ABOVE:
G-ASJV initially flew
with clipped wings
upon returning to
Britain in 1963.
RICHARD T. RIDING76 http://www.aeroplanemonthly.com AEROPLANE JULY 2018AEROPLANE MEETS... TIM DAVIES
Elstree”, he recalls, “and there were
aeroplanes buzzing round all the time.
When I came to work in London,
one of the first things I did was go out
there and start on the long process of
getting my PPL.”
Tim obtained it in 1958, and
started flying light aircraft all around
Europe. His base at Elstree was
an interesting place to be, though.
“There was an aircraft maintenance
firm there called Simpson’s
Aeroservices. ‘Tubby’ Simpson ran
it, and I managed to inveigle my
way into his favour. I freely did all
of his C of A test flights, which
was very useful for my subsequent
career indeed. Everything that came
through I flew.
“I experienced what was the
worst aeroplane in the world, in my
opinion, and that was the Chrislea
Super Ace. Absolutely horrific. I
don’t know how I didn’t kill myself
in it. I was so infuriated by it that, on
my first landing, I thought I’d try and
get it down to about 5ft. At 5ft I took
my hands off, said to myself, ‘Go on,
crash yourself ’, and it seemed to flop
onto the ground. Horrible, horrible.
“During the course of this flying
for Simpson’s I made a reckless
statement to ‘Tubby’ Simpson oneday. It was just a casual remark:
‘‘Tubby’, what we want for a nice
summer evening like this is a Spitfire
or something, just to fly around the
circuit for fun’. I thought no more
about it. Three weeks later he rang
me up: ‘Ah, I’ve got a Spitfire for you’.
“There were three up for sale in
Ostend, where COGEA had used
them for target-towing. We duly went
across there and made an offer. The
total price was £2,000, which was
quite a lot of money in those days,
but they were so pleased that we were
considering this that they gave us a
new engine, two new propellers and a
shed-load of spares, all for free. That
was all right. So we bought it.”It is worth recapping a little of
MH434’s history at this point.
Upon retirement by the RAF it was
sold in February 1947 to the Royal
Netherlands Air Force, being crated
up and shipped to Batavia in the
Dutch East Indies where it completed
somewhere in the region of 165
sorties with 322 Squadron against
nationalist forces. After Indonesia
became independent — and Batavia
again became Jakarta — in December
1949, Dutch forces withdrew andthe Spitfire IXs were taken back to
Europe. The former MH434, serialled
H-105 and H-68 in Dutch service,
was among 15 sold to the Belgian
Air Force as attrition replacements.
All were overhauled by Fokker at
Schiphol before delivery, this one
becoming serial SM-12 with the
Ecole de Chasse (Fighter School)
at Brustem during October 1953.
A year later it was struck off charge
and stored, but on 26 March 1956
a buyer was found in the form of
Ostend-based target facilities operator
COGEA Nouvelle. It used a number
of Spitfires on military contract
work. MH434’s latest guise was as
OO-ARA, in a smart civilian livery.
So it remained until surplus Meteor
F8s began to take over, and the
Spitfire fleet was offered for sale.
In the hands of a COGEA pilot,
OO-ARA arrived at Stansted on
29 June 1963. It needed to clear
customs, but the new owner had
another thought in mind when he
chose the Essex airport, because he
was going to ferry it from there to
Elstree himself. “I had enough runway
at Stansted that I wouldn’t swing off ”,
laughs Tim. However, he had been
lucky enough to receive some dual
instruction in what was then the UK’s74-80_AM_AeroMeets_July18_cc C.indd 76 04/06/2018 12:28