Air Corps Spitfire featured on 6:00pm BBC News

[Guinness2]

Hello all. New to IMO.

Thought some of you may be interested to know that there was a feature on new archive footage found of Spitfire pilots relaxing during the war.

As the story was being introduced by the news anchor Fiona Bruce there was a big blow up of a two seat Spitfire trainer with the Irish Air Corps world war two era livery!

Brought a smile to my face.

[mugs]

HA!!

I noticed it too and metioned it to my dad

[hedgehog]

Fiona Bruce always brings a smile to my face.

[HavocIRL]

It's actually called a pilatus pc 9 over here mate. Don't worry easy mistake to make

[Tony Kearns]

Any of you PC wizards got a link to this item please?
Just wondering how you could have a Spitfire with Irish Air Corps WW 2 era livery?
We didn't have Spitfires in WW"
Regards
Tony K

[golden rivet]

Any of you PC wizards got a link to this item please?
Just wondering how you could have a Spitfire with Irish Air Corps WW 2 era livery?
We didn't have Spitfires in WW"
Regards
Tony K

did we have hurricanes

[Tony Kearns]

did we have hurricanes

Yep , we had millions of them, well.......20
Tony K

[Orion]

The BBC item is here but it doesn't seem to want to load at the moment.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/also_in_the_news/default.stm

Is it not one of the post war Spitfires, journalists are often happy with the close enough principle.

[Connaught Stranger]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7540305.stm

A BBC Spitfire report.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7540307.stm

Connaught Stranger.

[Guinness2]

Sorry, but I was not able to find a link to the story featuring the Spitfire online.

The Spitfire in question was sporting a post WW11 Irish Air Corps livery. Same as the one below.

[hptmurphy]

Ok
The facts

Its a T9 that was converted from a regular wartime Spitfire by Vickers after the war. It served as a single seater and was converted and sold on.

Ireland bought several of these which under todays terminology would be termed Warbirds.

After the T9's were retired from servicethey were bought up privately and all the AC ones remain airwirthy.

Nick Grace bought the one in the piece but changed the prominent second canopy of the T9 to retain the classic looks of the spitfire but retained the two seat capability so it could be used comercially for pleasure flights and training.

Nick died of Cancer some years back but his wife Caroline retained ownership of the aircraft qualifying to fly it her self as a memorial to her late husband.

So it is a genuine WW2 spitfire and a Former IAAC aircraft not to be mstaken with the latest one which briefly wore IAAc Colours( G-CCCA)

[GoneToTheCanner]

Stephen Grace? Nick, was it not?
regards
GttC

[hptmurphy]

Mrs Grace late Husband....yeah Nick...

[Jetjock]

Known as the Grace Spitfire.

[BrenGun]

Well this hero flew flew with a shamrock on his Spitfire.

Brendan Éamon FitzPatrick Finucane DSO, DFC & Two Bars (16 October 1920 – 15 July 1942), known as Paddy Finucane, was an Irish Royal Air Force fighter pilot. He was a high scoring Second World War flying ace—claiming 32 victories—and was the RAF's youngest Wing Commander in its history.

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