Supermarine Spitfire

[yorkyclaret]

Saw the Spitfire on Saturday, a late one, clipped wings and a 'bubble' canopy. There are 2 British Mosquito restorations under way, the other is by the Mosquito Pathfinder Trust. Hope they don't suffer the same fate as the last one in '96, saw that flying over here at low level a couple of times.

[Hipper]

Brilliant news, I don’t understand how we can have Second World War aircraft flying but planes such as the Vulcan can no longer fly as anyone any idea how this works? I think the Vulcan was grounded due to flying hours.

More modern, hence sophisticated, aircraft are very expensive to maintain.

I doubt much remains of these WW2 aircraft that is original.

[Shore claret]

How qualified do you have to be to fly a historic aircraft? I assume it's an absolute thrill to do but must be extremely stressful.

[BennyD]

JarrowClaret, there are lots of WW2 a/c about as it’s possible to afford the running costs as a private individual. Also, there are specialist engineering companies that keep a supply of parts available so that a Spitfire, for example, can be fully built from scratch. However, the Vulcan is a large, complicated a/c that isn’t supported by such companies and the airframe is now ‘lifed’ out which means the airframe has achieved the flying hours the designers said it would last. Unfortunately, no one makes the parts which could restart the clock and the Olympus ‘donks’ are no longer available either. So, it would appear the world has seen the last Vulcan flight but, fortunately, not the last WW2 a/c flight.

[BennyD]

How qualified do you have to be to fly a historic aircraft? I assume it's an absolute thrill to do but must be extremely stressful.

Technically, you could fly historic aircraft with a bog standard Private Pilots Licence (PPL) but you would need a Commercial Pilots Licence (CPL) for some of the heavier aircraft like the B25 Mitchell. However, you have to persuade the owner of the said historic aircraft to allow you to fly it which is a whole different ballgame. Test pilots, BBMF Pilots, and formation team pilots are the guys who are likely to find an ‘in’ into a very close network of operators and owners. FWIW, the BBMF pilots don’t need a licence of any sort as they are exempt, but do have to pass qualification flights on a very regular basis in order to keep flying them.

[Shore claret]

Technically, you could fly historic aircraft with a bog standard Private Pilots Licence (PPL) but you would need a Commercial Pilots Licence (CPL) for some of the heavier aircraft like the B25 Mitchell. However, you have to persuade the owner of the said historic aircraft to allow you to fly it which is a whole different ballgame. Test pilots, BBMF Pilots, and formation team pilots are the guys who are likely to find an ‘in’ into a very close network of operators and owners. FWIW, the BBMF pilots don’t need a licence of any sort as they are exempt, but do have to pass qualification flights on a very regular basis in order to keep flying them.

Is there a plane that everyone would love to fly , what's the rarest and most exclusive plane in the world, I assume most of these are owned privately.

[yorkyclaret]

Good question, think a Mosquito must be close but I would go for a ME262.

[ALP]

ALP those are lovely incredibly sharp photos. What lens are you using? I go to a lot of air shows and thinking of getting a better lens than my Tamron 80-300mm
I am just looking at buying a new lens for my Nikon D3200 and considering the Sigma 150-600mm?

These were taken on a Nikon D300s (crop sensor) using a Nikon 70 / 200mm f2.8, a stonking lens.

Cheers

[BennyD]

Is there a plane that everyone would love to fly , what's the rarest and most exclusive plane in the world, I assume most of these are owned privately.

Every pilot is different in what is likely to be on their bucket list but for me, it’d have to be the Beaufighter, Typhoon (piston) and Mosquito. At the moment, probably the rarest aircraft in private hands would be the Harrier, as there is only one flying outside the military, and a lot of today’s fighter pilots would love to fly one.

[Shore claret]

Lad I work with now had a chance as a passenger in a harrier jump jet, won a raffle in the falklands, amazingly he passed it up as he was scared of flying.

[BennyD]

I’ve been up in the back of a Jag flown by a really good mate, but would’ve loved to have flown in a Harrier.

[JarrowClaret]

The Harrier another mystery to me obviously purely penny pinching but why we removed the Sea Harrier which removes the Air Defence Capability from the fleets carrier group. Then totally removed the Harrier and taking away VTOL virtually removing our carrier force prior to having it’s replacement i’m Sure the GR9 hadn’t been out long before it was announced it was to be withdrawn. I wonder if it’s replacement the Lightning2 will become as iconic certainly a nice looking plane.

[1968claret]

Have to agree Jarrow. Also why, instead of selling the plane to the US Marines, did we allow them to build under licence as the AV8b?
File under TSR 2 as another missed opportunity?
Ps to he TSR2 would be my choice if plane to fly if I only had one choice!

[JarrowClaret]

Did we not sell the decommissioned planes to the states? But yes another missed opportunity I had read somewhere that the A10 thunderbolt was a British design, if it is true and I don’t know if it is there’s another one missed

[Croydon Claret]

Would have loved to have flown a Harrier, always had a dream of landing one on my drive. Pretty far fetched for a life ambition, no wonder I didn't achieve it

In the meantime, this is me in a Mig15. Buzzed the runway at 800kts then 5G straight up. Think 5G is about my limit in normal trousers

https://youtu.be/7F8SAyOxeZ8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[paulus the woodgnome]

Rolls Royce Dream Machines on C5 now. Just got to the development of the RR Merlin engine.

[evensteadiereddie]

The Lanky bomber flew over the National Memorial at Alrewas, just down the road from us, last week.

lanky bomber.jpg (26.82 KiB) Viewed 2550 times

Awesome - it didn't quite make up for its Ladybower/Derwent flyover being cancelled but pretty damn special. No pun intended.

[Caballo]

A Lancaster flew over Lancaster today about 4pm

[BennyD]

Would have loved to have flown a Harrier, always had a dream of landing one on my drive. Pretty far fetched for a life ambition, no wonder I didn't achieve it....

Tom Lyons, another mate, was selected for Harriers although, at the time, was thought to be borderline. He went for it because he just wanted to say he had hovered a fixed wing jet. In the end, he excelled on it and is now Group Captain Lyons, Officer Commanding Empire Test Pilots School at Boscombe Down. This most probably puts him in the top 1% of military jet pilots worldwide. The boy done good!

[Oshkoshclaret]

If I won big on the lottery I would be straight on the phone to Kermit Weeks trying to buy his Sunderland. And after I got bored flying that I would do a Me 163 replica with a rocket engine.

[Oshkoshclaret]

In the meantime, this is me in a Mig15. Buzzed the runway at 800kts

Do you mean 800 KPH?

[Croydon Claret]

Do you mean 800 KPH?

Most probably.

All the dials were in Russian so I've no idea what they represented. 800 somethings

[Strela_999]

Russian standard information is always in metric, so that was it.

And who needs porn when you have threads like this! It's like when I was a kid and went for the first time to the D-Day museums in Normandy and climbed on a tank for the first time in my life again!
And as it has already been said, I'm violently jealous of people who did fly on WW2 warbirds, or any kind of military plane at all. The most exciting flight I had was on an old ex-Yugoslav air force An-2 Colt in Serbia lol. How do you even do that to begin with? Are you pilots yourself? Good friends with the owners?

[Croydon Claret]

Russian standard information is always in metric, so that was it.

And who needs porn when you have threads like this! It's like when I was a kid and went for the first time to the D-Day museums in Normandy and climbed on a tank for the first time in my life again!
And as it has already been said, I'm violently jealous of people who did fly on WW2 warbirds, or any kind of military plane at all. The most exciting flight I had was on an old ex-Yugoslav air force An-2 Colt in Serbia lol. How do you even do that to begin with? Are you pilots yourself? Good friends with the owners?

It's quite easy to fly loads of ex military stuff these days, just a case of finding the correct websites and following the right Facebook pages to see what is available. It all comes down to cash of course.

I got the flight in the Lancaster as I was following the progress of the Canadian Lanc's tour a few years ago.When they had an engine failure they made flights available at 48 hours notice to raise some funds to pay for repairs

There's plenty of jets available via http://www.migflug.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. They're Swiss based but easy to deal with. Did the Mig15 and Vampire with them.

All the other ex WW2 stuff can be done quite easily in this country. Loads of places doing Spitfire flights, only one doing Mustangs that I know of.

Ultimate War Birds flights on Facebook has just started offering flights in a 109, mock dog fighting against another punter in a Spitfire. Technically it's not a Messerschmitt, it's a Spanish copy built under licence after the war but it's close enough.

The one I'm following most keenly is Hawker Restorations on Facebook. They're converting a Hurricane into a 2 seater. Sacrilege I know but I've already sold my granny to get a go in that.

Just depends how passionate you are about it and what sacrifices you're prepared to make. Personally I'm making do without luxuries such as food or drink

[Crewe claret]

I served in the RAF in the seventies and spent 5 years on 233 OCU. which trained pilots to convert to the Harrier and had the privilege of flying in the 2 seaters we had on several occasions never got over the feeling of hovering in what was basically a ground attack fighter loved it, but as an aircraft technician it was a pig to work on

[TheFamilyCat]

A Lancaster flew over Wakefield/ Leeds today. I saw it from my in laws while the footy was on. We were alerted to it by my 22 month old son shouting "PLANE" which he does whenever he hears one. We granced up and out of the window and watched it fly by very low.

Found this on fb with photos and a video, hopefully the page should show but it is from a group so not sure if it will be private or not.

https://m.facebook.com/groups/335910189 ... 2272466432" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[paulus the woodgnome]

There is a problem with the runway at Goodwood, so there's a couple of Spitfires flying out of Lee-on-the-Solent at the moment. I saw one of them this afternoon.

[paulus the woodgnome]

Trying to post a picture

[paulus the woodgnome]

Trying again

[Lancasterclaret]

When the two Lancasters came here in 2014, managed to snap them at Morecambe

[TheFamilyCat]

I was near Ladybower earlier this week and this flew over very low. I did a bit of googling and think it’s a Hercules on a routine low level training flight.

E2E57B0A-1F0F-46C3-91EA-5357A814E93B.jpeg (80.13 KiB) Viewed 1857 times

C704FF03-E822-46C2-B7AE-6C5B50008CD1.jpeg (44.18 KiB) Viewed 1857 times