The Stupendous Silver Spitfire

 Stace and I had an aviation adventure Thursday!

He's been following the exploits of this 1943 WWII Spitfire for weeks now, as it left the UK on a five-month round-the-world trip in early August. Fully restored, the Silver Spitfire rested in Santa Monica for a few days this week.

Stace was determined for us to get as close as we could. The official plan was to go to tiny Santa Monica Airport and take photos from a viewing platform.

But when we arrived, we saw the Spitfire was at a hangar way across all the runways, and just barely visible behind the accompanying plane joining it on the trip. The airport employee let us know that the previous day, the Spitfire was just below the viewing platform, but not today.

We could have gone home, but no.

We drove down the road, into the parking lots of the aircraft businesses lining the runway, hoping to get a closer look. No luck.

We then decided to just drive down and around to the company with the hangar, and see what we could do.

Stace asked those ladies at the desk if we could go out and have a look, and after a brief consultation, they decided that sure we could!

We found ourselves right next to the planes, taking as many photos as we wanted, with no one else around.

Pretty special.

This lovely lady helped win the war!

What a beauty.