By Dave Hadfield
This story first appeared in the April 2019 issue of Warbirds.
The “perfect email” from Mike Potter, Warbirds 554678, came in February: “Dave, would you get checked out in the new Spitfire this spring, and then fly it to Vancouver Island and back this summer? And by the way display it at Oshkosh as well?” I replied immediately, “Sure, Mike. Glad to help any way I can.” I then spent an hour dancing wildly around the house.
My first fighter was the Curtiss P-40, part of Mike’s 15-aircraft collection at Gatineau-Ottawa Executive Airport, near Ottawa, Ontario, associated with Vintage Wings of Canada. I oversaw its restoration, flew it in 2009, and took it to many air shows. Since then, I’d also flown the Hurricane, Mustang, and the Lysander. But the slim rapier-beauty of the Spitfire had always caught my eye.
Finishing a 39-year career at Air Canada gave me the summer free, but crossing the country in a short-range interceptor would be entirely different from the B-777. I plunged into the technical aspects of the journey with chief pilot John Aitken and chief of maintenance Paul Tremblay. A plan came together.
C-GYQQ was a newly restored Mk. IX with 18 hours on the clock. It started life in April 1945 and went to 122 Squadron of the Royal Air Force but never saw action. In 1947 it was sold to South Africa, and flew to Cape Town, South Africa, on its own wings — its first remarkable journey. But in 1951 it suffered a landing accident and was sold for scrap. The new owner couldn’t bear to cut it up, so it stood atop a junk heap, gradually disintegrating, until it was removed by a collector in 1981. Not much was left then — bare bones and ragged edges — but after a long journey it ended up with the Y2K Spitfire project, in Comox, British Columbia. Later the project encountered financial problems, and Mike took it over, paying for all the big-ticket items. “I’ll spend the money, complete the aircraft, and bring it back for a visit to show you that we’ve kept a Spitfire flying in Canada,” he said. It’s the only one flying. It emerged from our hangar in May 2017 and flew for the first time in June that year.
Now it was my turn. First I had to pass a pilot proficiency check in the Harvard (T-6) with John (a Harvard is always a wake-up call, especially after a long winter), and then an in-house ground school and extensive briefing. Mike has had a Spitfire since 2000, and there is a great deal of corporate knowledge in the outfit. I fired up the Merlin 266 for the first time in April, and that day I didn’t fly it at all! Often a good way to get familiar with a new machine is simply a ground mission: start it, taxi it, run it up, before takeoff check, then bring it back, shut it down, and sleep on it. That’s what I did.
Next day, first flight, I had the only quasi-emergency the airplane would deal me the whole summer: the oil temperature wouldn’t stop rising. I’d just nicely got airborne — ears ringing, fumble fingered (no matter how much hangar practice) — and then noticed the needle steadily climbing. I reduced power, increased speed, opened the radiator flaps — nothing helped. I had to rudely cut off the Cessnas and Katanas in the circuit and plop it back on the ground. My airtime was six minutes! The whole first-flight program of stalls and gear cycling went out the window! But it turned out to be a simple fix; there was a clot of gungy stuff at the oil cooler Vernatherm valve, and after cleaning that out it ran cool and sweetly all summer.
Is there a lot of torque on takeoff? Surprisingly, no. You dial in some right rudder trim before you go, but the rudder is hugely powerful, and it only takes a tweak to stay straight. Also, we don’t go near full power. The supercharger allows you to draw 11 pounds of boost (about 52 inches of manifold pressure) if required, but by the time you smoothly ease the throttle up to about 6 pounds, it is light on its feet and ready to fly.
Off we went — the long-range tanks needing proving out. It was a perfect way for me to get to know the airplane a bit. There were four 12.5-gallon bladder tanks fitted into the gun bays. These could be pressurized by an air pump forcing the fuel up into the 90-gallon main tank ahead of the pilot. So I droned up and down the Ottawa River, watching the gauges, varying the power settings, recording the numbers, and doing the occasional aileron roll because I simply couldn’t resist! This homemade system worked flawlessly, then and all summer. What an improvement! I soon realized I could safely plan 400-plus mile legs. I needed a divert option at the 200-mile point in case of a fuel-feed problem, but that never happened.
How fast do we go? Well, like a transport aircraft, that depends. You can bring a Merlin way back to 1800 rpm and minus 4 pounds of boost, but it’s not recommended. Sure, the burn goes down into the 20s, but the engine may not lubricate properly, and the supercharger seals may be sucked out of their slots, not pushed into them. So we went with 1 pound of boost (about 31 inches of manifold pressure) and I found a smooth spot at 2050 rpm. This delivered about 38 imperial gph, for an indicated airspeed of 225 mph, trueing out at a typical cruise altitude (8,000 feet with no oxygen on board) at 263 mph in the warm summer air.
Air shows were first on the list. We were signed up for three of them in June. This allowed more opportunity to prove the aircraft’s systems, train me, and generate some income. At Borden I was No. 2 to our Corsair FG-1. We flew formation passes and strafing runs in trail. (The photographers went into a frenzy.) At Niagara Falls we were static display only, but 100,000 people attended, and I stood by the airplane for three days, baking in the relentless sun, answering questions. (“What model of Mustang is that, mister?”)
I had the most fun at St. Thomas where I did a solo flight display. There hadn’t been time to get an aerobatics card, but I’d worked up a display routine: flying to the corner marker, pulling up, and rolling away in a giant wingover that dove back down to 200 feet AGL by show center aimed at the other corner marker. A series of these showed off the Spitfire perfectly. The aircraft never stopped turning, never stopped rolling, never stopped pitching, the engine noise was constantly changing with the bearing, and there were endless angles to capture new images. Then I climbed away, held just north of the field, perched at 3,000 feet AGL while the de Havilland Vampire did a display, then dove down in a “bounce” to form up with it for a few more passes. What a delight!
The Spitfire has two wonderful characteristics. First is the slow-speed handling. It doesn’t like to stall, will fly quite slowly, and gives plenty of warning of stall onset. If you pull too aggressively at lower speeds (130 mph or so), a turbulent flow off the wing root rolls across the tail and vibrates the stick. You simply ease off a bit and you’re flying again. (No snap-roll.) With the power up, the light, clean aircraft accelerates immediately. You can fly a front-and-center show, low-g, staying where the crowd can see it. It’s quite safe, and the pilot can adjust the path in all three dimensions to match a restricted show box or a cloud layer.
The other plus is the way it tracks after landing — straight, hardly like a taildragger at all. You three-point a Spitfire because the prop blades are long and the gear legs are short. It’s also light in the tail, and it would be quite easy to pivot the thing onto its nose. So, we cross the fence at 90 mph, close the throttle, assume a three-point attitude, and wait. It dances a bit at touchdown, but the flaps have a simple on/off switch, and if you reach up at that point and hit retract, in about 1 second the machine settles. Rollout is a delight as taildraggers go. Nothing dodgy at all.
You can’t see anything forward of course when the speed is back. So you fly a continuous descending turn from downwind to touchdown keeping the landing environment in sight until the flare. The rollout is blind — peripheral vision only — but it never pulled a “dirty-dart” on me all summer.
Mind you, we don’t use the brakes much. They are air-powered and applied by squeezing a lever on the spade grip of the stick. No toe brakes, but differential with the rudder. They tend to not quite come in even; thus, you let the thing roll, ignore the tempting turnoffs, and only apply brakes very gingerly, when it’s mostly slowed down. No surprises that way.
The 5,000-mile journey started in July. Planning for it had occupied much of my spring. I’d be alone — no support plane — and there is no planned storage in a traditional Spitfire. I needed a tie-down kit, basic tools, engine oil, canopy cover, etc. But the restorers at Vintech Aero had made all six ammunition bays enclosed and accessible, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was plenty of room, but I had to keep a log of what went where.
For navigation, a small older Garmin 500 was clamped on where the gun sight goes. The wartime directional gyro and the artificial horizon didn’t work (try to get a radium-dialed instrument overhauled these days). Obviously I needed more. Paper maps? No room. So, I simply used my iPhone 7 with ForeFlight on an ingenious wrist mount I bought from Amazon. This, plus an extra battery pack, worked quite well. I flight planned carefully before each takeoff, writing comm frequencies and essential info on a card, just in case.
On the way to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, I stopped in Windsor, Ontario, for static display at the Canadian Historical Aircraft Association museum. This was my first taste of the Spitfire phenomenon. Everyone wanted to touch it! Everyone wanted a piece of its presence. People competed for a chance to help push it into the hangar. Reporters greeted me. We made all the local media. The weather clamped down, and for four days I gave presentations, stood beside the airplane, met with veterans (an honor), and sucked in my gut for countless photographs.
Under way again, rounding Lake Michigan, I had my first experience of scud-running in the airplane, dodging showers coming off the water. I was down under 1,000 feet, speed pulled back, watching for towers dotting the Indiana farms, but the rainfalls matched what ForeFlight was telling me. I stick-handled and broke out into the clear, which gave a lot of confidence.
Landing in Oshkosh was simple. You know the light-aircraft Fisk Arrival? Hundreds of Cessnas streaming into the field? Chaos and confusion? Well, in a warbird you don’t have to do that. (Sweet!) You orbit an island on Lake Winnebago, come in when they tell you, and land off a simple right base onto 36L.
We parked in the grass just across from Warbird Alley main and met the team of Vintage Wings of Canada volunteers from Ottawa. This group was great! More than 600,000 people were at AirVenture 2018, and I needed help to guard and display the machine. The first thing they did was clean it — sparkling — and then we spent six days on show; flew it twice in the daily air show, had it judged, appeared on panel discussions, and I played a concert with my brother Chris for the release of my new album, Climbin’ Away (flying songs we’ve written) to a 2,000-strong crowd of pilots.
And the airplane triumphed! We walked away with five trophies, including World War II Reserve Grand Champion-Silver Lindy. This was a big deal for Mike — a vindication of a very complicated and expensive restoration.
I needed to fly away from OSH to have a rest! But on departure I had the delight of a formation photo flight with a Mustang and the other Spitfire (gentle circles of a nearby lake while formed-up on a Beech Bonanza, in glass-smooth morning air, being tweaked left-right, up-down) and then headed off across the northern plains.
It is great fun to land at a small county airport in the rural United States, pull up to the FBO pumps in a Spitfire (no warning), shut down, and holler to the marshaler, “Have you got 90 gals of 100LL I can buy?” There is a moment of surprise, then a grin: “Sure do, mister!” And while you service yourself and the aircraft, a steady parade of people arrive from all across the field to see it.
There is no place better in the world to fly a light aircraft than small-town USA. Airports everywhere, clean FBOs, free coffee, and often even a courtesy car if you need to get to the Super 8. Aviator heaven!
An enormous high-pressure system covered the west, and I made good use of it. My first night was in Billings, Montana, on the edge of the mountains. We’d made 1,000 miles, plus the formation session, and that was enough. A Spitfire is a delight to maneuver but not very stable in cruise. It’s loud and hot, the cockpit rim presses against your shoulders, you have to fly it every minute, and the in-flight service is whatever vending machine crap you’ve stuffed into your flight suit leg pockets. It’s tiring.
Next day was the kicker: Mullan Pass through the Rockies. With no oxygen, the tops were not far under the wings. I had to follow the valleys. An early start helped — the scenery was brilliant, but my focus was on the engine instruments. That lovely Merlin never coughed. I landed at 85 degrees F in Missoula in a dead calm at 3,206 ASL, being careful to baby the brakes with the higher g’s.
I kept going. Dalles, Oregon, on the Columbia River was almost 100 degrees F. As I walked from the gas pumps to the office a sprinkler was watering the grass — I strode right through it. The hot Merlin started easily (what a gem!), and we sped down the gorge, weaving with the channel. Then out of the mountains like a watermelon seed between your fingers, a right turn before Portland, north finally on the compass, and I quit at Burlington, Washington, having flown 935 miles. Good weather all the way, but I was done!
Comox was now getting close. Retired Col. Terry Chester was the human dynamo running the program there, and he organized a press reception. I had a lovely hop across the blue-water strait, followed the gorgeous island coast north, and managed my ETA. After landing on the base, I taxied up, and there to marshal me in was retired Wing Commander “Stocky” Edwards, Canada’s highest-scoring surviving fighter pilot. We’d met before — we flew the P-40 together in 2009 — and it was a delight to see him. In no time at all we were standing by the aircraft, talking Spitfire techniques, and annoying the photographers queueing for shots. (He’s 97, sharp and spry.)
We’d made it; 2,500 miles down, 2,500 to go! I was ecstatic. The airplane was quite serviceable, and so was I. (No calls to Mike from some Dakota wheat field.) We parked in the 442 Squadron hangar, with the DHC-5 Buffalos. This connection was especially poignant — the Spit was painted in the colors of Flt. Lt. Arnold Roseland, who flew a 442 Spitfire marked Y2-K 65 times in 1944, and later died in one. The feeling of history — of a circle being complete — was very striking. Just one 442 airplane among the others.
I went home for a few days and then came back to complete the program. There were fly days, interviews, and appearances galore. I took it to Abbottsford for the air show and returned with so much dust on it that we had to park in the fire hall and hose the thing off. But the most rewarding duty was simply standing beside the machine during public display days, answering questions, and letting people experience the “real thing.” Comox residents had supported the initial restoration very fully. Many folks had dropped what they could afford into the hat. For them to see that it all worked, that it was successful, that here was a flying airplane, was touching. The Air Cadet Gliding School was just finishing, and each cadet got to climb up on the wing, grab the stick, and feel history come alive.
Mike had promised that the Spitfire would return, flying, and he’d kept his word.
But coming home was not so easy. The whole world seemed to have caught fire. Smoke lay thick on the harbor. More than 500 fires burned in British Columbia, Idaho, and Montana. Routing via Canada was impossible. I waited for four days, driving around the island and meeting some old friends now retired from the airline, for stories (some of them nearly truthful) and beverages.
Eventually I caught a break (smoke still thick in the hills, but clearer along the coast) and launched to follow the same route back. ForeFlight was very useful — it has a page showing visibility in real time, which guided me around the plumes. I cleared in Bellingham and made it to Portland for the night, landing among the 777s and 330s. Next morning was dodgy flying up the gorge. ATC advised the two previous light aircraft had turned back. But I caught a lucky break between rain showers and made it safely east between the high rock walls. Spokane was tougher. The smoky haze thickened as I crossed the plateau. Forward visibility is never great in a Spitfire — the armored glass pane is thick. I had to weave as I flew to see ahead. It had dropped to 4 miles by the time I found the airport. As I shut down I realized I might be stuck for a while.
And I was right! (Spokane, I know thee well.) I stayed in a Super8, then upgraded to an airport Marriot, then treated myself to the Davenport hotel downtown. I wandered the city, walked the river trail, found the best pub, went to movies — killed four days.
Finally a big wet front swept in from the Pacific and washed clean the skies. I followed it, retracing my steps. The big Merlin never faltered. The Spitfire and I were good friends by now. We crossed the Rockies in one leg and fueled at Billings. Then pushed through all the way to Bismark, North Dakota, catching up to the front and at one point buzzing coulees and swinging around buttes at a much lower altitude than I wanted. Out of the plains, next night was Green Bay, Wisconsin, and that put me within reach of home. Still following that same front, the next day I vaulted Lake Michigan, stayed VFR-on-top, crossed at Sarnia, cleared customs at London, Ontario, and landed at Gatineau.
The Spit was no longer pristine. There were scratches on its wings from many refuelings, oil on the belly, worn tires, and exhaust residue streaked each fuselage side in brown arcs. It was a traveler. In truth, we’d flown close to 6,000 miles. Never a snag other than line maintenance.
I stood in the hangar and looked at it as I waited for the taxi. A thoroughbred in design and a thoroughbred in performance. What an enormous privilege to know it.
As I rode the airline back to YYZ, I knew I’d completed one of the best experiences of my life. The journey took all the airmanship I’d accumulated in 27,000 hours of flying, but rewarded me a thousandfold.
I looked after the Spitfire, and the Spitfire looked after me.