Yes but it’s well worth it innit! Any insurance that can bring you back from the dead after you’ve fallen out of a spitfire or worserer still got into a crash in one, it must be flippin fantastic. Ozziedog,,,,,,,,, I might get some of that for driving my van
My primary school as more or less at the end of Biggin Hill runway. It was great when the airshows were on. I remember my lungs nearly bursting when the Vulcan came in to land, a thick layer of partially burnt kerosene covered the whole school. Best Spitfire story is from a couple of years ago when we were walking along Beachy Head. I'd just put my camera away when there was a distant low rumble, I couldn't see anything until suddenly a Spitfire shot up, seemingly vertically, from below the cliff edge. I'm sure it was much further away than it looked, and was climbing at a relatively shallow angle, but from my perspective it appeared to be heading spacewards a few feet from the white cliffs. By the time I'd got my camera back out, it was somewhere over Eastbourne.
Yes my Uncle Eric was an engine fitter at RAF Scampton (the one holding the prop setter), herd some lovely stories of those engines, no so good ones of the Vultures. No Lancs there today.
One of the highlights of camping at Goodwood Revival is the Spitfire (and other WWII fighters) aerobatics with breakfast each morning. It’s just the best start to the day.
Different from my youth there were only a few Spitfires airworthy. Most were static gate guardians at RAF airfields now replaced with fibreglass ones and rebuilt and flying again. Fibreglass Hurricane and Spitfire at Biggin.
I got my PPL in the 90’s though gave it up when it got too expensive. One manoeuvre you had to do just once in training was spin recovery. You turn the engine to idle, pull back the stick to slow the airspeed and the aircraft stalls and goes into a spin, plummetting to the ground. Terrifying, but you need to know how to get out of it. Some people liked to do it for fun.
Fortunately, Rolls Royce have obtained a court injunction preventing @Merlin Cat from being anywhere within 20 miles of a Merlin engine, to prevent immediate mechanical failure. It's for the best
Spin recovery is not part of the PPL anymore, but rather they call it something like pre-spin recognition where you are drilled to recover from a stall at the instance one is developing (warning horn which is very early on) and you’re not allowed to actually let the aircraft stall. Which is a shame as the first time you really stall and you get that feeling in the pit of the stomach and panic, one should really be with an instructor.
Indeed the Sea Harrier was a fantastic plane that served the country well for 25 years, without it in 1982 we would not have reclaimed the Falklands. As a shipwright apprentice I remember being involved with the ski ramp build on HMS Hermes, this of course allowed the Harrier to take off with a bigger payload. A book worth reading is that of Commander Sharkey Ward- Sea Harrier over the Falklands: a Maverick at War. I was down at the boat this morning and I think there was another Spitfire out over Chichester Harbour, dont get me wrong they sound great, but they do interrupt the peace when I am sat enjoying a cup of tea in the sun.