Quote:
Originally Posted by Unique427
Pictures of Spitfires on the ground and inflight during
the opening ceremony for Goodwood Revival 2023
A formation of (3) can be seen just above the tail center frame.
I might add you can go for a ride in the (2) seater on the left for a mere $4,000.
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The Spitfire in the foreground (OU-V) is an ex Battle of Britain Spitfire and flew 176 combat missions. Post war it was converted to a 2 seater training aircraft. It is now based at Sywell airport a few miles from me and I see it regularly overhead giving paid passenger flights. It has been involved in a number of accidents two of which were local. The most recent was in May of this year when it crash landed due to pilot error. The Air Accident Investigation Board showed the. pilot held a commercial licence with 23,000 hours but only 90 on the Spitfire. He had failed to switch back from the fuselage tank (used for take off and landing only) to the wing tanks during a previous flight and drained it. Consequently when he prepared for landing and switched from the wing tanks to the fuselage it suffered from an air lock and fuel starvation. Fortunately there is private airfield close to Sywell at Pitsford which he was able to attempt an emergency landing. Unfortunately he landed too far down the strip and ran into the hedge damaging the nose and one wing.
As an aside Sywell airport has a small hotel and pub garden and is a great place to take the Cobra to enjoy a pint whilst watching the Ultimate Warbirds collection (Spitfire, Mustang, Thunderbolt and Me109) at close quarters take off and land.