A HAMPSHIRE pensioner was surprised and delighted when his tribute to a valiant Second World War pilot shared the runway with a modern day jet fighter.

Ron Sibley’s 1/7 scale model of a Hawker Hurricane lined up alongside a Eurofighter Typhoon jet from the RAF's display team.

Both planes were painted in World War Two colours and carried the squadron number GN-A as a tribute to James Nicolson, the only Battle of Britain pilot to receive the Victoria Cross.

Flt Lt Nicolson was decorated after a dogfight over Southampton on August 16, 1940 in which his plane was hit by four canon shells from a Messerschmitt. As he was about to bail out of his burning plane the wounded Nicolson caught sight of another German fighter and stayed at the controls to shoot it down before parachuting to “safety”. Ironically the Home Guard mistook Nicolson for a German and fired at him as he made his descent.

A 10-year-old Ron Sibley emerged from the air raid shelter in his family home in Winchester Road, Shirley, to watch Nicolson's parachute float to the ground in the distance.

“I can still see it my mind's eye today,” said Ron, who now lives Chandler’s Ford. “I found out afterward about Nicolson and I have always been fascinated by him.”

Ron's son John took the model, which has a wingspan of more than six feet, to Bournemouth last Saturday to show it off to members of the RAF Typhoon Display team.

“They were fantastic and said they would put it on the wing of the Typhoon. The pictures say it all. My father was delighted when I showed him the pictures and told him how brilliant the RAF team had been,” said John

“I have since framed two of the pictures and given them to the RAF team as a small token of my thanks for their help in giving my father a great surprise when he saw his model with today's real Typhoon.”

Ron's Hurricane, which he built in the 1990s, is part of his own private airforce of more than 60 models - all Second World War planes.

They are all flying models but none have ever left the ground.

“I'm a much better model plane maker than model plane flier,” said the 85-year-old.

He, too, remained earthbound during his National Service with the RAF (1948-50) during which he was employed as a driver as his family ran a haulage business.

Son John, who now runs the family business, Sibley Material Movements in Nursling, was also bitten by the flying bug and is a qualified helicopter pilot.