The aircraft is magnificent.
Al Marshall and I saw it fly and we flew with it as well.
A fantastic experience and many thanks to Brendon for allowing the photo flight today.
He had a lot of requests for air 2 air photos from around the world and it was a huge privillage to be involved today.
Keiths flying was really something to see, some of the best formation flying I have seen and we came away with some nice shots.
Keep an eye in the ITL website as Brendon with post a picture or two at some point.
I would suggest you guys get down to Classic Fighters to see this aircraft.
The Mk 9 is one of the finest models of the Spitfire and seeing the aircraft painted in those markings is just fantastic and a great tribute to one of our finest Fighter pilots.
Below is a description of the flight from my old mate Al Marshall.
We had a great day and am sure you will feel that excitement through his text.
Will be a while before anymore photos will be on the net as two magazines want to run good length features on the aircraft.
Wow! What an awesome day. I was lucky enough to fly the camera ship for Gavin this morning and lucky is an understatement. PV270 is superb and I am (as we all are) grateful to Brendon for all he and his team have achieved. It was a pleasure to see (but not watch!) Keith at work at close quarters from our Nanchang. As camera ship pilot is is important that I just fly the aircraft. I am the one pair of eyes for the two aircraft, radio operator and navigator. If the camera ship pilot is too engrossed in looking at the subject, the wheels can fall off pretty quickly! As part of my lookout during the manouevers, I was able to catch a quick glance at the Spitfire. For most of the time just being able to listen to the Merlin above my own engine was reward enough. Keith, Gavin and myself had a thorough briefing before we launched. Weather conditions at Ohakea this morning was a thin layer of overcast Stratus that was just starting to break. We all decided that it would be nice to get above the cloud and operate with sunny blue sky above and a white blanket below. I was to operate the radios with Keith listening out. Ohakea cleared us to operate up to 4000 feet within a four nm radius to the north of the airbase. Keith launched and soon made his way up to the cloudbase which was at about 3000 feet. Some reasonable sized holes were starting to open up and it was soon clear that that was where he was headed. With the Spitfire above the layer and us below, we carefully made our way above the cloud to join Keith who was now 1000 feet above us at 4000 feet. We soon joined up again on top of the layer of cloud and that is where the magic began. The cloud was slowly breaking up and we were able to have one or more of Bulls, Sanson and Ohakea in view at all times below. However when you looked anywhere but below, you would swear that we were flying above a completely solid layer. At 4000 feet we remained under the control of Ohakea tower who bent over backwards from the minute we arrived to when we departed to make this mission a success. For 15 minutes or so Gavins finger was on the shutter release button and from a sneak preview this evening, the results are IMHO his best work yet. It has been a long time since I have seen a kiwi Warbird photographed above what appears to be solid cloud. In fact the last one that I can put my finger on was a shot in the back cover of NZ Wings of Mustang 15 and Harvard 98 back in the 80's. The lack of distraction from the ground projects the image of the Spitfire towards you and the reflection of light from below as well as the sun from above gives the photos an amazing effect. Gavin described Keiths flying as if he was attached by a piece of string that was never pulled from Gavins hand. To sense the responsiveness of the Spitfire to Gavs hand signals says a lot about the man and the machine. I have been lucky enough to be Gavs camera ship pilot several times now and I suspect that it will be a long long time before I again enjoy this mornings combination of men, machines, weather, location and support.
For those at Ohakea that read this, today took me back to the summer of '84/85 at Wigram when Mustang 15 was uncrated, assembled, painted and tested. Back then, the RNZAF made their base and facilities a second home for Tim Wallis, Ray Mulqueen and Trevor Bland. In the early 90's Whenuapai, Ohakea and Wigram did the same for Tim's -1A Corsair. It was great today to see the same support for Brendon and his team. The paint finish and attention to detail was intoxicating. On behalf of all enthusiasts I thank the RNZAF for what I saw today.
I can't wait for the results of todays 'work' to filter out to the masses and again I thank Brendon, Keith and Gav for an amazing day. PLUS I had to suffer the two 50 minute positioning flights to and from Omaka in the Nanchang. That alone is reason enough to set a 6am alarm!
Thanks again Guys!!
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