Well what can I say when I walked into work yesterday morning it seemed like a normal day, April fools day but a normal day none the less. All seemed normal and after a brief check over my tool cabinet and workbench for the inevitable april fools joke of which much to my surprise there were none, this year the jokes were played on our young female apprentices, but thats another story altogether 
So I settled down to work, which if you are interested at the moment I am inspecting and overhauling a pair of Hurricane fuel tanks, boring stuff really. Shortly after tea break and still a lack of aprils fools jokes and the hangar phone rang. Chiefy answered and 5 mins later he came into the workshop âGareth, youâll be flying in the Spitfire todayâ and he walks out again. Haha yeah ok, any other time and I would of believed him but yesterday we did not have any flying scheduled. So that was the April fools joke, or so I thought and carried on as normal.
Well shortly after lunchtime things got interesting⊠the MD turned up along with one of our test pilots, the Spitfire flying instructor 
Well it was not an April Fools at all and yesterday afternoon at 16:30hrs I donned a parachute and strapped myself into the Spitfire that I had previously spent 4 1/2 years building! and off we went for a sortie over Hampshire.
Quick safety briefing from the pilot and then it was really happening. Starting procedure out of the way and he fired her up, quick taxi around to the runway as Spitfires overheat very quickly on the ground, powerchecks and we were away. I was almost overcome with excitement and adrenaline and shortly after takeoff (3000ft comes up very very quickly) the pilot announced âyou have controlâ as his hands appeared in the bubble canopy in front of me, that was it I now had control of the Spitfire a dream had come true. He proceeded to say âIâll do the throttle and engine and you do the flyingâ As a person with qute a lot of flying experience I was amazed at how sensitive she was on the controls, it is so true when you hear spitfire pilots saying âyou only need to think about turning and you areâ in pitch the controls were very very light and incredibly responsive and even at moderate speed (260mph) the ailerons despite being heavy were also very responsive at even higher speeds it was almost time for two hands on the stick! but again immediate and unflinching response came from the aircraft. We poodled around for 5 mins with my pilot telling me which way he would like me to go and then he asked about some aerobatics and if I fancied any. Well he demonstrated the maneuvers, just a barrel roll and a wingover with me following through on the controls and then he announced ânow you do itâ :w00t: giving it my best shot the barrel roll worked brilliantly but not so hot on the wingover, damned easy in our virtual world but I can say that after carting a Spitfire around the sky for real our virtual world is nothing like the real thing. I now have an even greater respect for all those young men and women that fought and died in aerial combat throughout all wars. Maneuvers out of the way and we were now close to a neighboroughing airfield to which my pilot asked control if they would like a beatup âYes, why notâ came the rather blasĂ© reply from the tower. So âI have controlâ from my pilot and power on, immediately shoved back into the seat as were started curving in for a pass along the main runway, yes much like one of our strafing attacks starting from 1500-2000ft we accelerated downhill rapidly to 330+mph and went belting along the runway at an undisclosed height to pull up at the end into a fantastic barrel roll, 3000ft again in a blink of an eye and then we were heading home âyou have controlâ as once again I was in control of the Spitfire for the flight home. I was actually amazed at how bumpy it was as we made the pass, considering it was a calm day we were being thrown around all over the sky, just imagine flying IL2 at low level with the worst weather settings, well thats what it was like but the weather was fine! We were bounced all over the sky, and again it made me thing about those aviators that actually went to war, how the hell they hit anything is a miracle. Shortly later and we were back over the airfield and my pilot took control of the aircraft for the rejoin and landing, a perfect curving approach was made and within moments of the airfield being under us we were once more on the ground and parked up outside of the hangar, where I was greeted by the MD with beers in hand!
I must say words really cannot do the flight and experience any justice, but I did film various parts of the flight with my camcorder, obviously not through any aeros as that would of made me sick and the G forces alone really prevent a hand from freely floating around the cockpit, however I did film the takeoff, the low pass and the landing and as soon as I clear it with the boss that I am ok to post it to the public domain it will be on youtube. The video is not the best because quite honestly the video recording was not my priority I simply turned the camera on and pointed it, I did not look through the view finder at all or use the LCD display. At one point after the fast pass the camera is looking at the cockpit floor, that was because of the âGâ forces pushing my hand that way. Anyways if I can post it I will.
Incidentally that must make the EAF the only virtual squadron on the planet that have two members who have flown Spitfires, cheers Insight
