Summer 1992 on a six-week TDY (USAF) to England. Several days off so it's out to Duxford for a visit, taxi drops me and my navigator (KC-135R crew) off at the gate at about 0930, field opens at 1000. A guy on coveralls sees us waiting and walks over and lets us in early. He's working on a Hurricane in one of the shops and later we stop by. I always like to walk out to the airfield and just take it all in and this morning was no different. No one around, a little morning fog, almost completely silent but for a few small birds. My nav wanders off to look for a bathroom so I stand there, leaning on the portable fencing and just look out onto that wonderful airfield and imagine the summer of 1940. Then I hear an engine, and not a small engine. It comes to life out of sight between the hangars over my right shoulder. I think no, no way. Then it comes into view, Carolyn Grace's two-seat Spitfire! It taxies out onto the grass and toward where I was standing. They see me, make a 180 and stop in front of me for a moment while I snap pictures. Thank God I had my camera. Then they taxi further to my left, point the nose into the wind, run it up and perform the required checks. Still no one but me in sight, and the two pilots in the Spit. The power comes up to that wonderful V-12 roar and off they go, bouncing lightly on the grass as the speed built, me taking a picture or two but trying not to miss this looking through my view finder. Into the air, wheels come up, and the sound subsides as the Spit climbs out and makes a shallow turn to the north and into the clouds. I was having a hard time seeing, if you know what I mean. Still only me standing there. After a few minutes I can hear faint Merlin sounds as they do aerobatics above the clouds a few miles north of Duxford, that wonderful booming V-12 sound tracing their maneuvers in the sky. My nav comes back, oblivious, and asks if an airplane had taken off. Resisting the temptation to tell him to go back to where he was I said yeah, a Spitfire just took off. Unimpressed, the significance of a Spitfire flying at Duxford completely lost on him, he says the café is open and let's go get breakfast and coffee. No, I'm staying right here. That Spitifre will be back soon and I don't want to miss it. "They're not coming back." (He was a real dummy. Making any impression on him at all, in the air or on the ground, was impossible. I had intended to make this trip to Duxford by myself because I didn't want to babysit guys who didn't get any of it. He tagged along anyway.) So we stand there for ten more minutes and I realize the distant booming of the V-12 has stopped. Then, low and fast from our left, the Spitfire came in and passed right over us. The aft cockpit pilot seemed to be looking down at us. Up and around in a left-hand circuit, gear down, flaps down, and then a sweeping left-base turn to set down on that wonderful grass. "Pop-pop-pop-pop." They taxi back to the concrete apron between the hangars (built in the 1920s) and Carolyn Grace climbs out and walks into the hangar while the pilot-in-training tends to the airplane with a mechanic. We walk up and they greet us and let us have a look. The pilot walks us around the airplane and talks a bout its history and how it got here. I knew that story and filled in some blanks as we chatted and told him that the movie "Battle of Britain" was one of my favorites and that's why I was there that morning. I added that seeing a Spitfire fly, from Duxford, was just about the highlight of the decade and he chuckled. (They are used to Americans who don't know very much and don't appreciate history and the significance of things such as Spitfires flying at Duxford.) He let me sit in the front cockpit and then they towed the airplane back into the hangar. (My nav didn't want to sit in the Spitfire.) As we thanked the pilot for the look-see I said, "Okay, now we can go find food and coffee."
Taxi-out, 180-degrees into the wind, warm the engine:
Takeoff west from the grass:
Diving pass from the east after 30 minutes of aerobatic practice above the clouds:
Back-seater might have been looking at us?
Taxi-back after landing:
This Duxford "Spitfire Day" video is one of my faves too: