ex-IAC Spitfire flies again !

[Silver]

Former Air Corps Spitfire 161 took to the air again on 13 Jan 2005 - resplendid in her original Air Corps colours - after a lenghty restoration in the UK.

Well done to all involved !!



Wouldn't she look great in the AC museum collection ?

[Gasplug]

Whats the second seat for? And when was the spitfire purchased by the IAC?

[Steamy Window]

It was a trainer.

Spitfires were in service until 1961ish.

Are there any other historic IAC aircraft being restored? I know theres a hurricane/spitfire flying in RAF colours that was in IAC service.

Have a look on irishairpics.com also, theres three pictures of spitfires in IAC service

[Slacker]

PC-9s on formation display for the 1st time, now this.

Salthill is starting to look verrry promising this year.......

[Sluggie]

It would probably give the PC 9's a run for their money. Shows you how our capabilities have progressed since the 1940's!

[Silver]

Here she is 'chasing' an intruder !



stameen soldier,
don't know of any currently being restored.
However there is a Percival Provost flying in the UK in IAC colours. And I believe there are a couple more ex-IAC Spits (tho not in IAC colours) in the UK and US.

Oh, and the oldest flying ex-IAC plane - Avro Cadet C7 (in IAC colours) - is currently for sale in New Zealand (circa $200,000 US) !

[hptmurphy]

spitfires...or seafires.

Thats a total of three airwothy again but only this one wearing the national colors.

Caroline garce in the UK operates another T9...in Raf colours with a modified rear cockpit. The third s in the US in Raf colours.

The Aircraft are SupermarineSeafire L111s which had there wing fokds and arrestor ger retained ...but had a second set of controls and pilot station fitted on a lenghtened fuselage. These we renamed Spitfire TMK9 and the IAAC were the first operator.

Brigade models in the UK have issued to sets in Resin to adadpt a standart Hasegawa 1;72 and 1;48 complete in resin and to include IAAC decals...for all you aircraft model freaks like me out there.they are quite pricey but are excelent as if like me you have only attempet home base conversions in the past...most of which are excellent but are sometimes beyond the range of the average modeller.

I think on of the regular sinle seat spitfires was refurbised in the states during the seventies and am failry sure that a complete model remains in dismnataled stotage in Kevin street.

Everyboby shoould put a to do list together for 2005 and on that list watch and listen to a spitfire.Make sure you ahve a girl or boy near by as this is a hugging expierience. Five or six nice big non aspirated merlin engines does leave one with a skight tingling in the loins.

[hptmurphy]

percival provosts

There was a Tmk 51 flying in the UK during the late ninties under AC colors with the serial 177 but this crashed with loss of life.Intresting the T51 provost was the only one fitted for gunnery traing and fitted with two .303 brownings.

There was anothe ex IAAC spitfire crashed in late 2003 and the pilot LTCDR Norman Lees was killed ..but the aircraft restored and I believe the afore mentioned restored T9 to be this aircraft

[hptmurphy]

Handling qualities

The cahacahteristics for both are ver similar and the PC9 smuggly fits the fighter role. The PC 9 is an adavancedtrainer or a leadin aircfat to sonething far more substatial.Given the RAF willhave grounded all their Jaguars by the end of the year shuold we pick up a few for progreesive combat simulation roles

[Stinger]

aint that a beautiful sight. I think we should buy her back for the museum

[ODIN]

Would the government buy 2nd hand kit is the question....if they would then we could get our mits on a lot of the British kit due to be put out of service

[Roger McGee]

Would the government buy 2nd hand kit is the question....if they would then we could get our mits on a lot of the British kit due to be put out of service

Whats would be the point in buying fighter aircraft, and more relevant why did we buy lead in trainers for aircraft that we don't have and most likely will never have in the forseable future.

It's a bit ironic when you have aircorp crew learning to fly in high speed turbo prop aircraft with modern jet fighter avionics and then when fully trained sending them out in cessna 182's with a silva compass and a pair of bino's.

[Turkey]

what is a Cessna 182????

The civil service are apparently unwilling to buy secondhand equipment in future, any way there are nice new Jags available..................

[hptmurphy]

Cessna 182 is the Cessna 172 s big brother.....actually we don't have cessnas at all

We have Rheims Rockets......different baby completely to Cessna 172..ie cessna 182.....200hp engine instead of 170 hp with various other stick on bits.The manufactures like to call them Cessna F 172 and F182....where the americans tend to use The T41 'mascelro'..American built Cessna equipment is actuallly very rare in Ireland and most are actually built in france.

Actually it turns out that all bar one of the Aer Corps T9s are still in existence.

It might surprise you to know that a ' new' spitfire costs about £1.5 million sterling...so that ****s that idea.

If this civil servant actually checked up on the AC he would find that some of the secondhand material actually served them better than the new stuff

[ForkTailedDevil]

Nice pic Silver, obviously attempting to chase down an Me262 there

In the last few months I've got aquainted with someone who works for Corgi and does research for their aircraft models. If any of the Spits had decent enough histories, before, in, or after IAC service, it may have been possible to have an IAC aircraft immortalised in a collectors peice in their Aviation Archive collection. All the single seater "Spits" were Seafires though, weren't they? I've no chance of organising a Seafire or two seater Spit but a Hurricane is a do-able if there is sufficent demand to sell a couple of thousand. Hurricanes were MkIs and MkIIc's, right?

Any takers?