Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IX (HFS)

During a ground attack sortie on Ljubljana airfield in 1944 a Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX, serial number MJ116 of 73. squadron Royal Air Force was hit by flak and crashed on the southern outskirts of Ljubljana city. The pilot Flt.Lt. Clark bailed out successfully and was captured. In 2018 the remains of this Spitfire were excavated. The remains included a superbly preserved Merlin engine and significant other parts of the aircraft. These parts are now displayed in the Park of Military History in Pivka, Slovenia.

In late 2020 the co-founder of AFormX – Janez Cestnik came across the Heritage Flight Simulation Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX plans built simulator. We were immediately impressed by the technology of the simulator. The key motivation to invest into the building of this simulator was that our partner Park of Military History Pivka, where the MiG-21bis simulator is placed decided to expand our cooperation and combine the remains of the Spitfire MJ116 with our simulator.

DESIGN PRINCIPLE

Our core idea was that combining the remains of the original Spitfire and a very realistic simulator would make for a extremely innovative presentation. The presentation moves the visitors from seeing and thinking about the remains to actually experiencing the flight in the Spitfire serial number MJ116 over the photorealistic Slovene terrain. Therefore the simulator is tuned to digitally and physically as closely as possible match the simulator to the MJ116 aircraft.

BUILD PROCESS

The process of building the Spitfire started in late December 2020, moved into the phase of fabrication in January 2021 and the simulator was delivered in April 2021. What is even more impressive is that at the same time the AFormX simulator team developed also the Velis Electro X-ALPHA 200 upgrade.

The artistic touch for the very realistic weathering was provided by Mr. Aleš Bedič who joined the AFormX team for this and hopefully many more projects.

COMMERCIAL RESULTS

Despite the effects and restrictions of the pandemy the Spitfire is producing good revenue. For the weekends it is fully booked and averages 20 to 25 simulator sessions per day. If you want to visit Pivka and experience the Spitfire simulator yourself make sure you book your Spitfire slot in advance.

VIP USERS

In April 2021 only a few days after the formal handover of the Spitfire Mk IX simulator to the Park of Military History Pivka, the Minister of Defence, Republic of Slovenia Mr. Matej Tonin flew and thoroughly enjoyed the Spitfire simulator.