Silver Spitfire: Recreating the Journey in MSFS

By Spencer Doyle

The British Supermarine Spitfire stands as one of the most iconic and arguably crucial aircraft of World War 2. The Mark IX variant, developed in 1942, expanded its capabilities, allowing for maneuvering at altitudes of 38,000 feet and a ceiling of 40,000 feet, making it vastly superior to the Spitfire variants that came before it. In 2019, a group in the United Kingdom embarked on an around-the-world tour using this historic plane with a special “Silver Spitfire” commemorative livery. Inspired by this endeavor, many in the Microsoft Flight Simulator community, including myself, set out to recreate this experience.

For our simulator Spitfire, we turn to Flying Iron Simulations, a third-party developer specializing in warbirds of this era. Flying Iron’s Spitfire L.F. MK IXC, a highly regarded community favorite with a host of features, can be purchased in the in-game marketplace or Flying Iron’s website for just over $20. The 3D modeling, texturing, and sounds on this aircraft are superb, and it conveniently comes with a Silver Spitfire livery as part of the package. From the moment you work through the checklist for the first time, crank the engine, and see that namesake fire spitting out of the exhaust, you’ll know you’re in a special plane. It has an accurate flight model, and if you attempt to fly it beyond its limits, there will be consequences, so do mind the manual.

The Spitfire can be steered on the ground with the rudder or by using differential brakes, which will take a little bit of time to learn. Taking off requires you to trim according to the manual and use delicate rudder work to stay on the centerline. Once you’re in the air and in cruise, the Spitfire can be trimmed for a nearly hands-off experience depending on weather conditions, but you must always be prepared to react to any change in those conditions. The Flying Iron Spitfire also allows you to swap out the gun sight for a Garmin 430 GPS unit, invaluable on this trip.

The plane comes with a tablet holding all your checklists, power settings references, v-speeds, data & statistics. Here, you can also change your loadout or even use the fictional autopilot if you’d like. The Loadout screen is where you would attach your drop tanks for the longer legs of the Silver Spitfire expedition. Dropping those empty tanks to lighten up your Spitfire is quite satisfying on those legs. This Spitfire is persistent, meaning that parts will wear & tear depending on how well you treat her. Oil filters, magnetos, spark plugs, etc., can wear down and be replaced, if necessary, along with 25-hour inspections and 1000-hour engine overhauls. This is quite a nice feature for our expedition plane, as you would need to keep an eye on these things as you go along.

For the flight plan, you can get the full plan from the Got Gravel Discord under “the silver spitfire” channel, or you can emulate the tour from the official website, www.silverspitfire.com, where you can also learn about the real journey. The tour will begin and end at EGHR Goodwood, up through Iceland, Greenland, Canada, the US, Russia, Japan, Taiwan, India, the Middle East, Greece, Italy, over the Alps to Germany, and more before going back to Goodwood.

Since this is a simulator, and your individual journey, you can make whatever rules you wish. For my personal trip, I used live weather and live time during the entire expedition, which meant if the weather wasn’t good, I had to wait it out. I used the GPS unit for navigation, flew by hand, not using the AP that is included in the tablet. I did not use any ATC, but if you really wanted to immerse yourself, you could add that to your own ruleset. Most of the trip was flown around 3000 feet AGL, except for long ocean crossings, where I made use of the Spitfire’s high-altitude capabilities and climbed over 30,000 feet. You can fly at whatever altitude you like, but for me, it made sense to fly low and see the world I’m flying around, especially in a simulator as beautifully detailed as MSFS. If you do choose to fly above 10,000 feet, make sure you turn on your oxygen tank and turn on your fuel tank pressure at 12,000 feet. Keep in mind that the Flying Iron Spitfire is functional, so failure to turn it on will result in hypoxia, and you will “black out”. The expedition took me around 109 flight hours and just under 22,000 NM and opened my eyes to some astonishing beauty of our planet, from the rivers of Jordan, the dunes of Saudi Arabia, the majestic Alps north of Italy, snowy mountains of Japan, tundra of Alaska & Canada, diverse agriculture of Asia, to the untouched beauty of Iceland and more.

There are a few memories that stand out against the rest during the long 22k NM journey. Flying from Alaska to Russia together with another Silver Spitfire pilot attempting to complete his journey was one of these memories. Being grounded in India for several weeks due to continuously foggy and low visibility conditions before eventually finding a narrow window clear enough to fly through was another. Then, there was weaving around numerous small storms over Vietnam and Thailand, and finally, overflying the beaches of Dunkirk before crossing the channel and descending into Goodwood just as the sun was setting to end the day and completing the aroundthe-world Silver Spitfire journey. I hope some of you will attempt this rewarding journey and make some memories of your own.