Spitfire owner to rekindle ‘romance’

Press, 15 August 1984, Page 10

Spitfire owner to rekindle ‘romance’

NZPA-PA London A romantic Frenchman, Roland Fraissinet, refused to part with the love of his life yesterday — despite an offer of £300,000 (5798,000). He decided instead to rekindle a romance that had sparkled again after a break of 40 years. For his lady love was a vintage Spitfire, the aircraft he flew during World War H with the Free French forces. Yesterday Mr Fraissinet put the aircraft up for auction at Duxford airfield, Cambridgeshire, but the top bid of £300,000 was below the reserve price. The 62-year-old air ace was delighted. “I am very happy because I have fallen in love again with flying Spitfires, and I don’t want a divorce,” he said. His Mark XI was one of 27 veteran aircraft put up for auction by Christies, of which 13 failed to reach their reserve price. Many of the 2000 people at the auction arrived by light aircraft. The auctioneer, Patrick Lindsay, turned

up appropriately in his own Spitfire, a Mark 1. “It’s a great way to come to work,” he joked. Mr Fraissinet’s 1944 Spitfire was the main attraction. He bought it last year for £llO,OOO (5292,600), when it was decidedly dilapidated. However, after loving restoration by an East Midlands company, it was cleared for flying last Thursday — and became the only known airworthy Spitfire of its type. After war service with a photo-reconnaisance unit, it was damaged in April, 1945, on a sortie. Mr Fraissinet, now a helicopter pilot, admitted he regretted putting the Spitfire up for sale. “When you have been very much in love with a girl and you meet her again 40 years later, and she hasn’t changed, and you sit in her lap and it is just the same, it feels wonderful,” he said. “That is how I feel about a Spitfire”. He promised to keep the aircraft in England “because that is where it belongs” and to fly it to France for air shows.