Battle of Britain Spitfire for magazine
Picture © Gary Eason. Licensing is via Alamy; for prints see www.flightartworks.com
High Wycombe, 10 May 2015
Apart from all that spring stuff the month of May brought with it issue 16 of History Revealed magazine - whose cover features one of my Flight Artworks aircraft.
The Spitfire was commissioned by them to fit a rather precise slot in that front page, as you can see if you click on the link - after attempts to source a ready-made one had taken them to my Alamy account. There, they found things they liked but they were not quite at the right angle.
Creditably they were also anxious to be sure the details were authentic for the period. So I worked with them to get just what they wanted - which was as near to a "standard" Battle of Britain Spitfire as they could.
I chose Spitfire R6891, DW-Q of No 610 Squadron, based at Biggin Hill, as flown by Sgt (later Wing Commander) Ronald Fairfax Hamlyn DFM. This was in part because there were some reasonable (for the time!) old pictures around of his aircraft, so I knew it was just the ticket.
Hamlyn - "The Pied Piper of Harrogate" - became the RAF’s first 'Ace in a Day' of World War II, shooting down five enemy aircraft during three sorties on 24 August 1940.
I also subsequently adapted this for my own purposes in the picture you see at the top of this page.
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TO BUY PRINTS of any of my works please visit www.flightartworks.com.
I do private commissions, for individual aircraft or bigger scenes. Publishers' enquiries are also welcome: many images are available already to license through the Alamy agency.
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