Aircraft Restoration Company (ARCO)’s Spitfire PR MkXI taxies to park along the flightline at Old Warden Aerodrome after landing, with the day’s highly acclaimed display pilot John Romain MBE maintaining a side view of his progress from the open cockpit, demonstrating the restricted forward-visibility on ground operations that many taildragger aircraft often pose to a pilot.

A thoroughly accomplished name in the vintage aviation scene, Romain is a former British Aerospace and Hawker Siddeley aeronautical engineer, and since founding ARCO in 1989, has overseen countless historically significant aircraft rebuilds and restorations, piloted hundreds of airworthy vintage types over several decades of display flying – and in doing so, accruing well in excess of 1000 hours in Spitfire flying alone.
ARCO’s PR MkXI, now famed in the public eye during the COVID-19 pandemic as the ‘NHS Spitfire’ wears the name Lettice Curtis next to the windshield, in homage to English aviator Eleanor Lettice Curtis, famed for racing PL983 in her role as one of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA)’s first female pilots.

Nikon D850, AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/4 ED VR