Spitfire unlike any other

My favorite airplane of all time :plane: ....but....hard to tell what Mark this one is ?

Bloody good job. :first:

Mylo
 
How could people who brought us warm beer and Lucas (Prince of Darkness) electronics have given us the Spitfire?
 
Spitfire and a Mustang ;-)

Spitfire and a Mustang ;-)

As i´m a big fan of the Spitfire and other warbirds i´m a little bit privileged with my local airport EDTG. Here a few impressions from the last weekend, enjoy. :rapture:

Supermarine Spitfire HF Mk VIIIc, D-FEUR, owned by MaxAlpha Aviation, Meiermotors :








Freely translated and quoted from MeierMotors:

“Historical Outline of the Supermarine Spitfire Mk VIII

This Spitfire was built in the "Supermarine Southampton's Factory" in 1944. The aircraft was delivered in September 1944 to the Royal Air Force and assigned with the tactical identification of MV154 at the 6MU. This "ferry flight" from Southampton to Brise Norton was carried out by a 19 year old lady named Mary Wilkens, a so called ATA girl "Air Transport Auxillary pilots”. This young lady had ratings for 72 different types of aircraft. ATA girls accomplished almost superhuman flights with the transfer of aircrafts to airbases. They flew unarmed, with bad maps and were not yet accepted as proper pilots. About these women there is a wonderful television documentary. To get the curve back, said Mary Wilkens left her personal signature at the right hand side in the cockpit in 1993! A wonderful time capsule of a remarkable woman. It's the small details which make a unique aircraft.”

Something more about the history. This plane can be seen in the movie “Pearl Harbour” with the signature “RF T” in brown/green camouflage in flight over the english airfield. :whoo:

Of course there is more to come. How about a Mustang P-51 called "Lucky Lady VII"?







Freely translated and quoted from MeierMotors:

The “Lucky Lady VII” (Ser.Nr. 44-73045) was flown during WW II by Col. Ernest E.Bankey jr. over Europe . He flew over 100 sorties with over 500 flying hours. If you follow the official reports he had 10,5 air to air victories ( plus another one not officially documented ) and destroyed another 5,5 aircraft on the ground. From all of his air to air victories 5,5 happened alone at the 27th of December 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge. For this he was rewarded with the “Distinguished Service Cross”, so actually he was one of the “Ace in a day”. He also received the “Silver Star”, „Distinguished Flying Cross with Clusters“, „Air Medal with 9 Oak Leaf Clusters“ and the „French Croix De Guerre with Palm“.

He left the US Air Force in 1968 and worked later on in the private airplane and space industry. Sadly he died in 2009 before the complete restoration of his plane was finished. But the current owner is in contact with his son and hopes for some kind of a reunion.

It is said that he once aired a radio message which got quite famous: “I have 50 Jerries cornered over Bonn!”

These have been my lousy shots. If you want to watch a few more just go to

http://www.meiermotors.com/

On the menu at the left hand side just click onto “aircrafts”, choose your toy and enjoy the show. Literally hundreds of photos. This weekend the weather is lousy and we may even get a little bit of snow. But within the next few weeks I will try to get a few photos when these birds are in the sky.

Have fun, bg ;-D :D
 
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Thanks so much for the post, Two fantastic examples of WWII warbirds. Positively stunning.

I was not aware of the ATA, I have the highest regard for such women. I appreciate the education.

Mylo
 
Yeah, but the "Mustang" was a mere Pony when we first sent them to England. They hung it with a merlin and created a real Stallion.
 
Yes they came up with that solution after several warm beers.......
 
There is no finer example of American and British engineering working together then the P-51D, VERY tough to dispute that it was the best fighter of any prop driven airplane. ....not to mention how georgous the airplane is to look at.

Mylo
 
...more information.

...more information.

@ Mylo: This is educating me as well. I really like to find these nice bits of history. Not only in aviation. Curiosity is what all humans share, otherwise we would still be sitting in our caves.

So I couldn´t resist and dug a little bit deeper. At first just something about the ATA in general:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transport_Auxiliary

The next article from 2011 shows a remarkable live during the war and beyond. Mary Wilkins-Ellis became the first commandant of an airport at least in Europe. Actually she was in this position from 1950 – 1970. The airport is Bembridge, Isle of Wight, UK. By the way she survived two crash landings during WW II as well, unhurt. No big deal, right? :p

http://www.visitislandlife.com/sections/articles_interviews/flying-against-all-expectations/

Very nice and heartwarming short video of Mary Wilkins–Ellis at the age of 93 (2009) in a Spitfire:

http://youtu.be/whmh_QKGosQ


There had been quite a few more like her. If you have a little bit more time you can enjoy a whole BBC documentary called “The Spitfire Women” with Mary Wilkins-Ellis and a few more:

http://youtu.be/lCcFw_VtboI

Of course I don´t forgot Col. Ernest E. Bankey, Jr. There was not much I could find about him but there is at least a little bit. No videos, sorry! :sorry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Bankey

Here another summary of his live :

http://veterantributes.org/TributeDetail.php?recordID=718

The next one is an interview with Col. Ernest Bankey where he is talking about his famous radio message. A little bit different from the often cited one straight from the horses mouth. Today their server seems to be down but I post the link anyway. Yesterday it was working perfectly. Hopefully it´s a temporary problem and it comes up again. So if someone can come up with a little redirection it would be perfect:

http://www.airportjournals.com/display.cfm/VanNuys/0304051

A lot more about this special airplane with additional informations and a lot of photos inclusive two historic ones of Col. Ernest Bankey jr.. A lot of photos are from M.Doerst, the webmaster of MeierMotors. This guy is very active and puts lots of photos on their own page as well as at well known english and german forums dealing with war birds. ;)

http://www.crazyhorseap.be/Mustangs/Mustangs/D-FPSI Lucky Lady VII/D-FPSI.htm

It is really refreshing that the new owner decided to get the airframe back to it´s original livery (nearly). Of course the 17 swastikas are gone. It´s still absolutely forbidden by law to show swastikas in Germany! As the P-51 has a german registry in the meantime it would be an absolute no go. Even visiting planes have to cover those or have to paint it over before they are coming here. Somehow I can understand that but definitely not in these circumstances. :boom:

On a lighter note I really enjoyed the little discrepancies from the different sources of knowledge. So Mary Wilkins-Ellis probably signed the cockpit already in 1944 instead in 1993 and Col. Bankey´s radio message was also a little bit different. But I could be wrong as well. :D

This doesn´t change their achievements. It just shows how carefully one has to be when quoting stuff or writing a press article. Thank God this is only a forum, hahaha! So please don´t quote me. :)

I hope that some of you can enjoy this as I do. Have fun, Rainer :wave:

P.s. Right now i´m enjoying a real cool white wine from my local winery. Nothing against beer anyway. :angel:
 
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