Someone is flying a WW2 Spitfire around the world
My understanding is that a Spitfire needs constant maintenance. The logistics involved in this must be quite interesting.
IIRC the Spitfire is not exactly a long range plane…how will they cross oceans in it?
They may have modified it into the high altitude reconnaissance version, which had around 900 nm range. Enough for the VFR North Atlantic crossing, and presumably crossing to Alaska via Russia.
Peter wrote:
My understanding is that a Spitfire needs constant maintenance. The logistics involved in this must be quite interesting.
You mean money? Same as moon landing, probably was fully funded by luxury watches 
https://www.esquire.com/style/mens-fashion/a28606932/iwc-spitfire-pilots-watch-flight/
Am I the only one that finds these things slightly distasteful?
Someone is getting to have the time of their lives, doing a lot of flying in an extremely expensive aircraft that most of us would kill for 30 minutes in.
And other people are paying for it. Sometimes the money comes from the sale of silly watches, sometimes they are charity fundraisers, sometimes just fundraisers to make the thing happen, sometimes it’s all a bit blurred. However it works, the vibe is that the whole thing is worthy and important, the people involved heroic and visionary.
Call me a killjoy, but I see nothing to applaud in having a lot of fun and somehow having convinced other people people to pay for it. It turns off the true amateur aviator in me.
I had a look at their site and from what I can see there, it doesn’t appear to be yet another “fake charity” stunt like this one and so many others in GA.
Instead, these guys seem to have got a load of brands to pay for the trip. Well, good luck to them. It should work if they get the funds, and nothing big breaks enroute, because there is no possible way for the sponsors to find out if it worked or not. I just hope that nobody ends up spending money on another dodgy Swiss watch Interesting that Breitling – the most obvious “aviator lifestyle brand” – are not paying up.
The main site says they will do it in 400nm legs.
Does the emotive imagery work for you? I’m too cynical now to get excited but this kind of “Out of Africa” vibe.
Me too. I get a little iffy with all these corporate endorsements and the whole warbird scene. It’s like a playground for billionaires. Same guys who buy a Chateau/Napa winery and charge $200/bottle dabble in this, far removed from GA. There’s also an elitism in the warbird scene that I can’t stand.
I’m just surprised fancy watch sales make the money they apparently do… That dissuades me from buying one because while I’ve fairly regularly bought hard to manufacture mechanical toys I have zero interest in lining the pockets of someone who has figured out a way to sell intangible image to the gullible and vain, backed up by routine hardware.
Same with Red Bull – nobody I know actually drinks the stuff, but somebody, somewhere must do so and it makes money… but not my money!
It’s all effective marketing which seems to work. As I said earlier I am surprised this Spitfire stunt got IWC rather than Breitling which is more traditionally associated with that sort of image. IWC have tended to go for the “top gun jet fighter pilot” watch image, with the infamous ceramic cases.
It’s arguably no more cringeworthy than the Patek Phillipe advert campaign which is pretty good at shifting watches costing 20k and up, by saying you never actually “own” a PP 
I saw this on a poster the other day
It reminded me of some “flying schools” not so far from where I am based, and the characters in them
