Newest Spitfire pilots take flight

There’s a moment every Spitfire pilot remembers – the first breath they take after wheels up.

For FLTLT Lars Larson, it came somewhere between retracting the undercarriage and turning crosswind.

FLTLT Larson and fellow aviator FLTLT Kempton have become Australia’s two newest Spitfire pilots, completing conversion training at Temora Aviation Museum.

Of the handful of Spitfires still operational in the country, two are based at Temora with 100SQN.

For both pilots – reservists who fly commercially by day – stepping into the Spitfire is a study in contrasts. FLTLT Larson, a Qantas captain transitioning onto the Boeing 787, summed it up simply.

“The Spitfire is cables, it’s rudders, it’s fabric, it’s timber, it’s metal. It’s a little bit of everything tied in together, with engines that produce an incredible amount of power ... it feels like a billy cart with a V8,” FLTLT Larson said.

It’s an aircraft built more than 80 years ago that, in his words, “is still a handful but a delight to fly around the sky”.

FLTLT Kempton, who grew up around historic aircraft, says the appeal comes down to something harder to define than horsepower.

“The best thing about heritage aircraft is the stories attached to the planes,” he said.

“Both in the memories of how they did fly and those who flew them, and then the connection with those on the ground moving forward.”

Guiding both pilots through their conversion was FLTLT Stephen Death, who has flown Spitfires for more than 20 years and says preserving that connection to history is at the heart of what 100SQN does.

“We need to keep training people,” FLTLT Death said.

“You have to have an ongoing cycle where you’ve got mentors that can help people, so they become the mentors of the next generation.”

100SQN was reformed as the Air Force Heritage Squadron in 2021, flying its aircraft as airworthy warbirds across two homes – the Temora Historic Flight and the Point Cook Heritage Flight. The aircraft themselves were transferred from Temora Aviation Museum to the RAAF in 2019 and are maintained by museum staff, with pilots inducted into the RAAF Reserve.

For FLTLT Larson, whose connection to Temora stretches back to the museum’s earliest days, flying the aircraft is close to a homecoming.

“It’s something you almost grew up with, your whole career,” he said. 

“It’s such an iconic aircraft. It has so much history. It means so much, not only to the people and this nation, but myself personally.”

With another Spitfire due back in the air soon at Temora, FLTLT Death says the squadron’s mission of keeping these aircraft flying – and finding the pilots who love them enough to fly them well – is far from finished.