How to fly a Spitfire – Part two

You left us last time just as the tyres departed the grass strip at the former World War Two RAF Westhampnett fighter base, better known today as Goodwood. Someone will know how many sorties were flown from here to engage the enemy during the Battle of Britain but I’m afraid I don’t. But it will be in the thousands.

Departure is as unlike that of a normal aircraft as can be imagined. First, you’re taking off from a bumpy field, not smooth tarmac and second, as the Spitfire is a tail dragger, it’s the back of the aircraft that lifts first, not the front. Third, instead of a small porthole to one side, your elevated bubble canopy affords panoramic views ahead, above and to either side, fourth, there are about a million controls, dials and switches in front of you, fifth, you’re strapped into a parachute, sixth, it’s absolutely deafening in here and, seventh – and perhaps most discombobulating – you appear to be on your own. If my pilot Charlie Huke raises a hand I can just see him wiggle the tips of his fingers ahead of me. But that’s it.

But almost as soon as we leave the deck, the aircraft flicks left, sending my stomach into my feet as just this simple manoeuvre places many times the g-force on your body that you’d ever feel in a commercial aircraft.