In the years immediately following World War Two it became traditional for a Spitfire and Hurricane to lead the Victory Day.


In the years immediately following World War Two it became traditional for a Spitfire and Hurricane to lead the Victory Day flypast over London . From that event there grew the idea to form an historic collection of flyable aircraft, initially to commemorate the RAF's major battle honour, The Battle of Britain, and latterly with broadened scope, to commemorate the RAF's involvement in all the campaigns of WWII. Thus in 1957 the Historic Aircraft Flight was formed at Biggin Hill in what, even then, had become a predominantly jet-powered Air Force. As can be seen from the following chronology, the Flight experienced variable fortune before emerging in its current form as one of the world's best-known historic aircraft collections, maintaining in airworthy condition a Lancaster, a Dakota, 5 Spitfires with a 6 th on restoration, 2 Hurricanes and 2 Chipmunks.


Size: 5200px × 3467px
Photo credit: © Steve Welsh / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No

Keywords: -, ., 2, 5, 6, 1957, air, aircraft, airworthy, battle, biggin, britain, broadened, campaigns, chipmunks., chronology, collection, collections, commemorate, condition, current, dakota, day, emerging, event, experienced, flight, fly, flyable, flypast, force., form, formed, fortune, grew, hill, historic, , hurricane, hurricanes, idea, immediately, initially, involvement, jet-powered, lancaster, , lead, london, maintaining, major, memorial, passed., predominantly, rafs, restoration, scope, spitfire, spitfires, traditional, uk, variable, victory, war, world, worlds, wwii., years