Four young pilots are given the chance to compete for the nine hours of operational training that a Battle of Britain pilot would have received .... It is in 3 parts each part can be view..
It is part 1 Of 4
Sunny
Nine hours of operational training is all a Battle of Britain pilot would have received before he faced the might of Hitler's dreaded Luftwaffe.
This glorious four-part series features dramatic footage of the mother of all aerial battles, but the real stars are the veteran pilots and their heroic accounts are compelling.
The modern-day pilots are instructed by Brian O'Brian, a dashing figure with flowing hair and a spotted cravat, and Carolyn Grace, who owns the two-seater training Spitfire.
Carolyn has her own poignant story and she is the only woman in the world qualified to pilot the fighter. "Learning to fly the Spitfire after other planes is like comparing a VW Beetle to a Formula One car," she says. "It is hard to handle and a major responsibility to fly."
The plane itself claimed the first Spitfire "kill" over the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. It made 176 operational sorties but always managed to avoid serious damage.
The four young volunteers (John Sweet, Ben Westoby-Brooks, David Mallon and Christian Baker) are first put through their paces in a Tiger Moth - the plane used for preliminary training by the Battle of Britain pilots.
The two strongest pilots then get the chance to fulfil every young boy's dream - to fly a Spitfire for themselves. The 21st-century Spitfire class is then narrowed down to just one pilot who goes on to learn how to fly a Spitfire in combat - quite a prize.