Platinum Spotlight: 1945 Supermarine Spitfire XVIe
Platinum Spotlight: 1945 Supermarine Spitfire XVIe
Photo via Platinum Fighter Sales
A magnificently restored Supermarine Spitfire MK.XVI has just come up for sale with our sponsors at Platinum Fighter Sales. She is a former RAF example, serial number TE392, and readers might remember our January 2020 article where we reported on TE392’s first post-restoration flight, which took place early last year in Australia at Archerfield Airport near Brisbane, Queensland.
Built for the RAF, TE392 rolled off the Vickers-Armstrong production line in Castle Bromwich near wars end during the spring of 1945. Too late to see active war-time service, TE392 served with various RAF units until formally retired from her military flying career in September 1952 when the RAF relegated the Spitfire to ground instruction duties at RAF Church Lawford. After serving in this role at various locations for the next few years, the fighter went on display atop a pole at RAF Kemble, in September 1967. The RAF then moved the aircraft to RAF Hereford in February 1970, again for pole-mounted display. Here she stayed until 1984, when the British Ministry of Defense traded her to well-known warbird collector, Doug Arnold in exchange for North American B-25J Mitchell 44-29366.