16 Spitfires!!

[jumpinjan]

Watch this video, and turn up the sound to really take in the sound of the Merlin engines.
Battle of Britain 70th Anniversary Air Show
http://www.airshows.org.uk/2010/airshows/duxford-battle-of-britain-airshow-review.html

 

[mrtoycrazy]

I'll have to show this to my dad tomorrow when I see him.He's 93 and flew a P-38 in the Korean war.

 

[Nickodell]

Thanks for that video. Brought a tear to my rheumy old eyes (actually, they're not.) That must be the first time there were four flyable Hurricanes since the 1950s; I wonder where they found them. Thousands of Hurries and Spits were sold for scrap from 1946 on. Many people bought them for the fuel in their tanks. You could get a Spit IX - less guns, and made unflyable - for $1,000 in today's money.

The Spit, Hurrie and Lanc in formation are from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight that visits several WWII operational airfields each Battle of Britain Day (Sept. 15.) They are maintained at RAF Coningsby, one of my old haunts, circa 1960.

 

[mikephillips]

According to the numbers I found on the net, there's nearly 2 dozen flyers currently with about the same number either in restoration or awaiting, not counting museum display aircraft that will never fly. 5-6 in the UK alone. And if I recall correctly they had 4 flyers in 68 when they made the BOB movie with 2-3 other capable of taixing.
The demise of the Soviet Union has been a real catalyst for the recover and restoration of many old aircraft. We're lucky that many crash sites there were never considered worth cleanup and many extinct or near extinct types from all sides have been recovered. If someone with the money wants to we could see sights in the sky unknown since 1945 or earlier.