Anatomy of the Spitfire Cockpit
This is the typical view of the Spitfire cockpit as seen by the pilot approaching the aircraft. The pilot will enter the cockpit through the open door at the port side, first climbing on the wing root. No additional steps were provided.
BL628 was delivered from Castle Bromwich in January 1942. Allocated to No. 410 Squadron RCAF at Gravesend, BL628 became a personal aircraft of G.B. Murray who nicknamed it Marion after his girlfriend. It subsequently served briefly with No. 308 Squadron 31st Fighter Group USAAF in Aug 1942, then Nos. 167 and 610 Squadrons. Transferred to Royal Navy in 1943, the aircraft was converted to hooked Spitfire configuration by Cunliffe Owen Aircraft in June 1943. Allocated to No. 899 Squadron FAA for training, it served in Belfast, Ireland. Before the end of the war, it went to 719 and 794 Squadrons Royal Navy at St. Merryn, but the airframe was now at the very end of its service life and the aircraft was eventually struck off charge and abandoned on a farm in St. Merryn, Cromwell.
It is in the same place that the fuselage was found in derelict state some thirty years later. Acquired by Peter Croser & Michael Aitchison from Australia in 1977, it was initially painstainkingly rebuilt using components from various scrapyards in the UK. In the process, the aircraft went back to the UK in 1991 for a short period, then to Australia, where it received a new pair of wings built on Isle Of Wight, UK. For the last stage of the project the aircraft was transferred to Avspecs Ltd in Auckland, New Zealand. The first post-restoration flight took place on 29 September 2007.