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original registration MJ271 and built in 1943 — flew on 51 combat missions, escort-ing bombers, conducting fighter sweeps over France and dive -bombing targets on the enemy-held coast.
Having survived a crash-landing , it then spent most of its existence in a museum, before being restored to airworthiness.
After work began in 2017, all 80,000 rivets and many parts were dismantled, checked, cleaned and restored over two years.
But, having stripped off the wartime camouflage paint, the restorers decided to leave the gleaming original aluminium panels on show, something that had never been done before. The old veteran quickly became known as the Silver Spitfire.
The ambitious, round-the -world project was designed to ‘showcase’ an aircraft that changed history and reunite it w ith many countries that owe their freedom, at least in part, to this iconic plane.
A chase plane accompanied the Silver Spitfire, from which most of these photo -graphs were taken, and acted as a mobile workshop. After taking off on August 6, the aircraft flew north to Scotland, before head-ing westbound to Canada via the F aroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland.
The Silver Spitfire then crossed into the U.S., before visiting Russia, Japan, China, South-East Asia, India, P akistan, the Middle East, and then back to Europe. Its arrival and departure drew large crowds.
When the plane landed at Goodwood, an elated Brooks said: ‘It’s been an incredible adventure and a privilege to share our stun-ning Silver Spitfire with the world.’