Today (Saturday 26 th Sept 2020) I stood on a Kent airfield and watched a lone Spitfire chase a Messerschmitt 109 across the skies in a mock battle. 80 years ago and no more than 20 miles from where I stood today, I may have seen the same thing being fought out in anger, but I have no recollection of such.
After a few passes, 2 more Spitfires and a Hurricane joined in and watchers were treated to the fantastic sight of 3 Spitfires in "V" formation escorting the Me109 with the single Hurricane bringing up the rear.
All this accompanied by the fabulous roar of 4 Merlins and a Daimler-Benz.

What a sight, but thank goodness we are all friends now

Wow, dont think you'll see that often.

Wow!

That must have been a stunning spectacle! How lucky you were to witness that!

Years ago when I was at RAF Benson in the mid to late 80s I helped do a little bit of restoration to Black 6. Sadly it was (in my opinion) negligently crashed at (I think) Duxford and is no longer flying. ...Unless it is flying again?

Motorcyclist Colin said:

Today (Saturday 26 th Sept 2020) I stood on a Kent airfield and watched a lone Spitfire chase a Messerschmitt 109 across the skies in a mock battle. 80 years ago and no more than 20 miles from where I stood today, I may have seen the same thing being fought out in anger, but I have no recollection of such.
After a few passes, 2 more Spitfires and a Hurricane joined in and watchers were treated to the fantastic sight of 3 Spitfires in "V" formation escorting the Me109 with the single Hurricane bringing up the rear.
All this accompanied by the fabulous roar of 4 Merlins and a Daimler-Benz.

What a sight, but thank goodness we are all friends now

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Present Government and crazy Prime Minister excepted...... One can but hope that we remain on good terms with our EU neighbours.

Brilliant Colin.
Wish I'd seen it all.
My great grandfather HCS Bullock was involved in the 1914 to 1918 conflict with BE2s in the RFC, he was stationed at Montrose in squadron No2. The museum there is worth a visit, sadly I've never been close to a Spitfre but heard that wonderful sound overhead.

Looking through a few photos as a result of this thread, here's a couple of me with surviving Battle of Britain Huricane UPW at RAF Northolt a few years back. The sound of a Merlin engine on full song puts shivers down my spine

MaxHeadroom said:

Wow!

That must have been a stunning spectacle! How lucky you were to witness that!

Years ago when I was at RAF Benson in the mid to late 80s I helped do a little bit of restoration to Black 6. Sadly it was (in my opinion) negligently crashed at (I think) Duxford and is no longer flying. ...Unless it is flying again?

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If I remember correctly black 6 although the crash was unfortunate was reaching the end of it's flying life due to the the airframe hours or something similar. Either way that was going to be it's last season and it was going on static display.

Apparently white 14 has since been restored to flying condition so it may have been that, or it may have been one of the (relatively) many buchons kicking about.

If it was a buchon then obviously the sound would be somewhat misleading!

hi what a sight that must of been. back in the very early 50s when king george died , i sat on the on the rail of the garden gates and counted out 6 spitfires and hurricanes from raf tangmere, went indoors listened to radio as they done there fly past. went back outside and counted them back in . to this day i can tell if either are flying the and the merlin engine noise has never left me now 75

StevenRB45 said:

If I remember correctly black 6 although the crash was unfortunate was reaching the end of it's flying life due to the the airframe hours or something similar. Either way that was going to be it's last season and it was going on static display.

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Black 6 didn't have many flying hours under its belt and had not that long had a very detailed and complete overhaul, much of it at RAF Benson in Oxon where I happened to be stationed at the time, which is how I got involved with it in a very small way during the latter part of the build between 1990 and 91.
Russ Snadden was one of the main leaders of the team - as I recall, he was a 737 airline pilot for (I think) Britannia at the time, but quite how he got involved with Black 6, I don't know. The detail they went into during its restoration was extraordinary - I think even the primer was to the same spec as the original.
I don't believe Black 6 was up on its hours by any means; more likely it was some CAA limitation - and yes, you're quite right; it certainly was going to be one of, if not it's last, flight before becoming grounded

I live on the Kent coast not a million miles from the White Cliffs of Dover and the RAF memorial at Capel.
Just recently the odd Spitfire was to be seen fairly often. If you could not see it you sure could hear it.
Visit Headcorn airfield near Maidstone sometime and you may be lucky enough to see one, or even two Spitfires. (Maybe even the odd Vincent bike!)

Motorcyclist Colin said:

I live on the Kent coast not a million miles from the White Cliffs of Dover and the RAF memorial at Capel.

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I can only assume you're the lucky man with the Vincent bike that can sometimes be heard. [drools]
My father successfully raced a Velocette MOV250 during the 1950s


I must make the effort and visit Capel-le-Ferne sometime.

As a veteran of 22 years full-time RAF service and a further 14 as a reservist it would be pretty remiss of me if I didn't!

I was at the Dawlish Air Show in 2014 when the Canadian and RAF Lancasters flew together. I stood on the hill to the south of the town where most of the planes came in low for a left turn and low level run along the seafront. They both came over VERY low with the bomb doors open.

The next planes over were Spitfire and Hurricane. Though not quite scraping the trees and sadly no BF109 or FW190.
Apart from the sheer spectacle, it has really stuck with me just how extremely intimidating they are even today. These are fearsome war machines that really did cause A LOT of damage and still could today if they were armed up.

In 2015 (the final Dawlish show), I witnessed on of the last flights of Vulcan XH558. It's amazing this monster was built by the same company that had built the Lancasters just 15 year earlier.

A couple of old Videos from the last 5 years I pulled out, the first one was taken on a visit to Duxford to see the museum and happened to see a spitfire starting up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msPcGjuvhQA

The other on a visit to the battle of brittain memorial flight in 2015 and saw the Lancaster and its four merlin engines starting up.

The videos are fairly poor and you don't really get the impact of the engines when running like you do in person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir9Td4V-MDA

On another trip a couple of weeks ago to london we went to the London Imperial War Museum and they have a very nice cut away merlin engine which shows the huge centrifugal super charger on the back of the engine its about the size of the engine found in most modern fiats, just the super charger, the rest of the engine wouldn’t fit in the boot of a car with the seats down

MaxHeadroom said:

The sound of a Merlin engine on full song puts shivers down my spine

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The Roll Royce Spitfire was often over my old house when I lived in Derby. People always ran out to watch. I think it was a late model with the deeper sounding Griffon. Sadly lost with the pilot when he over-cooked a display loop. RIP
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/19056

The De Havilland Mosquito is plane I want to see. It's still one of the fastest piston engine planes ever built. The twin Merlins on full chat must be an awesome sound.

DaveMcT said:

The Roll Royce Spitfire was often over my old house when I lived in Derby. People always ran out to watch. I think it was a late model with the deeper sounding Griffon. Sadly lost with the pilot when he over-cooked a display loop. RIP
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/19056

The De Havilland Mosquito is plane I want to see. It's still one of the fastest piston engine planes ever built. The twin Merlins on full chat must be an awesome sound.

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It is some considerable time since I was there but there was a Mosquito in the De Havilland museum near St Albans
As a National Service Air Wireless Mech. back in the 50s we had a Mossie with some radio gear in it at Yatesbury, for training purposes. If my memory serves me right (big IF) there was a big bit of radio gear called an STR18 which was situated right down the end of the fuselage near the tailplane. to service it you needed to have your tools in hand and slither down the fuselage, head first, tools held out in front of you.A great joke of your (so called) mate was to operate the tailplane controls while you were stuck there, so the control wires nearly cut your ears off.
Some one eventually set fire to it, and it certainly went up.
A pity in retrospect, but some of us were glad to see it go, at the time
Visit, when you can, La Cupole,near St Omer in France and find out about a Mosquito.

An old chap I used to know flew Mosquito night fighters. He said the radar set kept his and the pilot's legs warm. He was aware that his legs were getting microwaved but clearly suffered no ill effects.

The Mossie really should come back with carbon fibre, turbo props and a 30mm gatling gun. The Tsetse version flew in WW2 with British 6 pounder anti tank gun and Mohlins auto loader. They were intended for anti tank use but got used to sink U boats.

Seeing and hearing classic aircraft like the ones that date from WW2 is something to always be remembered, but despite those pleasure, they are bit as great as coming across the, unexpectedly.

A few years ago I was working and on the cargo area at Manchester Airport. I knew there was a Lancaster due to visit that Saturday but when it flew directly over me at what seemed like a couple of hundred feet, not only the sight was stirring but also the sound of those four Merlins.

Around the same year I was leaving work at the airport when, looking down the flight line I was surprised to see a black smoke trail heading my way. To the best of my knowledge there were no commercial aircraft operating then that were that smokey. Another staff member asked me if I was going to hang around to see the Vulcan. Two and two together time then. Fortunately I had the trusty Nikon to hand and got some half decent photographs. Four RR Olympus engines are also something you'll never forget the sound of.

About 20 years ago I was in Hutton-le-Hole in North Yorkshire with the family and heard what I heard was two thirds of the BBMF. Looking up I saw the one and only Mosquito I've ever seen flying. I believe it crashed a few years later.

Then about five years ago, on holiday in Northumbria I was sitting in the back garden of the house we'd rented. The house was only about a hundred yards from the East Coast mainline and I'd heard several of the still in service Inter City 125 trains in the last few days when I thought I could hear another one. But it wasn't a train at all but a Lockheed P38 flying just about 200 feet off the ground and following the rail line.

The last unexpected encounter was when I was sitting in my car having a bit of lunch when I could hear a strange throbbing sound. There were trees all the way down the street so I couldn't see anything. The sound grew louder until eventually three Avro Shackletons came into view having paid a farewell visit to Woodford where they were built. That was the best sound of all.

Back around 2012 I was on the A10 north of Ware when I spotted the Vulcan XH558 doing circuits. I stopped the bike (because I could) and stood to watch. Almost every car on the road had stopped with people getting out to watch the old bird. Those huge engines sounded like sewing machines. I did not get hear them at full chat until she flew at the last Dawlish Airshow in 2015.

DaveMcT said:

An old chap I used to know flew Mosquito night fighters. He said the radar set kept his and the pilot's legs warm. He was aware that his legs were getting microwaved but clearly suffered no ill effects.

The Mossie really should come back with carbon fibre, turbo props and a 30mm gatling gun. The Tsetse version flew in WW2 with British 6 pounder anti tank gun and Mohlins auto loader. They were intended for anti tank use but got used to sink U boats.

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I think the same Mohlins gun, which was 57mm with a round weighing 6lb, was also used on the Beaufighter for a while. I'm not sure whether the A/T round was also used in this role or if there was a HE version.