A story about a Spitfire

That’s a line from the movie Battle of Britain. The Squadron Leader is running to his plane and shouts at a young pilot standing transfixed by the drama around him. When I walk into the lounge area of Fly A Spitfire, this quote is rather conspicuously written on the wall. Also on the wall are the photos of pilots who flew Hurricanes and Spitfires out of Biggin Hill during the Battle of Britain.

I’m here, and I’m ready to get one up! Where I am is the end of a journey that started six months earlier, researching opportunities to fly a Spitfire, but perhaps the journey was a bit earlier.

I’m of a generation whose parents’ heroes weren’t from the Marvel Universe; they were the servicemen who fought and died in two world wars. My father came back from a trip to London in the 1970s with a poster that had all the different variations of Spitfire throughout World War II on it, with brief characteristics underneath each picture.

If the poster wasn’t enough to begin a love affair with Spitfires, then watching movies like the Battle of Britain and, more recently, Dunkirk certainly pushed me along this journey to Biggin Hill. Another influence was driving around town with Dad and listening to his cassette of aircraft engine recordings. Like a favourite song on cassette, I only remember listening to the mighty Merlin engine and then rewinding the tape to listen to it again and again.

Biggin Hill is southeast of London and is where green fields and little villages begin. Biggin Hill was an air base during the Battle of Britain and was bombed by the Luftwaffe, but these days, the only invading forces are celebrities who use the field to land private jets. Sharing the field with Gulfstreams and Lear jets is Fly A Spitfire. Their hanger is filled with aircraft that can take to the air or are dreaming of flying again. There’s a Hurricane, Kittyhawk, Messerschmitt 109 and Jeeps used in the movie Fury, paratrooper scooters and more than I know I’ll have time to look at. There’s a smell too. It’s the smell of engine oil and hot engine parts as they’re fired up for testing. It’s not a museum smell. This is the smell of aircraft that are alive and just waiting for their turn to fly.

To go up in a Spitfire you don’t need the courage of flying aces that flew out of Biggin Hill, but you do need to pass a test with a level of self-confidence that only you can judge is right for you. The bail-out procedure is an online familiarisation instruction, and it’s a preflight video, then you demonstrate it to the flight crew when you’re in the cockpit. It’s an understanding of how to lower your seat, slide back the canopy, bang open the cockpit side door and jump out with a static line parachute and if that fails, how to pull a D-ring to open the parachute.

Sitting in the cockpit was my first understanding that this is a fighter aircraft that is over 80 years old. I’m surrounded by rivets and cables that are functional and represent what makes this machine fly fast and with great manoeuvrability.

Then there’s a roar that carries with it more than noise; it’s a tangible, visceral, immersive wave that sweeps through you and with it comes the smell of the Merlin engine. With the roar of this engine starting up, the aircraft comes alive and embraces me with a firmness greater than my harness. I’m soaked in the smell. I’m shaking with the aircraft’s impatience to get into the sky, and in the words of ‘High Flight’, the wonderful poem by Spitfire pilot John Gillespie, I just want to ‘join the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds’. We’re ready to go!

And when I say ‘we’re’, there’s something else about this experience. I’ve brought my son Tom with me to have his own adventure. He’s going up in the chase plane to enjoy looking at the fields of Kent before being shot down by me in fast flybys.

Tom’s description of the Spitfire taxing towards the runway is interesting. The Spitfire is constantly turning to the left and right as it makes its way to the end of the runway. Visibility on the ground when taxiing isn’t a strong point for fighter aircraft of this era, and this is the only way to see what’s in front.

Taking off is thrilling. It feels like a lifetime achievement. The absolute core of my bucket list that, in reality, I never thought I’d achieve. I’m in the air, gaining height, the wheels are up, and I’m bursting every muscle on my face with a smile from ear to ear.

I look down at the remarkable elliptical wing of this aircraft that makes it so famous and identifiable. Down below are green fields and small patches of woodland forest, and I even get to look at Charles Darwin’s house and estate. Just as quickly as I look down I realise that this isn’t a scenic flight to see the surrounding English countryside. This experience is the aircraft itself. Another of my Spitfire influences is a book called, Sigh For A Merlin, by Spitfire test pilot Alex Henshaw, who says throughout his experiences that Spitfire was easy to fly. Now it’s time to see if he’s right.

Watching the GoPro footage after my flight, I expected to see how happy I was, but watching me take the controls was different. My face looks like I’m doing an Algebra test. I’m focused on the horizon to keep level flight and then slowly banking to search for my son in the chase plane. I wish I’d relaxed for these moments and looked around me, but maybe that’s what learning to fly an aircraft designed for flying to fight is all about, learning to trust that this perfect design will perfectly respond.

There’s extra time for my flight because of some private jet traffic, so there are more victory rolls and banking of the aircraft on its wingtip. Victory rolls by exuberant pilots were frowned upon during wartime because of the stress on battle-weary airframes, but gosh, they’re fun! The delirious blue sky rolls its way from the top of your vision to the bottom and then back to its rightful place at the top, along with my stomach.

The sensation of speed is achieved as I fly past the chase plane, and it looks like it’s standing still in mid-air. Tom captures some amazing moments of my flight, including the Spitfire close alongside and then banking and descending and becoming camouflaged with the fields below.

I’ve told friends, and now you, that I cried in the air because I wish my dad was here to see this. Then I cried because I’m here with my son.

On the ground and with the engine still, I slide the canopy back, and as the flight crew disconnect the cameras, they capture a final moment of my face and audio as they ask, “Old man would have proud of that, I bet?”, to which I just reply, “Yeah”.

He would have been proud, but reflecting on Dad can wait. I rush to where Tom is waiting, and he is so happy about his experience. He’s talking, I’m talking, and together, we have a complete story that has made the perfect day.

Double-cockpit Spitfires are rare to find, and you have to go a long way to do it. While there are a few groups in England that offer the experience of a flight in a Spitfire, for me, the passionate flight crew, a historic setting with a hanger full of epic and iconic heritage and the opportunity to make it a shared experience with a better man than I make this literally the experience of my lifetime.