As a boy I eventually collected and built over 200 plastic model airplane kits, but the Spitfire still held my heart as the most beautiful airplane possibly ever. It was only when I got older and was able to see and hear the actual surviving planes that I feel in love with the sound of the Merlin engine. Some years ago I was mowing my backyard while listening to a local rock and roll station through my earbuds. And yet over the sound of the small gasoline engine and the blaring of rock guitars and drums I heard that sound. I stopped the mower, pulled out the earbuds, and ran around the house to the street in front where there was a better view of the sky - in time to see not one but two P51 Mustangs flying past (living in the Washington DC suburbs with Arlington Cemetery and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum this kind of thing actually happens). A few years later I was walking away from the Reading Pennsylvania WW2 weekend when I spotted the P51 and the two Lancasters plus a B17 on the taxiways so I planted myself in line with the main runway beyond the fence line but directly underneath their expected flight path so I could bathe in that sound.