Wow!! forgotten Spitfire's found!!!

stovepipe

www.foxnews.com/world/...ii-planes/

Allegedly with the Griffon engines too!

Jeebus, what a score!

Ominivision1

Interesting read Stovey.

stovepipe

Is that the coolest or what?

If they get half of them running could you imagine the fly-over?

Had a P-51 fly-over my place last Thursday- that engine sound is unmistakable.

Ominivision1

The wife and I went to Eau Claire WI air show back in June of 2010, they had one spitfire but was not ready for flight. They had numerous planes from world war 1, 2 and it was awesome to look at these magnificent pieces of machinery.

We did see 7 p-51 mustangs take off and land as well as 3 B-52 bombers and 2Grumman F6F Hellcat and p-38's, B-17's and, B-26's and B-52's. So much more aircraft plus the blue angels from EEA website.

stovepipe

I'm an absolute nut for piston powered planes. The sounds and smells of them I find intoxicating.

I had a job with a custom's house broker, was a trucker for them out of LAX. We'd do specials to the air musem and works in Chino. I'd love going in there and nosing around after dropping off some plane part found in Europe or somewhere. Had an in with a mechanic there and he showed me some things that boggled my little mechanical mind. The engineering and craftsmanship of some of the older air cooled engines was amazing and working in a machine shop I've seen some of the air and liquid cooled components come through my place. I love that old stuff.

If yer ever in SoCal and even remotely interested in aviation this is a must do:

planesoffame.org/index...erpage=All

Vince

Magnificent find. The Spitfire is one of the iconic aircraft of the past 100 yrs.

Be great to see a full squadron "raised" to fly them.

slimjim

UnFreaking believable!!! He certainly worked long and hard to achieve that accomplishment. Now the fun begins!

Tremblay

Very interesting

dhc4ever

stovepipe wrote:

I'm an absolute nut for piston powered planes. The sounds and smells of them I find intoxicating.
I love that old stuff.

Well Stovie, you haven't lived until you work on a radial engine at 2 am with oil running down your arm, traveling down through your jocks and pooling in your boots.
Yeah I loved them as well.
I'm over that bit though, for every hour making that wonderful grumbling roar, there 6 to 8 hrs of fixing the leaks, timing the mags and refilling the oil.

Elvis

got to see the war birds over wanaka if you like those older planes.

slimjim

Stovey, they are going to need pilots!! Have you already got us a place at the head of the que?

English Mike

Call me an old cynic but I'll only believe these aeroplanes exist when they show some physical evidence.
The RAF Historical Branch is on record as stating that to their knowledge, no Spitfires were ever "crated" for delivery anywhere in the world.
I'd love to have my disbelief proved wrong.

English Mike

stovepipe wrote:

Allegedly with the Griffon engines too!

That pretty much clinches it as a hoax, as the Griffon wasn't even around when the Japanese invaded Burma.
I can't even find any reference to Spitfires in the Far East until 1943.

gelandangan

There goes the market value of the Spitfire..

It would be cool to get one now that they are "more" available.
Lets see.. if I put a way a dollar a day...

radar

Im with Elvis, the Wanaka War birds display is awesome and they have just finished restoring an old Mosquito twin engine fighter bomber- now that will be spectacular