I got a tour of the Royal Air Force's Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's hangar at RAF Coningsby today. I thought they had only a few spits and the Lancaster they fly for airshows and special events, but was surprised to see around six or seven spits and hurricanes in varying states of repair. They also had a C-47, a couple of DeHaviland Chipmunk trainers and a Rutan Long-Easy. I think the Long Easy was the Sq. Leader's ride. There was a high altitude (40K) spit used originally for recce flights, a MK-5, a MK-2 and I think at least two MK-9's. Most of them were sans cowlings, wheels and other panels as it's the off-season and repairs were being carried out. Our guide told us that all of the spit and hurri pilots are active-duty RAF pilots who fly these planes as an additional duty to their primary assigned fighters - talk about your good deals. It was a real treat to see all those birds up close. One of the spits was a BOB participant and still had bullet hole patches in the wing root and left wing - amazing.
Our guide also said spit pilots were sometimes called "jockeys" due to the cramped cockpit. If your thighs were too big, you could have trouble getting full control stick deflection while wearing all your cold weather gear in the unheated cockpit, hence smaller guys were better suited (no pun) to fly the spit. From there we got the term "fighter jock". Dunno if that's all true, but it makes sense to me.
Our hosts were great, many thanks to the RAF.
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