Aviation: it's not too late to take part in the Battle of Britain

African Business, July, 2005

Every actual and aspiring pilot today fantasizes what it was like to fly Second World War fighter aircraft like Spitfires, Hurricanes and Mustangs. You could if you lived in Johannesburg by visiting Rand Airport where aircraft designer and builder Alex Porterfield has assembled, as a hobby, a virtual simulator of the Royal Air Force's Hawker Hurricane fighter.

The simulator is an actualsize cockpit with authentic controls, voice commands and control tower prompts. The fighter simulator follows the construction of a Dakota DC3 simulator he built at his home in an east Johannesburg suburb. "Everything in the Hurricane is hand-made, except for the computer used to run the flight simulator. We get a huge demand from people wanting to fly the fighter."