His fascination with flying began when he was eight and watched a film about the celebrated Second World war pilot, Douglas Bader. ‘As my career went by,’ he said, ‘I tried to buy parts for a Spitfire, but was outbid’. In 2005, however, he found the 80% scale-sized kit of the reconnaissance Spitfire in Australia, and bought it for an undisclosed amount. He points out that ‘these were the spy planes of their day, they didn't have guns or cannon and were painted blue so you couldn't see them in the sky. I think there's about 100 of them world-wide, 15-20 of them are flying and only three or four in the UK’. He will doubtless describe ‘the several major hurdles’ along the way, ‘ one thing being that there are no straight lines in a Spitfire, everything is curved. It's like a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle’.

Engineers at the Light Aircraft Association (LAA) analysed data from the 32 test flights before the Civil Aviation Authority issued its permit to fly and then, ‘much to my pleasure’, said Steve, ‘the LAA awarded me the prize of best UK kit built aircraft of 2022’.

Steve will doubtless be describing aspects of the build and give us details of the Spitfire’s speed and mpg…

Members might like to guess which furthest European city he could reach (and return) on one tank of fuel?