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One of the rarest Spitfires, lost and inaccessible in the mountains of Norway for more than seven decades and piloted by an ill-fated 22-year-old Great Escape hero, has come home.

AA810’s body bears the scars of the dogfight that brought her down. As a reconnaissance aircraft she had been stripped of weaponry in favour of additional fuel capacity - to give her a longer range - and every bullet hole punched into her fuselage tells a story.

The Norway recovery expedition was put together by aircraft engineer and historian Tony Hoskins. Spitfire Heritage Gin - which supports the Spitfire Heritage Trust, and sponsored Tony - was part of the expedition team that hauled AA810’s bones down the mountain, piece by piece.

Spitfire flatlay: Ian Hewitt, CEO of expedition sponsors Spitfire Heritage Gin, with recovered parts pieced together in the Norweigan village theatre.

Whilst the aircraft is home, the same cannot be said for her brave pilot. The young man at the controls, Alastair Gunn, parachuted just seconds from the snowline and made his escape. It was short-lived and his moving story makes the return of his aircraft all the more poignant.

Before beginning her journey home, each recovered piece of the aircraft was laid out accurately within an outline of her silhouette, drawn on the stage of the local Norwegian village’s theatre. The expedition team was lucky to find so much of the aircraft intact. Now the real journey begins - a journey that will restore an aircraft as beautiful as it is rare to the skies.

AA810 will be carefully and expertly restored, and again take to the air, thanks to the work of Tony Hoskins, and his business partner, aviation businessman Dr Michael Smith, CEO of Experience Tells Ltd.

Tony said “This has been a long, challenging and yet hugely rewarding task. With hours spent in The National Archives, finding and providing proof of the AA810 was the aircraft we believed she was, getting the relevant permissions to transport her and finding the funding to achieve everything has all been incredibly time consuming. Researching all the operational pilots of AA810 and their fascinating background stories has taken thousands of man hours but with great success. It’s been worth every second and we are incredibly grateful to those who’ve helped – Spitfire Heritage Distillers for funding and boots on the ground in Norway, 360 Production for making the programme and the BBC for its commitment to broadcast it.”

Dr Smith added: “Experience Tells is proud to be a founding sponsor of this project. As such we will be sourcing hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of materials and services for AA810 throughout the course of the aircraft’s restoration.”

The project will mark the supreme, but largely unsung, courage and achievements of the young men of the WWII Photographic Reconnaissance Unit.

The story of the recovery and repatriation of Spitfire AA810, one of a tiny number of reconnaissance aircraft, will feature in a BBC documentary, Digging for Britain, to be broadcast in the UK later this month. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014hl0d

BlueSky Business Aviation News | 22nd November 2018 | Issue #488