Aircraft paintings and prints

Vickers-Supermarine Spitfire Mk 1b R6908 flown by Flt Lt Brian Kingcombe has just wounded a Junkers Ju88 in a head-on pass during a massive raid on London. He is now pulling round to get on the German’s tail; he, in turn is trying to reach cloud cover. In November 1940 R6908 was based at RAF Biggin Hill, Kent serving with 92 Squadron. It was one of the first Spitfires to go into action with the new 20mm cannon armament. Only a handful of Spitfires were fitted with the troublesome cannon – the problem arose when the guns were mounted on their sides; the thin wing of the Spitfire could not accommodate them the right way up. Therefore the ammunition tended to jam. The dreaded jam had happened to Brian here; he had to rely on his 4 .303 machine guns to try to finish off the Junkers. The Germans got away as far as Brian could tell, but he doubted they could have got across the Channel. Prints of this painting are available for £9.50 p&p free. quiz42hangar@outlook.com

The aircraft in this picture was drawn from a photograph I took at RAF Cosford. Whilst designing the picture in Hangar 2 at Warton (the home of TSR 2) I realised that it may have flown along the lake like this. So I rang Wing Commander Jimmy Dell, project pilot on TSR 2. This was 23 years after the TSR 2 flights, but he said that, ‘If it did, it would have to go that way, because of the one-way system over the Lake District.’ The next day he rang me back; having consulted his log-books, he then told me that it did fly over the northern lakes. This was flight number 17 on 26th February 1965, with him at the controls. When the picture was finished I took it to his office to show him, he was very impressed with the work. When I asked him if he would sign it for me he at first said he didn’t want to spoil it – so I suggested he sign it in the lake; which he did. My good friend Jim Britton was with me – he worked in Flying Clothing, so was familiar with all of the pilots. He aske me if I would like to get the picture signed by the other pilots who flew the aircraft. Roland Beamont had long since retired to somewhere down south, Don Knight I didn’t know anything about. Jim then told me that Roly now lives round the corner from his Mother’s brother. Don Knight was still working for the company, in Malaysia. Luckily he comes back from time to time. This is how I have the only picture that has been signed by all three pilots who flew it. Prints are available of this picture, signed by the artist, for £9.50 p&p free from: quiz42hangar@outlook.com