Loch Doon Spitfire

Continuing on our visits to the tourist hotspots of Dumfries and Galloway, today we visited the Aviation Museum at Heathall. I'd been many years ago on a school trip but it has changed a lot since then. One of the new additions, unveiled earlier this month, is this MkII Spitfire.

From The Scotsman: "The P7540 was built in October 25 1940 at Castle Bromwich and was issued to 66 Squadron at West Malling in time for the closing days of the Battle of Britain.
It crashed on the October 1941 whilst being flown by 26 year old Frantisek Hekl.
It was his second Spitfire flight, the first being the preceding day. Whilst passing low over the waters of Loch Doon, his starboard wing struck the surface and the aircraft was lost. 


Frantisek Hekl’s body was never found, despite a search at the time of the crash. 

He is commemorated on a memorial at the side of the loch."

It took scuba divers 5 years to find the plane and after many years of careful restoration it is now on display. The Merlin engine has also been stripped down and restored and is on display separately. The wings had been too damaged, so replica ones were fitted to the Spitfire.

In one of the display cases is a newspaper cutting with a lovely story about how the young great-nephew of the pilot heard about the plane's recovery and hitched across Europe to Scotland to see it. Apparently he could speak very little English, but the curators of the museum were able to appreciate how moved he was by this experience and they gave him a small piece of the fuselage to take back as a souvenir.