Spitfire carrying beer kegs?!?

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Who has heard of this before?!?!

image (1).jpg

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Hanno

Or a new meaning for close air support.

Where did find this one? This one is definitely going to go in club newsletter.

Thanks for posting.

Cheers Phil

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Hi Phil,

Found it in my mailbox.... Did a quick search and found this: https://all-things-aviation.com/airc...war-beer-runs/

Putting one and one together, I think this is the origin of this brewery: http://www.spitfireale.co.uk/



H.

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

Putting one and one together, I think this is the origin of this brewery: http://www.spitfireale.co.uk/

The Spitfire ale is from our local brewers, Shepherd Neame at Faversham, as we are in the Battle of Britain area, this basically how the brand came about in recent years. Their advertising campaign at the time had amusing slogans. Doubt very much that it was anything to do with flying it to France in '44. That beer run was quickly nipped in the bud by Customs and Excise from what I remember reading.

[cletrac (RIP)]

I've heard that the Canadians would take beer up to high altitude so they could have "a cold one" when they came back down.

[motto]

I remember seeing a picture of a spitfire with beer kegs under the wings many years ago.
In more recent times (70s-80s) when the airline I worked for operated Boeing 727s one of the scheduled flights was Melbourne-Darwin-return. Before leaving Melbourne the Flight Engineer would take orders from the staff for barramundi which he then purchased from a vendor during the turnaround in Darwin.
The fish was stowed in the wing to fuselage fairing outside the pressurised area for the 3 hour trip from tropical Darwin to temperate Melbourne and subjected to -60 degrees at cruise altitude for most of it. It arrived, of course, still frozen solid.
This couldn't be done today due to security concerns.
On another matter. During WW2 a Vultee Vengeance single engine bomber crashed on Mt Disappointment not far north of Melbourne on its way back up north. The crash site was remarkable due to the amount of brown, broken glass in the area. The aircraft must have been carrying an enormous quantity of beer which being cooled on the way would have been worth a fortune on arrival in the tropics. The grog he was carrying may also have had something to do with him not clearing the mountain top. Such is life.

David

[Richard Farrant]

It was beer brewed by Henty & Constable, a brewery in Chichester and flown out from Tangmere