Not been on the site for a while and was just catching up when I spotted this item.
A few corrections to the statements made previously.
All 2 seat Spitfires are Permit to Fly aeroplanes, therefore they are not allowed to carry fare paying passengers and thats why you will not see any operators advertising this oportunity. (the same applies to things such as Hunters, Jet Proverts etc). There was a CAA letter sent out as it was felt a few jet operators were breaching the rules lastt year.
As they are officially a 2 seat aircraft the owner can take up whoever he wishes, its the question of any form of payment. The difficulty is that the "cost share" criteria is very limited eg fuel, oil etc for that flight only - now it actually costs with ALL things taken into account around an average of £2500 per hour to fly one (depending on total number of hours flown - as you all know things like insurance dont give you a rebate if you've only done 10hrs that year!). The passengers are insured through the aircrafts normally insurance (the amount would vary from operator to operator) however if the CAA deem the flight to be illegal (ie a fare for flying someone has been accepted) then your insurance is invalidated - and the implications should there of been an accident during that flight are enormous.
Note the same would apply to the 2 seat Fury as at the moment it is on the G reg so CAA rules apply.
You can do flight training, you need to have a suitable qualified pilot (ie instructor) and a training plan which you can show the CAA - for this you can charge.
Most operators run Spitfires at a loss, eg to get to the East Fortune airshow we could not charge even the actual costs of flying there, show and return (some 2hrs15mins flying time + fuel) as the organisers simply could not afford that cost for 1 aircraft.
The organisation thats looking for 10,000 people is intresting although I dont think it will cut much ice with the CAA. If they make a rule to cover Spitfires then they have to apply it to all other Permit aeroplanes that could take a passenger. If they do that then whats the point of operators operating things like Harvards, tiger moths etc on Public Transport ratings with all that additional cost. If you try to put a warbird through on Public Transport, even if that was possible the final costs would be !!!!!!!!!! It could be that the CAA are revueing the whole passenger thing so we could be surprised but Im sure that the CAA fees for doing it will be intresting!
If Declans about - must ring you about a chippy cover, winters comming!
