WW2 veteran Spitfire I confirmed for Flywheel

One of the most famous and evocative of all British aircraft, the Spitfire, will be swooping in to display at Flywheel at Bicester Heritage on 17-18 June.

Spitfire I N3200 will join the Bristol Blenheim, its Aircraft Restoration Company stablemate, by arriving in spectacular style on the Saturday and departing on Sunday afternoon.

Tickets for Flywheel are available now, starting at £7.50 for under 15s.

The plane is one of the earliest of its type that still takes to the skies. It first flew from Eastleigh in November 1939 and a few months later it left for what would be the final time in action.

It had been in active service just five weeks when Sqn Ldr Geoffrey Stephenson headed across the Channel during the evacuation of Dunkirk. Having dispatched one Stuka his radiator was later punctured, and it crashed into the dunes of Sangatte beach and the pilot was captured. In a curious twist of fate, he was moved to Colditz after numerous escape attempts – but he arrived undeterred and was involved in the plan to escape via a glider. 

The idea had stemmed from Tony Rolt, a Grand Prix racer who was a driving force behind the creation of the Ferguson P99 that lives with Classic Performance Engineering at Bicester Heritage.

N3200 remained buried on the beach until 1986, when it was dug up and moved into a museum before being purchased in 2000.

Seven years later it arrived back at its original home, Duxford, and five years later the restoration began. The Aircraft Restoration Company was tasked with returning it to how it left on that fateful day in May, creating a huge amount of work in itself. During such a fraught time of war, diligently recording updates, upgrades and modifications would have been a long way back in the RAF’s minds, so the Duxford-based experts had to trawl through as much documentation and archive imagery to get a picture of N3200 in its prime.

In 2014, just two years after its restoration began, N3200 took off once more. The Imperial War Museum were handed ownership of it on the 75th anniversary of its final sortie, when owner Thomas Kaplan of Mark One Partners gifted it to “mark the end of a profound journey of remembrance for us.”

He also sold a Spitfire that same year and donated the $6.4m raised to the RAF Benevolent Fund.

“Today’s events are, more than anything else, concrete gestures of gratitude and remembrance for those who prevailed in one of the most pivotal battles in modern history,” he said at the time. 

“History tells us all that there comes a time when one simply has to step up… to act with passion, and to remember with gratitude the few that actually do.

“And so it is with full hearts that we congratulate the buyers at the auction, as well as the Imperial War Museum, for their new acquisitions… and the wonderful causes which will be the recipients of these truly extraordinary auction proceeds.”

To see the Spitfire and Blenheim in their element, join us for Flywheel. Tickets are available now.

Those looking to fly in to Flywheel should contact the Bicester Aerodrome Company, particularly those with pre-1950s aircraft.