Plane fanatical
I am something of a black sheep in my family in one respect; I am mostly bored by aeroplanes. If I’m not in one being taken somewhere nice, I don’t really want to know, but I come from a family of plane enthusiasts. My Dad is an aeronautical engineer, who has spent his working life around planes and was a plane nut even before he started work1. My Mum loves planes too, and used to cry when she saw Concorde flyingânot because she wished she was on it going somewhere exotic while sipping champagne, but because she thought it was so graceful. My brother is also an engineerâautomotive rather than aeronauticalâbut he enjoys planes too. On top of that, I married a plane nut (special interest: float planes and US World War II aircraft). So I spent a good deal of my childhood getting bored at Farnborough Airshow, or freezing my nose off at Duxford, gloomily looking for birds through my binoculars on wind-swept, rain-lashed airfields.
I do, though, have a soft spot for one particular aircraft: the Supermarine Spitfire.
