RAF engineer becomes first amputee pilot of Spitfire since WWII

Air December 1, 2016

An RAF engineer who lost his right leg five years ago has become the first amputee since Sir Douglas Bader to complete a solo flight in a Spitfire.

Sergeant Alan Robinson, an aircraft engineer in the RAF, said the experience of flying the legendary aircraft was his “childhood dream”.

Alan was one of two successful candidates in The Spitfire Scholarship, a private initiative supported by Prince Harry and the Royal Foundation’s Endeavour Fund and run by the Boultbee Flight Academy.

He had his right leg amputated above the knee following a motorcycle accident in 2011 and feared his dreams of becoming a pilot would be over.

Undeterred, however, Alan gained a private pilot’s licence and following the launch of Prince Harry’s Spitfire Scholarship, applied for one of the places to fly a Spitfire on the scheme.

The Scholarship is a private initiative supported by Prince Harry and the Royal Foundation’s Endeavour Fund and run by the Boultbee Flight Academy that seeks to help and inspire injured service personnel with their long-term recovery.

The scheme takes inspiration from Douglas Bader, who flew during the Second World War and amassed 20 individual aerial victories despite losing both his legs in a flying accident in 1931.

Alan is the first person to complete the academy’s Spitfire Scholarship by successfully solo piloting the original Supermarine Spitfire.

He commented: “In the last month of the scholarship the need to learn about the Spitfire has been utterly obsessive. If it’s not an airspeed, oil pressure or emergency procedure it’s not been welcome in my head. I have thought about nothing else. Then, when the moment came, the emotion of five years of highs, lows, frustrations, successes, doubts, fears, the desire to make my family proud and honour the memory of my father, was all compressed into ten minutes of flying.

“It was utterly overwhelming and once the final switch had been turned off the tears came. It’s impossible to put the experience of this achievement into words. How it feels and what it means. Put simply I have achieved a childhood dream, but as a boy I could not have known a devastating accident would be the catalyst to that dream becoming a reality.”

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Boultbee Flight Academy RAF Royal Foundation’s Endeavour Fund Sir Douglas Bader Spitfire Spitfire Scholarship