Flying

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So You're Thinking of Buying a Spitfire

08th October 2015

With any number of highly collectible cars now commanding eight-figure sums (or heading that way), you’ve probably thought of acquiring your own piece of aviation history instead.

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Our brief enquiries suggest prices for the legendary Spitfire – in flying order, and surely the dream of every overgrown schoolboy of a certain age – appear relatively modest by comparison.

Turns out there’s a reason, of course. Actually quite a few…

Still, fueled by our big idea and in the spirit of naive unbridled optimism, we popped down to Goodwood Aerodrome to find out what it takes to acquire and run a legendary World War 2 fighter.

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£1.2M – £2.5M TO BUY

Yes, compared to the current cost of a number of classic sports and racing cars, acquiring a Spit can be done on a relatively modest budget. Around £1.2 million gets you a ‘bitsa’ (for want of a more elegant description) and you can pay more than double that for an original aircraft with battle history and which may have been flown by a celebrated war-time pilot.

£50K PER YEAR ROUTINE MAINTENANCE

Looking after the undercarriage, propeller, wiring, hinges, key stress points and so on is of course hugely expensive, certainly compared to a road car. Remember that a Mk IX Spitfire was designed for a total flying life of just 200 hours. So far this year, one of ours has racked up 125 hours…

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‘ONLY’ ONE-THIRD THROTTLE AND 4.5G IS POSSIBLE

Naturally you wouldn't be looking to thrash your 75 year old fighter across the sky (come on, yes you would… Ed), but nevertheless our experts say it's best not to stray beyond around one-third throttle on the mighty 27 litre Rolls Royce Merlin. Nor is it advisable to pull more than 4.5g whilst manoeuvring; pull 5G and the aircraft has to undergo an expensive inspection.

500 HOURS BETWEEN £120,000 ENGINE OVERHAULS

The Time Before Overhaul (TBO) on the Merlin used to be 250 hours when the engines were in combat mode. Nowadays with more gentle use that figure is closer to 500 hours. However the cost of said overhaul is £120,000, which is a lot when you consider that a complete, ready-to-fly Merlin should cost in the region of £170,000.

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£30,000 PER ANNUM INSURANCE

We don't want to contemplate the kind of work involved in repairing a damaged Spitfire. Judging by the premium, neither does the insurance company.

£150,000 MINIMUM INVESTMENT IN YOUR LICENCE

Even with your Spitfire successfully acquired you won't be able to fly it safely without the 50 hours required to gain your Private Pilots Licence, plus another 50 hours in a Chipmunk for basic ‘tail-dragger’ experience, and then another 50 hours flying something like a North American Harvard in which you’ll learn about flaps, variable pitch propellers, retracting the undercarriage and flying from the rear of the aircraft. The latter is very important because from the hot seat in a Spitfire you can't actually see where you're going, which makes landings a trifle challenging. 150 hours by the way is an incredibly short amount of time to learn and you would have to have completed all your training with the academy from day one. If you’ve not trained at the Aerodrome, they’ll want to see something more like 1000 hours on your flying log before they'll even consider handing the controls over.

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40 GALLONS (THAT’S £342) PER HOUR, IF YOU’RE GENTLE…

Back in the day when these aircraft were running at full boost and burning 150 octane fuel at up to full throttle they would get through around 90 gallons (409 litres!) per hour. At ‘cruising’ speed and greatly reduced boost a Spitfire nowadays will make-do with 40 gallons (181 litres) per hour of 100 octane fuel.

(Even at the Goodwood Aerodrome price of £1.89 per litre, that’s still quite a lot more than a decent Goodwood Road & Racing lunch.)