jalapeno said:
    Drew_TNBD said:
    Emp Fab loves the sounds of spitfire engines being revved the fuck up.
    Don't we all dearie ? ;)

    I live right next door to the RAF Museum in Colindale, but I've never actually been in it!! The wife and kid have been!
    If they still have the quiet little room with the descriptions of how folks won the Victoria Cross, go take a quiet look. Like visiting the cemetries of northern France, it can change a man's outlook on life.
    The galleries seem to still be there but not to be open, which I've always wanted to know the explanation for.  As you said, they were wonderful little places to lose oneself.

    Sadly, every time Hendon goes upmarket it loses a little character, the atmosphere created by the security guards recreating Nazi Germany in there doesn't help!
    There's a nice little boozer up the top o' Greyhound Hill called, imaginatively enough, The Greyhound. Best roasts I've ever had.
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  • ESBlondeESBlonde Frets: 3576
    They blew up one of Duxford's hangars during the filming of The Battle Of Britain, and I bet they're regretting that at the IWM to this day!
     I'm intrigued by what Ridley Scott will come up with. I very much hope they will use as many real aircraft as possible, as although there's no reason that CGI couldn't do convincing aerial combat, nothing I've seen so far has impressed me.
    I still have the original BoB movie guide book, apart from some cracking photos it tells the story of Group Captain Hamish Mahaddie who scoured the world looking for aircraft to make the film. They only found 3 Hurricanes that could be made flyable and selected 36 spitfires of all marks. they made 12 of them flyable (some already where) 12 that could run up and taxi and 12 that were set dressings. They also made a number of other props aircraft and models to be blown up or crashed 9one had a ford car engine so it could do the scene where it runs into a petrol bowser. Of course the BoB had mk 1 and II spits with 3 bladed props, single rads and short noses but they were rare as hens teeth so the other marks were dressed to look the part but not used for close ups. Dressing included false backs for the bubble canopy types, round wing tips for the clip wing varients. A number of the flying spits were Griffon powered with 5 blade props that turn the other way so were uses at a distance for the mass fight scenes.
    It is interesting to read how the combat scenes were filmed, the planning was meticulous because you can't ask a spitfire flying at 200mph to wait over there while you fix something, everything is constantly moving very fast.

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  • JezWyndJezWynd Frets: 6021
    They used a B25 as camera platform in the BoB movie. There used to be a squadron of B25's at Blackbushe years ago and I always thought that must be linked to the film but Google tells me they were used for Hanover Street.


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  • GassageGassage Frets: 30826
    edited August 2017
    OK, so, this very Spitfire.

    It was once owned by my former boss, Richard Parker, who floated DA Thomas who then became Thomas Laidlaw, Architectural Ironmongers.

    Richard set a mate of mine up in business years ago and I go back a long way with him

    Around 2000, he was jailed for drug offences- at the time I was working for my 'mate' above and it was bedlam.

    Richard sold the spitfire to a friend of his c. 94. He told the bloke who bought it he'd kill himself in it (Spitties are very hard to fly and prone to stalling at low speeds due to the wing tip elipse). He was spot on- the bloke did kill himself in it.

    I think he's out of jail now. Not sure - been trying to google it.

    Richard is mentioned in this bio of the plane, but his incarceration isn't.

    http://www.boultbeeflightacademy.co.uk/pv202

    *An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.

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  • GassageGassage Frets: 30826
    This is the only mention I can find re Richard.

    http://www.ludlowadvertiser.co.uk/news/99528.display/

    *An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.

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  • skunkwerxskunkwerx Frets: 6838
    Hey all, hope you dont mind me posting this link, but last summer I visited Duxford for an airshow and got to film a squadron of spitfires start up, taxi and take off from a seating bay next to the runway. Totally awesome sight and sound. 

    Anyway you may enjoy seeing it so thought I'd link ya! 


    The only easy day, was yesterday...
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  • cruxiformcruxiform Frets: 2533
    Not all mate, that was brilliant!
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  • rsvmarkrsvmark Frets: 1374
    So if spits and hurricanes are rare, surely ME109's are like rocking horse shit?
    An official Foo liked guitarist since 2024
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  • GassageGassage Frets: 30826
    @rsvmark

    Roughly 110 remaining. And they still find them in various forests and jungles.

    There were about 35,000 109's produced (compare that with a 737- 12,000 produced or on forward order over 40 yrs) versus 14,000 Hurricanes and 20,000 Spitfires (54 remaining).

    *An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.

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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71960
    109s were actually used by the Spanish, Swiss and Finnish air forces well after WWII, and possibly some others too.

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • lasermonkeylasermonkey Frets: 1940
    The Israeli Air Force used the Czech-built Avia 199, which was basically a Jumo engined Bf 109.
     If my memory serves me correctly, the Italian, Romanian, Croatian, Hungarian and Bulgarian air forces also used the '109. It was the most produced fighter aircraft in history.
    IIRC, only the soviet Il-2 Sturmovik ground attack aircraft was built in greater numbers.

     The '109s and He 111s used in the BoB film were Spanish built examples (Hispano HA-1112 Buchon and CASA 2-111) and had RR Merlin engines, which is why they look a bit strange. The DB 600 series engines of the originals were inverted, so the thrust line was lower. That's why the original '109 had a pronounced slope to the nose. The majority of flying 109s are actually the Spanish Buchons.

    Wikipedia lists a total of 238 remaining Spitfires, of which 54 are airworthy, 71 are static exhibits and the remaining 113 being either under restoration or stored.

     An interesting fact about the elliptical wing of the Spitfire is that it would stall at different places. As the airspeed slowed, it would begin to stall at the wing root first. This would exhibit itself as buffeting, alerting the pilot to the situation. It also meant that the ailerons were still effective. The stall moved outwards towards the wingtips as the airspeed slowed. Pilot Mark Hanna (who was sadly killed whilst flying a Buchon) was quoted as saying that you'd have to be crass to get a Spitfire into a stall, after all the warning it gave you.
    My wife asked me to stop singing Wonderwall.
    I said maybe.....
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  • FretwiredFretwired Frets: 24601
    A lot of the the current batch of flying 109s weren't made in wartime Germany - many of the one's passed off as originals are Czech made using a German built plant that supplied the Luftwaffe in the war. They at least used the right engine. The Spanish built planes used Merlins.

    My dad was in the RAF during the war and at the end they just trashed all these Spitfires that nobody wanted. Sad.

    Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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