Original subtitles

[Guy] Dead simple.

The plan is to try and build

the greatest Spitfire flying today.

[intense music playing]

[narrator] This is the inside story of a mammoth project to resurrect

one of the nation’s favorite planes.

[Guy] I could say it's me and a few blokes in a shed, but no, no, no, no.

It's a few blokes in an aircraft hanger and I’m going to give a bit of a hand.

[narrator] Starting with a rusting wreck dug out of a French beach,

the aim is to make the rarest Spitfire of all, a MARK-1,

using nothing but authentic, World War II designs,

materials and techniques.

This is going to be exactly as the MARK-1 was built 75 years ago, exactly!

[narrator] The original plane was once flown by an RAF hero

whose forgotten tale of daring-do involves Dunkirk,

Crash landings, Colditz, and even the Queen.

[Veryan] Wow!

[narrator] But only if an airworthy plane can be built,

will the original pilot’s daughters finally witness

the tribute their father deserves.

[Guy] We’re not talking models or anything, we’re not playing at it,

this is the real deal.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] The Spitfire is arguably the most successful fighter design ever.

[Guy] Come on, come on lad, keep up, keep up.

[narrator] Produced in greater numbers than any other British combat plane,

it was introduced in 1938 and wasn’t taken out of front line service until 1954.

[Guy chuckles] It's not very big, is it?

Eh? By eck!

[narrator] Its V12 engine made it faster than anything else in the sky.

It could do 350 miles per hour.

It's elliptically shaped wings cut through the air to make it

the best handling and easiest-to-fly plane the RAF had.

It’s not hard to look at is it, eh? Beautiful.

[narrator] This was the aircraft that gave the country its finest hour,

victory in the battle of Britain,

when Germany was just two days away from invading.

[engines revving]

[Guy] I mean, it is a bold statement, isn’t it?

But if it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be here now

and I think it is right, isn't it?

Well, we might be eating Bratwurst!

[narrator] And yet it was only five months earlier that the Spitfire

and the very plane Guy will attempt to remake

had made its debut in serious aerial combat.

It was the Dunkirk evacuation, Operation Dynamo.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] By May, 1940, Germany had successfully invaded most of Europe.

It relentlessly attacked the remaining 300,000 allied troops

who had been cut off in northern France.

[Winston Churchill over recording] We shall fight on the beaches,

we shall fight in the fields and in the streets.

[bell ringing]

[narrator] Nineteen Squadron, based at Duxford in Cambridgeshire,

had been first to take delivery of the Spitfire.

It was tasked with defending the troop evacuation.

[Winston Churchill] We shall fight with growing confidence

and growing strength in the air.

[narrator] The commanding officer was a very special pilot.

[Guy] Geoffrey Stephenson? Yeah, legend.

He was trying to provide air cover during-- during the mass evacuation.

As fighter pilots came, he was as good as they got. Yeah, he was the man.

[narrator] Geoffrey Stephenson had flown in an early version

of the Red Arrows aerobatic display team before the war,

with the famous ace, Douglas Bader.

[Guy] We know what they named Douglas Bader: "Tin Legs," yeah, Tin Legs.

[narrator] Thirty-year-old Stephenson’s squadron was amongst the first

to reach the deadly skies above Dunkirk.

I’m sure if you was amongst that lot, you would have just said

it was like the end of the world. Armageddon.

[engine revving]

[Guy] Black smoke everywhere.

It was like raining planes.

Their planes have been shot down.

The anti-aircraft fire...

bombs.

Witnesses at the time say it was just carnage...

[narrator] Nineteen Squadron quickly proved the new Spitfire’s worth,

shooting down four Messerschmitt’s.

But soon after, they were dramatically outnumbered.

In the ensuing dogfight, two Spitfires were hit.

One of them was squadron leader Stephenson’s.

[Guy] Took a bullet to the radiator,

he had to force land the Spitfire on the beach we’re at now.

It would have been a bit messy.

[narrator] Drenched in boiling engine coolant and with a cockpit full of steam,

Stephenson crash landed into the beach. Somehow he survived.

Refusing to give himself over to the Germans, he went on the run.

[Winston Churchill over recording] We shall never surrender.

[narrator] Stephenson's plane. Designation N3200,

became a toy for the Germans.

[Guy] Yeah, it was a trophy to the Germans.

I’d have a few choice words for them boys. Who had the last laugh, eh?

[narrator] Within a fortnight, this prized British icon,

flown by a national hero, had disappeared into the sand.

And it stayed there, left to rot.

[orchestral music plays]

[smooth music playing]

[narrator] But in 1986, the remains were unearthed,

and eventually they came in the possession of two anonymous collectors,

obsessed by originality.

They were determined to produce a plane that was precisely

as Geoffrey Stephenson would have flown it during the war,

so it could be displayed in air shows around the country.

They sent the wreckage home to the old Duxford base

Stephenson first flew it from.

Today, it houses a museum and the best historic aviation engineers in the world.

We take pride in what we do and they’re put together

properly with, with care and attention.

Even the bits you can’t see, that are buried deep within the wing,

are done correctly.

[Terry] It’s a bit like restoring fine artwork, I suppose.

You know it's totally, completely handmade.

[Guy] It’s the ultimate. You can get to work for a Formula 1 Team,

I’m not bothered. Are you bothered? I wouldn’t be bothered.

Go on give me another.

[Guy] NASA, working with Americans, I wouldn’t get on with Americans.

Who else, give me another job, who else would be like--

-[Mo] Cern? -Oh, Cern, Hadron Collider.

Yeah, but to be honest, I don’t think I’m clever enough for that.

Getting to work on a Spitfire with a Rolls Royce in it,

I mean that’s the ultimate, you have made it, that’s it.

[projector rolling]

[narrator] As well as following in the footsteps of the original workforce

who built the Spitfire, using their exact same techniques…

Look at that! Like a glove, like a glove.

[narrator] ...Guy will learn about the power of the Spitfire’s guns…

[Guy] I’m not much of a runner, to be honest.

[narrator] ...the speed of the ground crew...

[Guy] Right, where do you want me?

[narrator] ...learn from the people that built

and flew the Spitfire originally.

[Peggy] It’s amazing what you can do when the chips are down. It's amazing.

[Geoffrey] I don’t know what we would've done without them.

Do you?

[narrator] ...Experience the flight of his life,

which takes a surprising twist.

[narrator] And uncover the extraordinary tale

of the original pilot, Geoffrey Stephenson.

I feel very honored to work on one. It's just...

This is a bit much, I’m at a bit of a dither.

[quiet piano music playing]

[narrator] The two-year project begins in spring, 2012.

[birds chirping]

Guy’s first day on the job begins with the wrecked remains

of Stephenson’s plane.

[Guy] I would be the sort of person that would have something like that

in me front room 'cause it tells a story, doesn’t it?

But you’d say, "What is the point in keeping this?"

But no, no, it’s just good for useful bits of information.

How pipes was routed, how bits of wiring was routed.

Look in here, look at all that in there. Can you see?

Dig about and you can find name tags on stuff. Look.

Here. Lamport. Lamport, look. On the wiring.

There’s just loads. Don’t fart near it, it’ll drop to bits!

Now, the first job we’re gonna do, we’re gonna put these oil unions

down there, right? Put these here. They could, they didn’t know,

they could have been either riveted in or bolted in, but as you can see here.

These are bolted in, so ours will be bolted in, as they should be.

[narrator] For the finished plane to be truly authentic,

it will need a combination of refurbished parts and new sections built

to original specifications.

We were able to extract a few bits out of it but, um...

as for the actual air frame itself, a new one was required

and the company on the Isle of Wight has got the ability

to make that from scratch.

But they’re working from original drawings just like, like we do here.

Go on, and what sort of money?

We’re looking about 200 to 250,000.

-You can see it though, can’t you, eh? -[Mo] Includes the tail unit as well.

Oh, right, oh, yeah, 250 grand! Bloody hell. Bloody hell!

[narrator] Guy, like the rest of the team, will have to refer to the 75-year-old plan

retrieved from an RAF museum.

This is the old system diagram here.

-These? -These are original drawings.

-[Guy] Bloody hell... -[Mo] This shows the two unions

-which I’ve got here. -[Guy] Yeah.

[narrator] The unions are joints which connect pipes taking oil

from the engine to the oil cooler.

[Guy] First job, yeah, working on a Spitfire.

[narrator] The first assembly jobs are relatively straightforward

but still vital.

[Guy] I'm making a ruddy pig's ear of this...

[narrator] If these joints aren’t fitted securely, they’ll leak,

and if they leak, the engine could seize in mid-air.

[Mo] As simple as any bit may seem to fit, every bit is critical in the end.

If one bit fails then another bit may fail and it, then you have trouble.

[Guy] And what do you reckon to the blokes that would have been building

that back then?

They seem to have a different skill set to what we have now.

You know, we have difficulty in replicating them today.

[Guy] Is that right?

[narrator] Nearly half the workforce was female.

Peggy Sugden started work at a Wiltshire Spitfire factory in 1942.

We were pretty good at it, yeah, very proud of myself actually.

You could do it almost blindfold, really. We were that quick and so easy, really.

We had to work...

eight till eight, Monday to Friday,

eight till five, Saturdays, and eight till four, Sundays,

and we just had the one week off in July.

Just one week.

That didn’t bother me. I loved it. [stuttering] I never minded going to work.

[Guy] Back in early 40s,

you go into work knowing,

that the Germans wanna come over and bomb you.

[cranking]

Eh? Not easy. It's a bit pressure, isn't it?

I don’t think you just wouldn’t let that get to you, would you?

You’d be very British about it. You’d just get on with it.

Keep calm and carry on. You’d have to be, wouldn’t ya?

Very British.

[Peggy] I knew that we might be bombed,

but it didn’t seem to bother me at all. I had to-- I just loved it.

I loved every bit of it.

I loved the camaraderie. I loved it. It was beautiful.

[narrator] As part of the latest generation to work on a Spitfire,

Guy clearly has a lot to live up to.

[Guy] 'Course I’m up to the job, eh!

All right, I’m willing to learn, I’m not going in there, I’m not going in there...

just try and you know, of course I can do that, I’m holding me hands up

and saying, "Look, boys, I’ve never worked on a plane before

and I’ve definitely never worked on a Spitfire before."

You know, I need to point us in the right direction,

but I’ll give it me all, I’ll give it me best shot.

No question. Definitely, 'course I can do it,

[intense music playing]

[narrator] Guy’s fitted his first two parts,

but if this is truly to be the greatest Spitfire ever made,

it still needs a quarter of a million rivets...

[air pressuring]

...a rebuilt Rolls Royce engine, fresh paint, new wings...

[Guy] Okay?

[narrator] ...real guns, and a propeller worth six figures

before finding out if the whole thing is good enough to fly.

-[dramatic music playing] -[engine coughing]

[intense piano music playing]

[narrator] Guy Martin is helping to build the nation’s favorite plane,

a MARK-1 Spitfire.

[engine revving]

This particular aircraft, N3200, was shot down over Dunkirk in 1940,

and now the wreckage is being used as the basis

for the most authentic Spitfire to be built since World War II.

[Guy] Pull the handle there.

[narrator] It won’t be easy as is clear on a recent restoration,

the Spitfire was a complex, state-of-the-art aircraft.

[exhaling]

[Guy] They had the most sophisticated fighter the RAF had.

Just look in here. Look at the way the buttons finished off.

You see? I don’t want to press it. Can I, am I alright to press it?

No, I best not press it. I don’t want any bodies. [chuckling]

[mimicking gun fire]

[narrator] In the mid-1930s, the aggressive foreign policy

of Hitler’s Germany rung alarm bells in Britain.

A rearmament programmed saw the tender

for a new fighter plane won by Reginald Mitchell,

from Stoke-on-Trent, an aeronautical engineer

with no formal training.

In 1931, his sea plane had reached a record-breaking 407.5 miles per hour.

That design was adapted into the Spitfire.

The first plane rolled out of a Southampton factory in 1938.

[newscaster] It’s the fastest single seater fighter in the world.

[narrator] Every young pilot who took the helm immediately fell in love.

[Geoffrey] I was 18. Now, all they said was,

"There’s a Spitfire. Go and fly it.

And if you break it they’ll be bloody hell to pay.

Thank you!" And I remember vividly walking out

and seeing this lithe-looking, thoroughbred creature sitting there.

I thought, "My goodness, am I in charge of that lethal looking thing?"

I got in it, they showed me how to start it and then I opened the throttle

and the acceleration was nothing like I’d ever known,

and it just seemed to hurl herself into the air

with me hanging on to it.

[engine revving]

It was a thing apart and it seemed to flow about the sky.

It was responsive.

It was very light on the controls and it was a revelation.

[engine revving]

I remember thinking "Well, this is lovely" as I was mucking about around the clouds

and I’ve got to get this thing back on the ground,

which is quite an important part of any trip, you see?

And we arrived on the ground. Quite simply, the aeroplane flew me.

[narrator] Squadron leader Geoffrey Stephenson,

English gent and distinguished pilot,

was in charge of N3200 when it was shot down.

-[explosion booms] -[dramatic music playing]

His diaries reveal what happened after he crashed

during the Dunkirk evacuation.

[Guy] They gave me a copy.

Well, I wouldn’t trust me with the original either.

Yeah. Some interesting reading...

Some interesting reading. There’s one bit here that reads...

"I had force landed on the beach south of Calais.

Was not a time for emotion, but rather cool planning.

Nothing of the sort occurred."

Nothing of the sort occurred?

[narrator] According to the diaries, Stephenson evaded capture for 11 days,

walking 110 miles through occupied France to Brussels.

He sought refuge at the US embassy,

but was turned away because the Americans were not yet part of the war.

[Guy] Yeah, he would've been snookered now, wouldn’t he?

He’s on the street, like German occupied at that stage, weren’t it?

If you got captured and they say, "Well, you’re obviously a spy."

[mimics explosion] Kaboom.

Blown his brains out, no questions asked.

[narrator] Stephenson had no alternative but to turn himself in

and become a prisoner of war.

By May, 1940, Germany had successfully invaded most of Europe,

but Hitler was furious that Britain had rejected his offer of peace.

The British Navy and Air Force posed a huge threat

so he ordered them to be destroyed.

The plan was first to gain aerial superiority over the channel

before landing his infantry by sea.

The battle of Britain was about to begin and the RAF needed more planes, fast.

[quiet violin music playing]

To help increase production, a new factory in Castle Bromwich, in Birmingham

started producing Spitfires in May, 1940.

Today it’s used by the Jaguar car company,

with works of art reminding the locals of the area’s history.

[Guy] I’m not into modern art, and that’s what we’re calling

that, isn’t it, modern art?

But I can appreciate that no one’s forgotten and I think that’s right.

And then we’ve got here is a nose cone, and...

some knob has gone and graffitied it.

Show a bit of respect.

-Do you know about these here? -[boy] Yeah.

Go on, what are they?

-[boy] That is the Spitfire wing. -[Guy] Is it?

Fair play, mate. What do you think to it all?

-What do I think to it all? -Yeah...

Well, for starters, it’s a bit of history, ain't it really?

-Right. -This place is like

World War II and all that, you know what I mean?

That's spot on, mate! I'm impressed.

I’m impressed that you know all about that.

-[Guy] That's great. Spot on mate. -[chuckling] It's cool.

[narrator] The factory itself is also one big monument.

Go on, watch this then. It's in the first bit, see...

most-- most of Britain’s Spitfires are made here from 39 to 45.

[narrator] The factory was a colossal undertaking,

the size of 80 football pitches.

In today’s prices, it cost the government nearly 400 million pounds.

Its huge size made it an obvious target for German bombers,

so the whole building was covered in camouflage paint.

There is a bit of camouflage left, you see up there.

It didn’t stop them, they still dropped over 200 bombs.

[narrator] To begin with, production at the factory was a fiasco,

thanks to the very worst examples of British industrial unrest.

We had too many old boys stuck in their old ways, they knew best.

Saying that they’re gonna build 60 Spitfires a week!

All these old boys, "Oh, yeah, yeah, we can do 60." Sixty Spitfires a week?

Anyway, April, 1940 come and they hadn’t turned out one, not one!

[narrator] There were more than 3,000 different blueprints for a Spitfire

and the foreman, recruited from car maker Morris

and used to simpler manufacturing, wanted to ignore them.

You still get it now, don’t you? "I’ve been doing it this way for 50 years.

That’s the way it’ll be done. That’s the way it’ll be done."

Old boys stuck in their way, we need some fresh blood in there.

We need the whip needed to be cracked and it was.

[narrator] Lord Beaverbrook, generally regarded as the unpleasant

and unreasonable proprietor of the Daily Express,

was in charge of the Ministry of Aircraft Production.

He was as passionate about Spitfire production numbers

as he was about his newspaper’s circulation.

Within a year, he’d kicked Castle Bromwich into life with new management,

turning it into Europe’s most efficient factory.

The north sides, all the wings were done over there.

Over there, engines and the fuselage, and here is

where all the assembling took place,

Eighty-five were being turned out a week, and that’s some going.

I know all the workers said all they did is work and sleep, nothing else.

Fair play.

Proper.

[narrator] At its peak, more than 14,000 people worked at Castle Bromwich.

It was one of the first places to award equal pay to men and women.

[Guy] I wonder what we’ve got here.

I think this will be fuel tank assembly.

You see there, 40 percent of the workforce were women.

[Sylvia] We were about 18, 19,

most of them moms, a lot of them were girls I’d gone to school with.

[Guy] There they are making fuel tanks.

Yeah, flat out making fuel tanks, and their specialty was riveting.

We had to buy our own tools by the way.

Chisels and screwdrivers and everything we had to provide ourselves.

You needed a chisel in case your rivets weren’t flat,

you know you would have to chisel them off,

which I didn’t do very often, I generally got them right. [chuckles]

[Guy] And look here, there’s a lass here riveting,

no pressure, but that’s the Prime Minister,

that’s Winston Churchill looking over her. No pressure, love, no pressure.

It was quite nice 'cause I was earning loads of money. [chuckling]

Much more than I got as an apprentice at hairdressing.

By eck.

[narrator] Riveting a fuel tank is Guy’s next job back at Duxford.

The team are eight months into the N3200 project.

[Mo] These early MARK-1, the fuel tank doesn't have a--

like a crash or bullet proof covering like the later version,

so, it’s even more important for it to be leak proof.

[narrator] And that needs precision riveting,

and like in Castle Bromwich, Guy will have to do this by hand,

rather than rely on a modern day robot.

[Guy] If you’re putting a rivet in a place of stress,

like on the bottom of a fuel tank,

then you have to use these hardened rivets,

but you can’t rivet a hardened rivet up.

So what you have to do, you have to heat it up to 495 degrees

and that then makes the rivet more malleable,

you know, you can rivet it up then.

[narrator] The rivets, made of the same steel alloy as 75 years ago,

are then frozen to preserve that malleable state.

There are just two hours to use them before they harden.

Nick Dean is in charge.

What’s the plan then now, we put some in.

-[Nick] Yeah. -[Guy] Where do you want me?

[Nick] Right, so what we’ll do is start from the middle and work outwards.

-Just bring it down gently. -All right.

[narrator] A rivet is a quick way of permanently joining

two pieces of metal together.

-[Guy] That all right? -[Nick] Yeah, that’s fine.

[narrator] The shaft is pushed through a hole and has its end flattened

by a rivet squeezer, exerting a ton of force to fix it in place.

This tank here is 37 gallons.

And the tank that sits above it is 48 gallon.

So, what, are 85 gallons altogether.

When she was up in the air, she’d be using...

a gallon a minute.

I mean that is thirsty, a gallon a minute.

Yeah, that is some going.

You could not tip it away faster, could you really, could ya?

Now, if you’re looking on, you’ve got enough fuel for an hour’s worth of flight,

so that’s only half an hour there, half an hour back.

Any more than an hour...

and we’re gonna be in bother, yeah.

Now, I’ll get these rivets in.

[air pressuring]

Nick’s been on this five weeks, don’t think knackering it up now!

Bloody riveting, it’s not a bloody laughing matter, is it?

-[Nick chuckles] -[Guy] Five weeks gone into this.

[narrator] It’s finished, exactly as it would have been done originally.

If a job's worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Yeah, fair play.

-[speaking indistinctly] -[siren blares]

[narrator] The battle of Britain began on July 10, 1940.

It was the first campaign to be fought entirely in the air

and became the Spitfire’s most celebrated moment in history.

Hitler’s plan was first to attack naval convoys in the channel...

[bomb whistling and exploding]

then Britain’s airfields…

then the aircraft factories,

and finally to order indiscriminate bombing

of the towns and cities.

An RAF pilot might be sent up five times a day to fend off the relentless onslaught

of the Luftwaffe, who were making up to 1800 sorties in a 24 hour period.

It was exhausting work for the pilots who were as young as 19,

but they readily admitted the real heroes were the mechanics

and ground crew who quickly repaired, re-fueled and re-armed their planes.

[piano music plays]

The officers were bringing the mechanics food, eh?

How often would you get that then?

And I know everyone, everyone sees the mechanics, don’t they?

Oh, he’s only a fitter, only a mechanic, only a fitter,

but these have got the officers bringing the mechanics food, so obviously

the officers appreciated, not just appreciated, they knew

that without the mechanics that was it, nothing happened.

[narrator] Air superiority depended on speed, and the mechanics

had a trick up their sleeve to eke out every last mile per hour.

[Guy] He said, "The servicing I did was a 100 percent.

The riggers and I were always polishing because we were told the pilots could get

an extra four mile an hour that way." These lads are polishing,

because they think it’ll get another four mile an hour out the plane,

eh, that’s pride in your work is that, isn’t it?

Let’s see what else we can find. We’ve got a bit of reading to do.

[engine revving]

[narrator] The Spitfire had enough fuel for around an hour’s flight,

and enough bullets for 14 seconds of firing.

The ground crews took great pride in how quickly

they could perform a pit stop to refuel and re-arm

even though they were targets for bombing themselves.

Guy persuades some of his Duxford colleagues to see if they’re a match.

They say a team of four blokes could re-arm a Spitfire.

Was it 2400 rounds in three and a half minutes, right.

So get hold of these boxes, scarper up there, have it fixed.

[man] I'll give it a go.

Right, so we’re going for it. I’ll just follow what you boys do.

I don’t really know what I’m doing,

All ready? Are we starting now? Are we starting the stopwatch now?

[woman] Go!

-[Guy] I’m not much of a runner. -[man] Don’t overtake me! [laughs]

-[Guy] Right, where do you want me? -[man] He’s carrying a camera

-and he’s quicker than me. -[Guy] Where do you want me?

[Dave] First of all, you whip on that long paddle. Yeah.

-[man] Come on, Guy! -He’s trying his best.

If I miss the screwdriver and scratch the paint, these boys'll never forgive me.

-[Dave] Undo this one. -[Guy] All right.

-[woman] Ten minutes. -[Dave] Put that down there.

-Pull that, right?

[clang]

That’s the used bullets, so they’ll have been spent on a lot of Germans.

-[Dave] Okay. -All right?

[woman] Two minutes...

[narrator] With two of the three and a half minutes gone,

they’re only just threading the first ribbon to help guide

the belt of bullets into the gun.

[Dave] Must have been difficult in those times to do what they were doing,

quick turn rounds, looking up at the sky, thinking when are they coming over

to drop bombs on you... yeah, brave people.

[Dave] Shut the lid.

[jazz music playing]

-[Dave] Move it back. Yeah. -Like that?

-[woman] That’s three minutes. -[Guy] That's three minutes.

This is just putting the bullets in because you’d have another team cleaning

all the breaches and the barrels as well.

-Yeah. -There’d be other people checking radios.

Another one would be walking round seeing if there’s any damage on the aircraft.

[man] Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five...

-four, three... -Pull all three, yeah.

...two, one. Time’s up.

[Dave] Or just carry on then.

[Guy] We’re nowhere near done, but we’ll carry on.

-Okay, gun cocked. -[Guy] Is that us?

[Dave] Yeah, that’s us, we’ll panel up now.

So that’s taken us, what, we’ve done two boxes in what the thick end

of five minutes I suppose. And those boys were doing eight boxes

-in three and a half minutes. -They were.

I’d say it’s impressive, but as impressive as that is, if that was your job

you would make sure you was the quickest in the world, wouldn’t ya?

Yeah, it’s all about getting them back up in the air, wasn’t it?

Yeah, it is impressive, is impressive. It is impressive.

[indistinct chatter]

[narrator] It’s time to get back to work.

The next stage of the project will be crucial

in trying to make N3200 the greatest flying Spitfire.

Building the wings that give the plane its outstanding advantage in combat.

[engine roaring]

[propellers revving]

Guy Martin is helping out on a two-year project to remake

one of the rarest Spitfires of all, a MARK-1.

As you can see, we’ve got a lot of work to do.

[narrator] It was salvaged from a Dunkirk beach after a crash landing in 1940.

[Guy] And that was when it was dug out in 1986.

[narrator] The anonymous owner has insisted everything is done

as authentically as possible, using original techniques.

-No, that’s not right. It’s not perfect. -It needs to be a bit tighter.

[Guy] I’m starting again, it’s not right.

I’m rushing it. [sighing loudly]

[Guy] It doesn’t matter which panel you lift up or where you look,

it's just attention to detail.

It’s absolutely perfect in every single way.

[narrator] The project is 10 months old and the fuselage is ready to be painted.

John Loweth has 20 years’ experience and does the entire process freehand,

as it was done originally.

The only difference is that these days there’s no lead in the paint.

To do the four coats of top coats...

it would take about an hour.

[narrator] Early Spitfires fought mostly over England’s fields

during the battle of Britain, so were painted brown and green.

Later, as the fight was taken to the enemy across the channel,

they were painted grey and green to better blend in to the sea.

[John L.] I’ve done probably about ten aircraft.

This one I’m, I’m quite pleased with.

I do like this one.

[narrator] The plane is now ready for its most intricate parts,

which will test Guy’s engineering ability to the limit. The wings.

[Mo] This is Spike, he’s the wing team leader.

[Guy] How are you, Spike? -[Spike] All right, mate.

-[Guy] How’s it going? All right, mate? -All right, yeah.

All right, what’s the plan?

Right, now, here we go, 1936 drawing.

This is basically what we call a general assemble drawing--

[Guy] Yeah.

[narrator] Building a wing begins with the internal framework of supports

called ribs.

Each rib is hand-made,

and must be strong enough to withstand the stresses of a Spitfire’s 400mph dive.

-[Spike] We’re making a-- -[Guy] What’s it, number five?

-Rib five, center portion... -Yes.

[Spike] You’re forming that boom, which is called a top boom.

[Guy] Yeah.

[narrator] They start on the shrinker.

[Spike] In you go... that’s it.

[narrator] The Spitfire’s responsive handling relied on the precise curves

of its wings, and here the bends of its frame are made by pulling

the metal fractionally inwards.

[Spike] That’s it, just move it along every half inch or so.

By doing that, that’s gently curving that material...

[Guy] Without putting it under any stress.

[Spike] Without putting it under any stress. That’s it.

Is that it? Right, very subtle then. Very, very subtle. Bloody hell.

[narrator] When they put the beam on the layout board...

[Guy] That up there, like so...

...Spike's experienced eye spots a problem.

Well, as I can see from this, from here

-to there, that’s slightly over curved. -Yeah.

-[Guy] Right, so wants a bit taken out. -Okay, they’d want a bit taken out, now,

-[Guy] Is that all right? -[Spike] Yeah.

That’s fine, that’s just undoing everything that was done over there.

[buzzing lips]

You can’t, you can’t teach someone that, can you? Eh? Just like...

How many years have you been doing this?

-Thirty years I’ve been in the game, yeah. -Same on the bottom.

[Spike] Yeah, just same on the bottom.

If you don’t get it right, it don’t fly.

Or even worse still, wings could fall off or break up, there’s no substitutes

in for the correct fasteners and procedures.

You do it right or you don’t do it at all.

Basically, that’s a goer.

[narrator] The first part is complete,

but each rib can contain up to 20 different parts.

[Guy] To get to that there would take a week, right?

In a whole Spitfire there’s 124 of them, eh?

It's a week to make one.

You can see we’re gonna be here a day or two can’t you, eh?

What do you reckon, Spike, what’s next?

[narrator] One wing is made up of 3,000 different parts,

and each must marry up perfectly to the next.

Once the ribs have been completed, the largest parts can be fitted…

[Guy] Right, where do you want me?

[narrator] ...the exterior skins.

Two hundred and fifty pins are screwed in so the wing can be fine-tuned

before it's permanently riveted.

So yeah, the whole idea is getting this edge here to line up perfectly,

you see it? Look there, that’s spot on there, isn’t it?

But up here we’ve got a bit of a gap and then it closes up back up there.

We’ve taken it off five times already, it’s been on and off five times today

and probably another five more times just to get it,

just to get it perfect. So perfect. It has to be perfect, no if's,

but's or maybe's. Perfect.

[Terry] Sometimes it can take forever. [chuckles]

It's just being a bit of a perfectionist on the side I think

where you're just not happy until it is exactly right.

You need that little bit of mentality, I think.

The repetition of the job is probably one of the hardest parts of it,

so it's very laborious but it's got to be done right.

[narrator] The work continues...

Back off again, back off again.

[narrator] ...unpinning, shaving, shaping, re-fitting, unpinning, shaving,

and shaping again.

Bit nervous.

[narrator] In 1940, it took just days to make a wing. Not today.

A year per wing, a year per wing. So, you don’t get fed up with it?

-Not really. -[Guy] No?

-No. -[Guy] Do you?

-No, no no. -[Guy] No.

[Guy] Good lads.

-[narrator] It's finally perfect. -Work of art.

[narrator] The section is then attached to the rest of the wing framework.

it will take another six months’ effort to complete.

[propellers revving]

It was during the three and a half month long battle of Britain

where that sleek wing design helped make the Spitfire so effective.

[reporter over recorder] The Germans have lost one plane every 42 minutes.

How’s that, Mr. Goebbels?

[narrator] The plane was incredibly responsive,

helping it out to outmaneuver German fighters

more easily than its battle of Britain brother, the Hurricane.

[John] The Hurricane wasn’t bad, but it was more like the carthorse

than the racehorse.

[John A.] The Spitfire was the one you wanted. It looked better.

It was a very beautiful aeroplane. It was better at altitude

than the Hurricane and it performed better.

There’s no doubt about that.

It did perform better. I’ve flown both.

[narrator] Although the Hurricane shot down more planes overall,

its job was to target the slower German bombers,

and that was only possible because the Spitfire had first gunned down

the more difficult to hit German fighter escorts.

But the real key to success was the chain of radar stations along the south

and east coasts

which meant the RAF knew exactly where the Luftwaffe were going to be.

They could set a course to intercept, wait at altitude for the German planes

to appear, then dive to shoot them down.

[high pitched hum]

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] To experience what those British fighter aces went through,

Guy is about to take a once in a lifetime flight.

I feel rather official, and to be honest a right lucky bugger.

I’m having a go in a Spitfire, I’m having a go in a Spitfire.

I know Spitfires are only single seaters,

but in the late 40s, the training planes, there was a load of twin seaters made

and that’s what I’m having a go in. A converted MARK-9.

I’ll give you a turn. What do you reckon?

Do I look like I know what I’m doing. I’m only the passenger.

We’ll go have a word with Cliff, 'cause Cliff knows what he's doing.

-Right, Cliff, how’s it going, mate? -[Cliff] We’re off.

You’re the man. You know what you’re doing.

[narrator] Retired Air Marshall Cliff Spink has flown

Spitfires for 21 years, and straps Guy into his parachute.

I’m sort of a little bit nervous.

A little bit nervous, but I’m more excited.

Clipper up! Okay, we’re starting. Contact.

[engine stutters]

-[Cliff] Right, let’s rock and roll then. -[Guy] Brilliant.

[propellers revving]

-[Cliff] So we ease the power up... -[Guy] Yeah.

[Cliff] ...feed in a bit of right rudder.

-[Cliff] So what do you think, Guy? -Absolutely brilliant.

[Cliff] We’re doing just over 200 miles an hour.

[Guy] What a job! What a job!

Right, put your hand on the control column.

-Yes, okay. -You have control.

As the nose comes up, just push the stick forward. That’s it.

I can’t believe how sensitive it is.

[Cliff] The left wing goes down, move it to the right.

That's it.

And by the way, look forward and you’ll see my hands are up here.

I can see you, yeah.

-You’re flying a Spitfire. -[Guy laughs]

That’s jolly good, well done!

-Okay, I’ll take it back, I have control. -Thanks very much. Thank you.

[engine revving]

[narrator] Meanwhile, completely unbeknownst to Guy,

a Messerschmitt prepares to take off…

and turn this pleasure flight into a dogfight.

[rotor blades turning]

-Look over your right shoulder. -Yeah.

[Cliff] Because we might be about to get a surprise.

Go on, what have you got planned? What’s this?

[Cliff] You’re about to see what it was like to be on the wrong end

of a Messerschmitt.

[narrator] Guy Martin is about to get a pilot’s eye view of a battle of Britain

dogfight, between a Spitfire and a Messerschmitt 109,

the plane tasked with escorting German bombers over the south coast of England.

[Cliff] You’re getting nervous now and you’re thinking...

"I know the bad guys are around."

[Cliff] See that?

-Yeah, I can see him. -If you’ve got that rolling

into your six o’clock, it’s very difficult to see him, isn’t it?

Now what would you be doing now in a fight situation?

[Cliff] Well, if you didn’t see him and you weren’t moving your wings

about, you’re bound to get shot down.

So what do you do, do you dive? Do you...

Yeah, well, I’ll show you that in just a second.

[Cliff] I’d do that!

[Geoffrey] Never stay still.

If you stayed still...

straight and level for more than about ten seconds, you were killed.

I realized that if I could see my antagonist,

I felt I could out-fly him in a Spitfire.

[Cliff] You can see him from the other side now.

-Yeah. -It’s us bouncing the 109.

[dramatic music playing]

-Right, now we really are in a tail chase. -Brilliant!

[narrator] The art of dog fighting is to fly faster

and turn tighter than your opponent,

so you can maneuver them into your sights.

[Guy] You’ve done this before, haven’t you? [chuckles]

[narrator] Compared to the 109, early Spitfires had less ammunition,

weren’t as fast and couldn’t climb as quickly.

But they had two crucial advantages,

they were less tiring to fly and had much better high speed maneuverability.

[Geoffrey] If you got into a dogfight, the flying manual went out of the window.

Be brutal with it, chuck it around, yeah,

and a Spitfire would respond.

[Guy] Yeah, I like that, I like it!

[narrator] In extreme maneuvers, it was possible to pull 6G,

enough force to ripple the metal on wings and severely affect the pilot.

[John A.] Pulling out of a dive, you can hardly lift your hand from the stick.

And you feel your eyes going and you can blackout.

There was one time when I was right behind a 109,

and it’s you or him and you’d rather it was him.

I don’t know anybody who felt that they had killed someone.

They had shot down an aeroplane, not a pilot.

[Cliff] I’m now coming up to about 400 yards,

[Guy] Now that is close. That is close.

[propellers revving]

About now I’m going [imitates gunshots]

and hopefully I’d have hit it.

[Guy laughs]

[Cliff] It’s very noticeable when you’re flying with people

who have got an empathy with machines.

They do get very quickly into the sense of the aeroplane.

I mean, I could have given that to somebody else

and they would have been all over the sky, so well done you.

Thank you very much, I’m honored that you let me fly, I’m honored.

[Cliff] And that was really good and you can say you’ve flown a Spitfire.

Yeah, that’s not a lie, I’ve flown a Spitfire. It’s not a lie.

[propellers revving]

[narrator] The mission to create the most authentic Spitfire

since the war has reached a landmark stage.

It's time to fit the aeroplane's heart, the 27 liter V12 engine.

[Guy] The engine it had in it is the Rolls Royce Merlin,

the legendary engine, and I’m that into 'em.

I bought my own Merlin. I’ve got a Merlin. It's going in me front room and it runs.

[starts with a cough]

[narrator] The engine for N3200 runs as good as new.

[Mo] The original core engine was sent down to a company in Gloucestershire

where it was completely stripped, every part is measured to make sure

it's within tolerance and will hopefully give 250 hours of service

before it needs dismantling again.

[speaking indistinctly]

[narrator] But before the engine is fitted, its frame must be attached

to the bulkhead.

[hammering]

[Guy] How many hours in making this frame?

-Probably about 400. -Four hundred hours!

[whispering] Bloody hell...

[narrator] The engine weighs more than half a ton,

so the four bolts which support the frame must fit securely.

[Bob] I was an aircraft fitter

and I always remember these tapered engine bolts...

where there used to be bolts about that long

and it was turned on a taper and then

ground, radial ground...

It kept me rather busy.

[narrator] To keep the bolts in place, a hole is drilled in the head to accept

a locking pin.

It’s very easy to snap such a thin drill bit

and the consequences are costly.

If you break the drill off, or drill off line,

then these are a special bolt which have to be made in the machine shop, so,

they’ve got quite a long lead time, about three months in all,

so if we mess that up, we won’t be able to put the engine in.

[Bob] We used to get gee’d up sometimes and they would be short of a certain item

and then they used to come down and mark it up on the board,

"Red Hot" they used to put on a part that was missing.

I think it was head down and get on with it.

I enjoyed it and I’d do it all over again.

[Mo] Your turn.

[drilling]

[narrator] If Guy snaps the bit, the project will grind to a halt.

But his steady hand does the job…

Wow.

[narrator] And the bolt is locked in place with a split pin so it can’t come undone.

[cranking]

The 1000 horsepower Merlin 3, the same type of engine

that was originally fitted to N3200, is hoisted into place.

Guy’s Spitfire is one step closer to returning to the sky.

I’m getting excited. You’re not beating that, are ya?

I can fit as many Scania clutches. I can fit as many Volvo turbos,

but nothing's gonna beat that with a Spitfire.

It's more exciting. Are you excited?

-I’m always excited putting an engine in. -It's always exciting.

[Bob] I’m quite proud of the engineering side of it.

I think everybody was proud of it, everybody, even the old ladies

in the street, "Spitfire, oh, yes."

It was an iconic plane.

Absolutely iconic. I’m very proud of the old Spit.

[sobs]

[narrator] The decisive battle of Britain offensive came on September 15th, 1940.

Germany launched two huge waves and Britain scrambled

every fighter it had.

The RAF shot down 60 planes...

and lost 26 of their own.

Germany was due to invade just two days later,

but with the RAF clearly still at full strength,

the invasion of Britain was called off.

The Spitfire had been instrumental in inflicting Hitler’s first defeat,

the first turning point in World War II.

But it wasn’t the last time the Spitfire played a crucial strategic role.

Constantly updated to become more powerful and better armed,

its versatility saw it serve in the Mediterranean,

Burma, and the Pacific.

In 1944, it provided an overwhelming force when the allies took the fight to Hitler

on D-Day, and was the first plane to touch down in liberated France

before soon taking off to press home the attack.

But star pilot Geoffrey Stephenson was missing out.

After crash landing N3200 in Dunkirk,

his letters home tell of what happened to him as a prisoner of war,

including this Nazi dossier revealing

he spent three weeks in solitary confinement.

[Guy] So wherever they’d put him, he’d escape and then he’d get captured

and they’d put him in other places, he’d escape.

So then the Germans got hold of him the last time and says, "Right,

Geoffrey Stephenson, we’ve had enough of you, mate.

You’re off to Colditz. And we’ve heard of Colditz, haven’t you?

You’re not getting out of there in a hurry."

And who did he meet in Colditz, Douglas Bader,

his old mate, and that’s when they started concocting this fancy glider,

in the loft of Colditz, planning this dramatic escape,

which never happened, it never happened, but it’s the British spirit, isn’t it?

[narrator] Even when imprisoned, he was a thorn in the Nazis' side.

Stephenson’s old plane is three quarters of the way

through its painstakingly accurate rebuild.

[Guy] She’s taking shape. Wing skins are on.

She’s had a lick of paint. She is looking like an aeroplane.

[narrator] Even the oil unions, the very first parts Guy ever fitted,

have been plumbed in.

Today she’s ready to have her wings bolted on

with seven pins measured to a thousandth of an inch.

[Guy] Each wing, they have three at the top, four at the bottom.

Just a normal bolt, you can see, you’ve got a thread there,

that’s the main shank and that’s, that screw head there to hold it in place.

The only problem is, is that the fit is absolutely critical.

The diameter we’re going for is 937 and a half thou. You see that.

There’s a 1000 thous in an inch,

a thou is about the thickness of a human hair.

This is the bolt and what we’ve got here is 945.4 of a thou.

So it’s about eight hairs, we’ve got to take off that, so yeah,

uh, eight thou, not nine thou,

not eight and a half thou, eight thou. We’ll get cracking, we’ll go see the man,

we’ll go see the man, see how to steer the machine.

[Paul] Okay, that into there.

[narrator] Paul Wilson is in charge of the cylindrical grinder,

similar to the machine that would have been used for this job originally.

[quiet music playing]

[narrator] It takes an hour to try

and carefully shave off the necessary eight widths

-of a hair. -[Guy] Will that be your last cut?

Guy’s workmanship impresses Mo, the boss.

His standard is perfect. Give him a job tomorrow without a worry.

[Paul] And you could quite happily let him do most things on the aeroplane.

You know, he’s got the feel for it.

[narrator] But despite the care and attention, the pin's too tight to fit.

[Mo] That’s because you’ve been holding it in your hand for the last few minutes.

[Guy] I know, I know. We’ve just been stood there,

we were stood there talking about, what were we talking about?

The price of fish!

And I’ve had that in me hands all the time, feel that.

Feel how warm that is.

-It's really warm. -Feel how warm that is.

-It’s stone cold. -Yeah.

Obviously, it’s been warm it's gonna expand,

but the heat of my hands has made it expand enough not to go in the hole.

That tells me it's three tenths oversize from what we made it on the machine.

So the heat with-- with him holding it in his hands for the last 15 minutes

has, has grown that by three tenths.

After a half an hour, that will cool down enough and be perfect.

[narrator] Once cooled, Guy tries the pin again.

[distant drilling]

It fits, and Mo was brought over to inspect.

-[Mo] Yeah, so far so good. -[Guy] Yeah?

[Mo] Thirteen more to go.

[narrator] Each wing weighs the same as two men.

[Mo] Guy, go for another push in, that’s it.

Look at that, it’s like a glove. Like a glove.

[narrator] Guy is left to make the final fixings.

[dramatic music playing]

The Spitfire may have invoked love and affection from all who saw it,

but it existed for one sole deadly purpose.

It was a mobile gun platform.

[engine revving]

In the early days, it was fitted with four browning machine guns in each wing,

but the relatively small .303 rounds soon struggled

to penetrate the ever-improving armor of enemy aircraft.

So later the guns were upgraded to a larger 50 caliber bullet.

[engine revving]

[propeller humming]

Guy wants to witness the destructive power of these machine guns for himself,

and is meeting up with old friend, Dave Main, a historic armorer.

-[Guy] Now, mate. -[Dave M.] All right, how's it going?

[Guy] All right, how about you? Go on, what we got here.

Right, 50 caliber machine gun, developed in 1921.

This is now, still in service, so it’s got a life of 92 years...

[narrator] This very gun was once used in a Spitfire,

and has now been adapted to use a hand trigger.

[Dave M.] So what you do is you get in behind your target area,

then line it up and then obviously fire it.

And then keep your fingers on the trigger. [imitates gunfire]

Okay.

Your go.

[Ray] The tracks would hold roughly 300, 350 rounds of ammunition

which would last firing continuously of about 14 seconds.

That’s all they would get. Some of the dogfights were perhaps

from 25,000 feet down to 5,000 feet,

and just seen briefly an enemy aircraft flash by and I went down on them

and just give it a quick burst.

[mimicking gunfire]

That was it, that would be about ten or 15 rounds of ammunition gone

in a fraction of a second.

[high-pitched humming]

You never thought about anyone being at the end of it.

It never passed our minds... It was all part and parcel of the job.

[garage door unlocking]

[narrator] To see how much damage such a short amount of firing time can do,

Guy needs a target.

I’m finding this sacrilege to be honest.

But we need something to simulate enemy aircraft. We’ve found a scrap car.

It just happens that it’s a BMW. They made engines for the Luftwaffe.

Just a coincidence, just a coincidence. It pains me. It’s got good tires on it,

it’s got parking sensors. The paintworks not bad. But it’s German.

We’re going to get our own back. She’s having it. She’s having it.

[narrator] Guy Martin is about to find out

what damage a Spitfire machine gun could do.

[tense music playing]

[gun clicking]

[cranking]

[Dave M.] Ready?

-Ready? -Yep.

-Is she having some more? -[Dave M.] Yep.

[loud firing]

It put the windows through!

[Dave M.] Okay. You want to traverse one click.

[Guy] Yep.

-[Dave M.] Come down slightly now. -[cranking]

-[Guy] Okay? -Yep.

[gunfire]

[narrator] The browning fires around six bullets a second.

In the heat of battle, new pilots would often hold the trigger open

as soon as they saw the enemy, wasting all their bullets in one go.

[Guy] Yeah, you’d get the young ones and you’d just go in there,

shoot your load.

Get it all over and done with. You’ve only got ten seconds.

You get it all over and done with straightaway.

But then if you were an experienced pilot,

they knew to get as near as you could and only shoot

two second blasts. Go in there, [imitates gunfire] yeah.

[Dave M.] One two-second burst.

[gun fires]

[Guy chuckles] I meant business there, she was having it.

-[Dave M.] She certainly was. -[Guy laughs] And again?

[Dave M.] And again.

[narrator] Firing from a static position at a static target is one thing.

Firing from a moving platform at a moving target is far harder.

They’re coming towards you...

at 300 miles an hour, you’re doing 300 miles--

That’s 600 miles an hour, and you only, it would happen very, very quickly,

it was just a [mimics gun fire] and that was it, you were through.

[bullets whistling]

[narrator] With 100 rounds fired, Guy inspects the damage.

[tense music playing]

Well, it doesn't look...

absolute carnage, does it?

It was all right, the bullet going through, but when that bullet's gone

through your Messerschmitt, like it’s gone through your Heinkel,

it would take bits with it and those bits

then become like another bullet and they just create carnage. Look here.

Look, as that bullet's come through, it's picked up the shrapnel

and it’s just gone everywhere, look. It’s ripped the bloody radio out.

It’s ripped the bloody radio out.

And look, I’m just gonna have a look under the bonnet.

It's crackers. Come and have a look here. Come on, come and have a look.

It’s ripped half the engine out. See? And that’s what pilots were trained to do.

You know, go for the pilot or go for the engine.

They were the two things that were gonna stop the plane the quickest.

Let’s have a look round there, the other side, it's just mad.

I mean, look, we’ve nearly turned it into a convertible,

eh, and then you look at that door. Look at the--

That sort of sums up it, doesn’t it? As beautiful as the Spitfire was,

and we can call it beautiful, can’t we, really, it was just a killing machine...

Bloody... [exhales]

[narrator] Guy returns to Duxford to fit the final part to N3200.

[quiet music playing]

[narrator] A brand new propeller has been made by a company in Gloucestershire.

A problem here could prove costlier than any other part of the project.

[Guy] Go on, is it expensive then?

It is, yeah, it’s about 150,000 pounds worth.

And heavy too, roundabout 200 kilos.

[Guy] Okay.

[Mo] Another one. Got it.

Bit more, go on. Up, now down. Okay.

Have you ever heard of a prop dropping off while in flight?

I have when they’ve been testing. If we get it on it won’t come off,

but if we tear the seal, it will just leak on

and spray all the screen and everything.

You don’t need that on a maiden voyage. No good rushing at this time.

[narrator] When positioned, the prop head has to be fastened to the shaft.

Making sure it’s tight enough requires some extra leverage.

[Guy] If I’m hung on the end of that, you know it's tight,

you know it's tight, FT, FT, we would call it, yeah, she’s tight.

-[Guy] Okay. Yeah. -[Mo] All right.

[Guy] I worked it out, you know, about six foot just hanging on it,

then I’ll hit it with a hammer.

[Mo] Okay. That’s very tight now.

[Guy] Wow. So we’re getting there now.

[Mo] Yeah, that’s good.

[narrator] Once the engine covers are back on,

the aeroplane will be complete.

N3200 will be ready to be flown for the first time

since Geoffrey Stephenson crash landed in her.

In 1945, the Americans liberated Colditz and Geoffrey Stephenson was released.

The war was over.

Stephenson resumed his distinguished career,

serving both King George and the Queen in the honorary role of Aide-De-Camp,

assisting them at military events.

[reporter] Air Commodore Stephenson commanding the static display

escorts Her Majesty.

[Guy] So yeah, pilot for King George.

Bit of a helping hand for the Queen, eh?

He weren’t playing at it, was he? He wasn’t playing at it.

[narrator] Then in 1954, Stephenson was selected as a crack pilot to test

the supersonic Sabre jet fighter in the USA.

But having survived dogfights,

a crash landing and being a prisoner of war,

this peace-time project was to be his final mission.

An early design fault led to him losing control

and crashing before it was possible to eject.

Geoffrey Stephenson died aged 44...

leaving two daughters, Veryan and Victoria.

[Guy] He was the boy, he was the boy, yeah.

Listen, whatever we do here, we’ve got to do the job right, haven’t we?

[moving music playing]

[narrator] It's two years and two weeks since Guy first started work on N3200.

He’s about to see if she’ll fly.

If everything goes well, she’ll be granted a permit to fly,

and be one of just four airworthy MARK-1s in existence.

[Guy] Is she looking a treat? She’s looking a treat.

[narrator] To add to the occasion, Guy has invited along some

rather illustrious guests related to the plane’s pilot, Geoffrey Stephenson.

Geoffrey’s daughters, both of them,

Geoffrey’s daughters, Vey and Victoria... You all right, ladies?

-[Veryan] Hello. -[Victoria] Good morning.

[Guy] Pleased to meet you, ladies, pleased to meet you.

[narrator] Victoria was seven when her celebrated father died,

while younger sister Veryan was just five.

[Victoria] Our father was a very kind, but strict...

person and it's a great shame he died so soon.

[Veryan] We’ve never really sat around and talked about my father,

so to be here with Tor, you know, and-- and remember, you know, Daddy,

and experience this together, that’s quite special for me.

Right, ladies, are you ready?

-Yes. -Are you ready for this?

There’s other planes, it’s the one,

-it’s the one there. -Okay.

-Ready lads? -Yeah.

[Guy] Open the door, please. Cheers. Right.

[Veryan] Wow.

[Victoria] Beautiful!

Ooh.

Gorgeous.

[Veryan] There was a plane that,

you know, it was part of his life, that he sat in

and flew all those years ago, and it just looked,

I don’t know, friendly.

-Want to go up and have a look. -Yes, please.

[Guy] Yeah, just as a MARK-1 should be.

[Victoria] And I thought, "What a beautiful plane."

Not big and of course,

looking spiff, it was-- yeah, great.

[Guy] And just looking there was a picture of the plane on Dunkirk beach,

and you could see from there that there was this rear view mirror there.

-Can you see that mirror on the ground? -Yeah.

That’s not a standard thing on a Spitfire, but they say your dad had this idea

he wanted a rear view mirror so that was nicked off an MG car

and they could see from this picture, there was a German stood on it like proud

as punch, that's what I replicated so that’s not on any other,

that’s just on this, just on your dad’s.

I don’t know, I can almost feel him here at the moment actually.

I can almost, I mean...

[exhales]

[stammers] He just loved getting in there.

Seeing all this, and seeing the Spitfire and seeing

Tor in the Spitfire particularly.

[Guy] Like father like daughter, eh?

[Veryan] I mean Tor has the same coloring as Daddy,

has the same bone structure, obviously a little bit smaller.

How do you start it? Is there a key?

[Veryan] It’s brought it all home and I don’t know, it...

you know, I was so young when it all, when my father was no more,

and now... Gee, I feel like you know, I know a lot more about who he was

and what his passions were

and aeroplanes, which was the major part of his life, aeroplanes.

-[Victoria] It’s remarkable, absolutely. -[Guy] You’re happy?

[Victoria] I’m happy, and I’m sitting in it right now.

[Guy] Sitting in your dad’s plane.

[narrator] When this plane left Duxford in 1940, it never came back.

Now it’s time to see if she can return safely to the skies.

[intense music playing]

The honor of flying squadron leader Geoffrey Stephenson’s newly built

Spitfire in front of his daughters Victoria and Veryan, goes to John Romain.

He’s one of the most experienced Spitfire pilots in the world.

[John] There was an American pilot in one day flew a Spitfire

and somebody said to him, "What’s the big difference?"

And he said the big difference is that you,

you get into an American fighter, but you pull a Spitfire on.

[Victoria] It’s all too good to be true, really.

[Vey] It’s great, isn’t it?

[narrator] The starting procedure is the same today as it was

when N3200 made its last flight in 1940.

The stick is pulled back so the plane won’t nose over upon starting.

The gas primer is pulled to warm the engine.

Both tanks are checked for fuel.

A small amount of throttle is applied…

The ignition switches are flicked...

Right, I reckon this is it. I heard the word...

[narrator] …and the starter button is pressed.

[propellers revving]

[Guy] I’m not an emotional person. To get an emotional response out of me

would take a fair bit of doing really, but what done it for me was just to hear

the Merlin ticking over and the plane shuddering, I genuinely thought that,

I genuinely got a shiver down my spine.

[dramatic music playing]

[controller] Spitfire Golf Juliet runway 24.

Take off at your discretion.

Surface wind estimated two-six-zero degrees

one-five knots and good luck.

[narrator] And so after a two-year build, at the very same runway it last flew

from 74 years ago, they’re about to see if this Spitfire can fly again.

[engine revving]

The canopy is left open to make an escape easier should anything go wrong.

[woman hoots]

[intense music playing]

[Veryan] It’s just all a bit magical.

That’s your dad’s plane. Eh?

A little tinge of sadness too, I suppose.

[narrator] Wearing its original Duxford squadron marking of QV,

Geoffrey Stephenson’s plane is responding perfectly.

[Victoria] All this effort, it's just...

remarkable, and I’m so glad that it was...

it’s... been focused on my father.

[Veryan gasps] Look at that!

-[Guy] Yeah, look at that. -[Veryan] Look at the speed!

[Veryan cheers]

-God, it's exciting, isn’t it? -[Guy chuckles]

-[Guy] Eh? -That is something.

[intense music playing]

He would have just been overjoyed to think that it’s up and flying again.

That was beautiful.

[Veryan] Yeah, yeah. It’ll take it a while to sink in, I think.

[sighing]

-Bit quiet. -Yeah.

I don’t know what to say, really.

It’s amazing that they’ve done this, these folks.

Put it all together, once again.

[Guy] I’ve got goosebumps now.

[Victoria] When he got out of that aeroplane, it was sort of...

very... moving.

Thank you so much.

[all chatter]

He looks like my father did and, uh, like, "Oh!"

This came out all right, you know.

How was that?

Absolutely amazing, thank you very much indeed.

-[Veryan] What was it like? -[John] Lovely.

One of the best they’ve ever built, I think. [chuckles]

-You can say you did it. -[Guy] So, mate.

-Spot on, mate. -That was good.

I think it’s lovely seeing it fly after all the...

your involvement with it.

My bit of involvement. Just the amount of time

-and effort your boys have put into this. -Yeah.

And actually it is, I think, one of the best they’ve ever built,

it’s absolutely stunning.

So is it gonna get a certificate to fly?

-Oh, most definitely, yeah. -Yeah?

-Brilliant job, thank you very much. -[chuckles] My pleasure!

[intense music playing]

There’s three bits here. You know, it’s like a tribute to Geoffrey Stephenson

and I think that’s great, and number two,

we have restored a MARK-1 Spitfire to perfect condition.

Where do we go from there? That is it. And then the third one,

the job satisfaction. What a set of lads!

None of those boys are dragging their heels to work.

[Dave] It's the boyhood dream to work on something like this.

[Terry] It’s such an iconic aircraft as well, you know?

Working on it, you couldn’t get anything better, could you?

[Spike] The N3200 to me is my favorite of all time.

It’s just a beautiful looking aircraft.

[Mo] We’re all normal guys doing what we enjoy doing, but at the end of the day,

we’ve been given the task to make a MARK-1 Spitfire the best we can,

and it’s turned out... pretty good.

[Guy] It’s been emotional, it’s been emotional, it’s been emotional.

I love it.

[engine revving]