The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

lower so that at last he could see ahead of him. Then, before David barely
knew what was happening, the Spitfire was hurtling at ninety miles per hour
and then the shuddering along the ground stopped and he felt the plane slip
seamlessly into the air. He had never known such power; it was like driving
a Grand Prix racing car having just stepped out of an ageing Morris and for
a moment he felt as though the machine was completely running away with
him.
As he continued to climb, he managed to collect his scattered wits,
raised the undercarriage, made sure the temperatures and pressure were
stabilized, and then turned the propeller to coarse pitch. Glancing
backwards, he was astonished to see the airfield already far, far behind him.
It was hard not to smile.
After cruising over the Lothians for a few minutes, however, David
began to realize that his Spitfire was perhaps not quite as formidable as he
had first thought during the first breathless moments, so with his confidence
rising he decided to take the plane back for a bumps and circuit. This he
managed without too much difficulty, touching back down and then
promptly taking off again and feeling altogether more comfortable.
Climbing high into the clouds in this remarkable new toy he swirled and
pirouetted through the early-summer sky, performing gentle dives that saw
his air speed indicator rise to as much as 400 miles per hour. It was
fabulously thrilling, a brief time of unbridled joy. As he was very quickly
discovering, it did not take long to become accustomed to the Spitfire’s
great power and speed, and once this adjustment had been made, it was an
extraordinarily easy machine to fly and a quite superb aircraft for
performing aerobatics.
After an hour he landed back at Drem, rolling the Spitfire across the
grass to its dispersal around the perimeter. Having shut down the engine, he
pushed back the canopy once more. He felt quite light-headed with
exhilaration; his life irrevocably changed. ‘Practically everybody who has
flown a Spitfire thinks it is the most marvellous aircraft ever built,’ he
noted, ‘and I am no exception to the rule.’
Not for nothing was the RAF known as the best flying club in the
world. By the beginning of the war, flying was still a comparatively new
phenomenon, and those fortunate enough to get their chance to take to the
air found largely empty skies in which the world seemed to be their oyster.
For David, a 25-year-old sport-loving Yorkshireman, the Auxiliary Air