TWENTY children from Morchard Bishop C of E Primary School travelled to Exeter Airport on Thursday, September 15 to meet local businessman, Martin Phillips, who built a Supermarine Spitfire Mark 1X from scratch to a pristine flying icon.

The children were met by staff from the Boultbee Flying Academy and Spitfire pilot Matt Jones who answered their questions.

These included: “How fast did the bullets travel?”; “Why was it called a Spitfire?” and “How much runway did it need to take off and land?”

The children watched the naming of the plane, “The City of Exeter” by the Lord Mayor of Exeter.

After the naming ceremony, the children spent some time with Martin, who told them his story about how he became interested in building a Spitfire, before answering even more of their questions.

Each child was presented with a line drawing of a Spitfire aircraft as a memento of the day from Martin and Boultbee.

Head teacher Chris Sergeant said: “It was a fantastic opportunity for the children to see two of these wonderful ‘planes close up and learn about our aviation heritage first-hand.”