This week’s vintage aviation news have been dominated by one subject – Spitfire sold at an auction at the RAF Museum in Hendon on 21 April. The unique twin-seater TR Mk. IX, G-ILDA, changed hands for a price of 1.75 million pounds. The happy new owner is Mr. Steve Brooks, London-based commercial property developer and private aviator.

History of the SM520

G-ILDA was built by Vickers Armstrong in 1944 as SM520, a single-seater HF Mk. IX powered by a new Rolls-Royce Merlin 70 engine. Delivered to No. 33 Maintenance Unit on the 23 October 1944, it didn’t see active service before the end of the hostilities. It was subsequently sold in June 1948 to the South African Air Force. It was one of a batch-purchase of 136 Spitfires for delivery to South Africa. Eighty of these aircraft were to F. Mark IXE specification with Merlin 63 engines, and 86 of them HF Mark IXEs with the Merlin 70. 50 of the aircraft were flown out to South Africa and the balance shipped surface to the ports of either Cape Town or Durban.

SM520’s service record with the SAAF remains obscure. It may have carried the SAAF number 5563, but there is no conclusive evidence to it. It was struck off charge and sold for scrap in January 1954. Its remains somehow survived at the Salt River scrap yard until 1979, when its forward fuselage, firewall and numerous other components from this and sister Spitfires were recovered by the South African Air Force Museum.

The remains of the aircraft were acquired by British building magnate and aviation enthusiast Charles Church, and returned to the UK, where he initiated the long process of restoration to airworthiness. When he died in 1989, the partially-restored ‘SM 520’ was sold to Alan Dunkerley, who eventually re-sold it to Paul Portelli.

Mr Portelli then commissioned Classic Aero Engineering of Thruxton, Hampshire, to restore the machine to as-original TR Mark IX two-seat trainer specification. This restoration was completed in 2008, the first post-restoration flight taking place on 17 October.

Is 1.75 million pounds a bargain?

The price of Spitfires has remained stable at between 1 and 1.5 million pounds over the last two to three years. In this respect, 1.75 million for G-ILDA may seem like an overprice, but this plane is unique even on this rather limited market. An airworthy TR Mk. IX has a potential of attracting wealthy owners without a pilot’s license who this way may enjoy being flown in a real Spitfire in the second seat. This was the first two-seater plane of its class to be offered at public auction for more than 20 years.

For comparison, the last publicized Spitfire sale took place in September last year, when a Mk. XVI was sold at a New Zealand auction for NZ$3.2 million ($1.6 million) to Yan-Ming Gao, chairman of North China Shipping Holdings Co with the intention of donating it to the China Aviation Museum near Beijing.