Your first Spitfire

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12 years 6 months

Posts: 252

I might aswell join in with all the talk of Spitfires with this.Where,when,ect did you first see a Spitfire.Feel free to add any stories how you came to see it or sit in one,add any photos if you wish.

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17 years 5 months

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In real life

RAF St Athans 1976 first ones up close and sat in them all, there was a shed full.

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11 years 2 months

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Me to RAF St Athan around 1976. There for a week working mainly on the JU88 Prior to delivery to its new home at Hendon.:D

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20 years 1 month

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G-AIDN, the two seater when painted dark blue - I'd put it around 1970, at the Skyfame display at Staverton.

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11 years 6 months

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lucky enough to pass Blackbushe nearly every weekend during the late 70s onwards, on the way to grandma and grandad's house. Dad was mad on planes and so we would regularly stop for a gawp. Can recall seeing my first spitfire there. There were also wings in racks down the side of the hangar. JU52s,and then B25s were usually visible there on the airfield as we shot past, hanging out of the Cortina window. Also have a vague recollection of seeing a P51 in RAF markings by the control tower there. Lucky enough to live near Farnborough at that time and often used to see aircraft I didn't understand whizzing over. Only recognised the spitfire because of my dad's magic case which was in the loft. Whenever dad went up in the roof, I would follow, in order to find the case, which was covered in roundels etc. Upon opening the case, I would be confronted by a tangled mess of broken models, mostly spitfires, which dad made when he was young.

Dad passed away some 10 years ago at an early age. When he died mum said to us "take something as a keepsake". I chose, and still love my case of mangled plastic spitfires, it is my most treasured item and always will be...

Spitfire, a special plane in so many ways.

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17 years 4 months

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Oh joy ~another~ Spitfire thread :rolleyes:

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12 years 11 months

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Clutching my mother's hand, in Tooting High St. London sometime during either 1940 or '41, dismantled Spit on the back of a Queen Mary trundling along. Suffocating excitement!.

Then evacuation to Hatfield, Yorkshire. Walking along the lane from Hatfield to Dunscroft. Splitting roar as Spitfire hurtles past at telegraph pole height, pilot waving like mad !

From my bedroom window watching Lancasters in the circuit at Lindholme.

So many eye witness stories, I could bore you all witless !

Member for

12 years 6 months

Posts: 252

Me to RAF St Athan around 1976. There for a week working mainly on the JU88 Prior to delivery to its new home at Hendon.:D

Which spit is that ?

Member for

12 years 6 months

Posts: 252

Oh joy ~another~ Spitfire thread :rolleyes:

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Dont read any further then.

Member for

12 years 6 months

Posts: 252

Clutching mummy's hand, in Tooting High St. sometime during either 1940 or '41, dismantled Spit on the back of a Queen Mary trundling along. Suffocating excitement!.

Then evacuation to Hatfield, Yorkshire. Walking along the lane from Hatfield to Dunscroft. Splitting roar as Spitfire hurtles past at telegraph pole height, pilot waving like mad !

From my bedroom window watching Lancasters in the circuit at Lindholme.

So many eye witness stories, I could you all witless !

Lovley memories.

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24 years 2 months

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Which spit is that ?

MK356

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15 years 11 months

Posts: 5,339

lucky enough to pass Blackbushe nearly every weekend during the late 70s onwards, on the way to grandma and grandad's house. Dad was mad on planes and so we would regularly stop for a gawp. Can recall seeing my first spitfire there. There were also wings in racks down the side of the hangar. JU52s,and then B25s were usually visible there on the airfield as we shot past, hanging out of the Cortina window. Also have a vague recollection of seeing a P51 in RAF markings by the control tower there. Lucky enough to live near Farnborough at that time and often used to see aircraft I didn't understand whizzing over. Only recognised the spitfire because of my dad's magic case which was in the loft. Whenever dad went up in the roof, I would follow, in order to find the case, which was covered in roundels etc. Upon opening the case, I would be confronted by a tangled mess of broken models, mostly spitfires, which dad made when he was young.

Dad passed away some 10 years ago at an early age. When he died mum said to us "take something as a keepsake". I chose, and still love my case of mangled plastic spitfires, it is my most treasured item and always will be...

Spitfire, a special plane in so many ways.

Good times :) I was also there in those gone by days ! Good times ..

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19 years 7 months

Posts: 467

Hmmm. Have to say I'm really not sure: when I was a youngster I was mad keen on cars, not getting into airplanes until I approached my teens. I went to at least two air shows (Seneca 1972--rained out--and Hamilton 1975) before I really developed an interest in aviation. It's also just possible I saw the PR.19 on display at Toronto alongside the destroyer Haida (PM627, now in Sweden); and if T.9 TE308 was at the '75 Hamilton show I'd have seen her, but remember neither. I would have seen NH188 at Rockcliffe during a school trip there in '78. In '77 or '78 (or both), MK923, flown by Jerry Billing, would've appeared at Hamilton airshow. I certainly recall my dad telling me a Spitfire was coming to the show one of those two years. And we went to Florida in 1976, and I'm pretty sure we called in at NASM in DC en route, so EN474 is an outside possibility. Which one do I really remember seeing first? That would have to be MK923 at Mt.Hope, whichever year in the late 70s she showed up. Happily I saw Billing fly that Spit quite a few times over the next decade and a half or so (including a glorious Alain deCadenet-style Rotol haircut experience on 1982 Hamilton airshow arrival day); have never seen any other Spitfire so memorably flown!

S.

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16 years 6 months

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It was probably the gate guardian at Biggin Hill (SL674?) in 1967 or it may have TB863 in Bill Francis's back garden or possibly K9942 on a trailer on the day before a Southend Airshow 1967 or 1968 - I was a long time ago

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14 years 10 months

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May 1939 at age 7. My father took my younger brother and I on his bike to Hawkinge for the Empire Air Day. He told me to start walking out of the village and set off with my brother on the bike, then he dropped him off further up the road and told him to carry on walking. Then he came back for me and took me past my brother and then carried on repeating the process till we got there, and repeated the exercise on the way back. It was over 3 miles each way with some decent hills, that was real devotion to duty.

I vividly remember this new wonder fighter being demonstrated, when the commentator said the Spit was coming in to land it did another high speed pass, but then entered the circuit and landed. I was immediately hooked and my sole ambition from then on was to be a fighter pilot. Of course just over a year later we had the BoB fought right over our heads. Great excitement, collecting cases and watching aircraft crash and crew coming down by parachute.

Memories :D:D

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15 years 8 months

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First seen - 266 Sqn, Wittering.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v164/photo04/DSCN0292.jpg

I was somewhere in the front lot.

First, mid & last flown...........

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v164/photo04/Mk5b.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v164/photo04/XIV.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v164/photo04/TimandAl.jpg

= Tim

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15 years 5 months

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First time, I suppose was at the age of around two, sitting in a pushchair in 1944 being wheeled along by my mum.

First time that actually meant anything to me in 1954, G-AIDN lived in the Southern Flying Club hangar at Eastleigh where I had become a spotter.

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16 years 5 months

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I went to Shuttleworth in 1986 with a school friend for the 40th Anniversary of the DH Chipmunk Display, AR501 displayed and we had our picture taken next to her, he had the photo:( we lost touch over 20 years ago when his family moved.

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13 years

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Open day at RAF Croughton (USAF base) c1965/6. Sat in a Spitfire and a Hurricane. Next Spitfire was at Wittering in the 1 Squadron hangar, then this one belonging to the RHKAAF at Kai Tak in 1976. (also had the privilege of sitting in the 'enemy', Bf109 Black 6 on the flight line at Duxford at it's first public display)

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15 years

Posts: 1,712

First real one that I saw was a mark 5 at RAF Credenhill,Hereford then the mark 16 at Sheppards, Upperhill near Leominster.First one sat in was MK356 at RAF St Athan.