Australia's only airworthy Spitfire Mk VIII

Australia’s only airworthy Spitfire arrived in Australia in 1945. It had been test-flown in Britain but had been damaged, so repairs had been carried out to its fuselage and wings before being shipped to Australia as MV239. The RAAF put it into storage–it was never flown. Sometime in 1949 it was put up for sale and passed through the hands of several owners until it was eventually bought by Col Pay in 1983. MV239 was in pieces, and with neither engine nor propeller. During 1983, the painstaking task of restoring this classic fighter to the beautiful machine it now is, was begun.

The serial number was changed to A58-758 and the machine was given the camouflage scheme that would have worn had it been despatched to a Squadron in 1945. Col Pay made the first flight in Australia on December 29th 1985 and from that time Col Pay has given many polished flying displays at various airshows across the country. At the time of writing A58-758 has been sold to join a fine stable of military aircraft owned by David Lowy and has been repainted to represent the aircraft flown by Wng Cmdr Bobby Gibbes.DSO, DFC and Bar.

The prototype Supermarine Spitfire, developed from Schneider Trophy Seaplanes, first flew in March 1936 from Eastleigh, near Southampton in England. It was a radical departure from the accepted canvas-covered, metal-framed biplanes that made up Britain’s fighter force at that time.

There were many variants developed during WW2, each type designed for specialised tasks – there were fighter-bombers, low-level clipped-winged versions, photo-reconnaissance versions (instigated by Australian Sidney Cotton), high-level pointed-wing versions, and Seafire versions for carrier operations. All were powered by various combinations of ever more efficient Rolls Royce Merlin and, later, Griffin engines. The Spitfire was the only Allied aircraft that was produced continuously throughout the war.

By war’s end, it had become twice as powerful as the first model; its loaded weight had gone up nearly one half and its rate of climb improved by 80%. The final variant, the F24, appeared in 1946. Of the 6,000 Spitfires produced during the war, some thirty or so are still flying.

The first versions to arrive in Australia were originally destined for the Western Desert so they arrived with the disfiguring Vokes air filter fitted under the nose. These Spitfire Vcs were used to defend Darwin during the later Japanese raids. The favourite with many pilots was the Mk VIII which was delivered to operational Sqadrons in Britain during 1942. This variant had a top speed of 405 mph at 25,000 ft (652kph at 7,620m) and was used by 452 and 457 squadrons from 1943 in the Northern Territory, Moratai and Borneo. 4 Sqdn operated them in Australia. 79 Sqdn was formed later in the war and was based in Moratai and New Guinea.

Above: The Supermarine S4, the first of R.J. Mitchell’s radical new designs of seaplanes, culminated in the S6b which eventually won the Schneider Trophy outright for Britain. The S4 crashed, but the concept eventually led to the Spitfire fighter.

Above left: R.J. Mitchell, designer of the Spitfire. Mitchell saw only the prototype Spitfire airborne–he died an early death from cancer. All development work on every Spitfire variants thereafter was carried out by the brilliant ‘Joe’ Smith who had been chief of Mitchell’s drawing office. It is difficult to believe that, while Mitchell was working on the Spitfire design, he was also working on the design of the Supermarine “Stranraer” flying boat, illustrated above right, and the Seagull / Walrus. They were generations apart in concept.