My Best Christmas Present Ever!

Last year, not this.
I live in Shipbourne , about 4 miles north of Tonbridge in Kent and for the past 4 years every year between March and October when the sun is shining we get a Spitfire over flying our house. Quite a lot of light aircraft over fly but you can tell the Spitfire by the growl of the Merlin engine, I always stop and stare whenever I hear it. Biggin Hill is about 15 miles away and the Spitfire operates from there.
My wife, bless her, bought me a flight in a 2 seat Spitfire for last year's Christmas present. Here is an account of 30 August 2016.
The whole family got there at 12.00 and had to wait around quite a bit as the flight in the morning had a problem and they had to enliven the reserve 2 seat Spitfire, which was not fuelled up and the tanker driver was the other side of the airfield fuelling jets. HS162 and Lear and Bombardier private jets operate from Biggin Hill (one of which belongs to Lewis Hamilton).

Then we had a rather boring safety briefing which lasted about half an hour. How to get into and out of the aeroplane, what happens if the pilot in front of you becomes incapacitated (you abandon the aeroplane apparently - seems a bit hard on the pilot if he is only unconscious) how to bale out etc. etc.


There were 4 rides planned for the afternoon and I was allotted ride 3 so a bit more hanging around until 14.50. I got togged up in the flying suit and installed in the back cockpit. First I was strapped into the parachute and then into the seat. The plane is fully dual controlled and I was given strict instructions to not touch anything during take-off and landing. The cockpit is very small and you are conscious of the airframe constricting your shoulders. The seat has a lever on the right which lowers the seat about 4” so that the canopy can be closed and which you have to operate to open the canopy in an emergency, inflight you can raise the seat to see over the pilot.


The first impression is of the smell of the aeroplane, stale exhaust fumes and oil, absolutely fine for a petrol head. The dashboard in front of you is equipped with 1940s instruments mounted on a slightly tatty crinkle matt black plate which is attached to the airframe by 4 x 1/4” studs with springs either side of the plate, a primitive form of anti-vibration mounting. Between your legs is the control column with a 6” ring at the top with a gun button at 10.00 o’clock. Everything in the cockpit is designed to be functional and no more, there seems to be some consideration of ergonomics, but there are absolutely no frills, it is designed to ensure ease of maintenance. All the control cables from the column and the foot rudder bars and their linkages to the rear of the aeroplane are exposed on the floor. It was a job to find somewhere to put my feet to avoid having any impact on the moving parts.


The pilot started her up and the Merlin engine soon settled into a smooth(ish) idle at about 1100 rpm, the airframe vibrated quite a bit and most of the instruments in front of me became blurred. Exhaust fumes and unburnt avgas smell filled the cockpit (probably still on choke). The fumes made me fell slightly sick. We set off on the perimeter road and before joining the runway the pilot ran her up with the brakes on to do a magneto drop test – seeing how much the revs dropped when one magneto was switched off. Two separate magnetos supply the sparks to the twin plug heads. He ran it up to 1800 rpm and the revs dropped about 150 rpm when each of the magnetos was switched off. A bit difficult to tell exactly because the rev counter had two hands one recording thousands and the other recording hundreds. The airframe vibrated quite a bit at 1800 rpm and the noise was about 110Db but all muffled by the headphones. The pilot chatted away with me while at the same time you could hear the control tower talking to other aeroplanes queuing up to take off and land and it was all a bit confusing.


Out on the runway and the pilot ran it up to 1800 on the brakes and then released them. Full power is at 2850rpm so this was not a full power take off but we picked up speed smartly and after about 10 seconds I felt the tail wheel lift and at 85mph we were airborne. The airport at Biggin Hill is on a plateau and it is amazing how quickly the houses below drop away from you. The pilot increased revs to 2000rpm to climb out and at 1600ft he throttled back to 1100rpm equivalent to 210mph. There is a 2400ft ceiling for all light aircraft operations from Biggin Hill due to proximity to Gatwick and London City airport.


Before the flight I told him I wanted to do a victory roll over my house, Woodhall Oast, so we banked left and headed towards Sevenoaks, found the M25 and followed it to the M26 junction then over Sevenoaks and looked for the tower at Hadlow. I had mistakenly told him WO was East of this when in fact we are West. I spotted the Chaser Inn and the village church about 300 yards from my house and looked down on WO we then did a steep banked left turn which felt about 90 degrees but was probably nearer 50 degrees and flew back over WO having lost about 500 ft.
Pilot then said "I am giving you control and only use the tips of your thumb and forefinger on the ring". To prove it he raised his hands to show that they were not on the stick. We were now flying NE and I tried a few gentle movements left and right and about a quarter of an inch gave you a 5 degree bank instantaneously, the responsiveness of the controls was absolutely incredible.
I then tried fore and aft movement of the column, pushing it forward a quarter of an inch and it was like going over a humped back bridge when you leave your stomach behind. I then tried climbing and whilst slightly more sluggish to respond (probably because we were only running at just above tick over throttle) it reacted so precisely. We probably climbed fairly close to the ceiling and then I spotted Brands Hatch below with about 20 bikes out on a track day. Pilot said "bank left and circle the circuit" so I put into a fairly steep left bank and did a lap of the circuit anti-clockwise losing about 800 feet and gaining about 60 mph – brilliant!
Pilot then said that we had better head off for the victory roll so he allowed me to climb it back up to 2000 ft. and then he took charge again.

About 2 miles from WO he put the aircraft into a shallow dive (25 degree) increasing speed to about 260mph then as we crossed the Chaser he pulled up and rolled to the left and we crossed WO completely inverted and then he completed a very smooth and controlled victory roll. Superb!!

It was then back to Biggin Hill. We approached at about 500 ft. parallel to the runway about 500 yards to the right. The windsock showed a cross wind left to right. The pilot said because of the crosswind the landing would probably be right wheel first then both wheels then tail wheel. He banked right and side slipped in beautifully losing height quite quickly (a bit alarmingly if I am honest with the aircraft at a 45 degree angle descending and banking right as he did so). Sure enough I felt the right wheel kiss the tarmac about half a second before the left wheel and then the tail wheel settled. Pilot afterwards said he much preferred that approach to landing as forward visibility is restricted on a straight approach and you cannot see the ground from the pilots position because the wings are in the way.

So that was that, apart from a tour of the facility. They have 2 x 2seaters and 2 x single seaters operational and they are reconstructing another single seater Spitfire. They have a Hurricane also which I think they wheel out for demonstrations periodically. They also have a Me 109 being restored (almost complete by the look of it). There were also 4 Merlin engines being worked on, two immaculate and ready to be installed and one obviously from a crashed plane as the propeller gearbox on the front was holed and the engine generally was covered in mud and bent ancillary equipment.
I hate to think what it cost but for me it was worth every penny. It was only half an hour all told in the air but I shall remember it forever.