The plane that helped save Britain: Flying in a Spitfire 80 years on from WWII

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It was the plane that pilots 'put on' rather than flew; the beautiful beast that left even the Germans waxing lyrical. If you ask people today what typified British defiance the most in the Second World War, many of them will tell you it was the Spitfire. So when I got the chance to take to the skies in one - and even briefly take control - on a sunny morning in March, I knew that this would be the experience of a lifetime. Today, as Britain marks the 80th anniversary of VE Day, we are rightly remembering the men and women who gave their lives in the fight against Nazi tyranny. But it was specifically the bravery of 'The Few' - those young pilots who kept Hitler at bay during the Battle of Britain in 1940 - who I had in mind as I was flown above Cambridgeshire by a former Red Bull Air Race champion.
And the fact that we were flying from the historic Duxford Aerodrome - the wartime home of the Spitfire that is now a popular Imperial War Museum site - made it even more fitting. Less then two weeks later, news of the death of the last surviving Battle of Britain pilot, 105-year-old John Paddy Hemingway, was broken by the Daily Mail. Like many other pilots, Mr Hemingway flew both the Spitfire and its great wartime counterpart, the Hurricane. #Spitfire #battleofbritain #war #veday

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