Spitfire

Chaps

I served an apprenticeship as an aircraft toolmaker with Vickers Ltd during the late sixties.

Spitfires were mainly manufactured at Castle Brom but for reasons of not putting all your eggs in one basket, they were also made at various sattelite factories throughout the country, including the Vickers factory where I worked.

We had a totally wrecked Spitfire delivered to the factory and over a period of about 4 years, the apprentices totally restored it to as new condition. It actually flew.

It was put on permanent display outside the factory until the early seventies when it was sold to a wealthy collector.

During the later part of my apprenticeship, I became a trainee Estimator and I was given a load of Spitfire drawings to cut my teeth on. I had to learn how to price an aircraft.

Two interesting snippets, the main factory had 958 suppliers and sub contractors and the cost was just under £4000.00 per aircraft.

Regards

Mick