It’s been hailed as the plane that won the Battle of Britain – but does the Spitfire deserve its all-conquering reputation? Ninety years after this nimble fighter took its maiden flight, Hattie Hearn explores how it became a national icon
On a bright morning in early March 2026, a cluster of excited children crane their necks to trace the source of a rhythmic roar above Duxford. Elsewhere on the windswept airfield, a news camera angled skyward follows the dance of a sleek aircraft across the sky. The plane’s distinctive silhouette, unmistakable even to pupils still at primary school, is that of the Supermarine Spitfire.
It’s not unusual to see Spitfires flying from this airfield, which is home to IWM Duxford, Europe’s largest aviation museum. Summer shows draw hordes of plane enthusiasts to watch displays including simulated dogfights, breathtaking aerobatics and massed formations of Second World War aeroplanes. In 2025, a ‘Big Wing’ of 15 Spitfires and seven Hurricanes awed crowds.
The flight of this lone Spitfire, however, carries particular significance. It marks 90 years since the Supermarine Type 300 first took to the skies on 5 March 1936. After landing the prototype following an eight-minute flight, chief test pilot Joseph ‘Mutt’ Summers is said to have remarked: “Don’t touch anything.” This epithet has become part of Spitfire mythology, interpreted as evidence that the aircraft was perfect from the outset. In truth, the comment was likely more practical than prophetic: Summers simply did not want ground crew adjusting his preferred cockpit configuration.
Whatever the intent, his words augment the aura that now surrounds the aircraft. Indeed, so vaunted is its place in the British public consciousness that it would be easy to assume the Spitfire must have been the decisive weapon of the air war. Yet the reality is that other planes outperformed the fighter in speed, altitude, range and firepower as the Second World War progressed.
All of which raises a question: how did the image of a Spitfire soaring above the white cliffs of Dover become synonymous with Britain’s defiance during the Second World War – even shorthand for the conflict itself?
Back to the drawing board
To answer this question, we need to start by heading to the drawing office of the Southampton-based aircraft manufacturer Supermarine. Established in 1913, the company started out developing flying boats – hence its nautical name. In 1917, it recruited a young engineer called Reginald Joseph Mitchell. ‘RJ’ quickly earned a name for himself at Supermarine, helping the company to collect the prestigious Schneider Trophy – awarded to the winner of a hotly contested seaplane race – no fewer than four times.
In October 1931, the British Air Ministry invited designs for an all-metal fighter aircraft with a high rate of climb, an impressive top speed and good visibility. Mitchell and his team got to work, integrating the various innovations they had developed while building racing seaplanes. Their first design, the Supermarine Type 224 – a gull-wing monoplane – was selected for prototyping but its performance during testing in 1934 was disappointing, and the RAF ordered a complete rethink.
Mitchell’s next attempt was the Type 300, featuring an elliptical wing that balanced strength and speed. The plane was powered by a Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 engine that was relatively lightweight yet powerful, and reliable enough to deliver both high speeds and the ability to climb some 760 metres (2,500ft) per minute.
According to test pilot Jeffrey Quill, the prototype had “a great number of imperfections”. The main issue was its narrow stability margins, which made it difficult to handle. Most concerning of all, to the Air Ministry at least, was the predicted cost of building and maintaining the fighter, especially compared with the more economical Hurricane. Had its early flights been less successful, the Air Ministry might have favoured only the Hurricane and jettisoned the new model. Instead, the Type 300’s performance proved compelling enough to secure an order for 310 aircraft in June 1936.
The Spitfire – its name suggested by the chairman of the Vickers company, which owned Supermarine, who called his fiercely spirited daughter his “little spitfire” – entered operational service in 1938. The first aeroplanes were received by 19 Squadron, based at RAF Duxford. William Arbon, a barman in the officers’ mess, recalled that half of the aerodrome’s population turned out to watch the grand arrival of 19 Squadron’s first Spitfire on 4 August. The excitement was palpable as test pilot Jeffrey Quill “did his shoot-up of the ’drome and showed us what the Spitfire could do”.
The test pilot reported that the prototype Spitfire had “a great number of imperfections”
The open-cockpit Gloster Gauntlets that the squadron had been flying for the previous three years seemed antiquated compared with the Spitfire’s sleek efficiency and power. “There’s no doubt about it,” Quill later recalled, “the Spitfire was a most exciting aeroplane to fly, particularly in the days when the average aeroplane was an old biplane.” Its top speed of 364mph – vastly quicker than the Gauntlet’s 230mph – was achieved with an engine that reminded Quill of a three-litre Bentley. The Spitfire was, to quote Quill, a “pilot’s aircraft”. But in the tense months leading up the outbreak of war, the RAF was far more concerned with fielding enough planes to fight an air war with Germany than it was with the opinions of its white-scarf pilots.
Strengths and weaknesses
For the pilots of 19 Squadron, the arrival of the Spitfires sparked an all-out effort to achieve the 1,000 hours in the air needed to secure the aircraft’s operational status. This intensive flying regimen revealed the Spitfire Mk I’s strengths – notably its manoeuvrability, stability and power – but also its weaknesses. Compared with the 360-degree view from the Gloster’s cockpit, visibility from the Spitfire was restricted – particularly during take-offs and landings – with the long nose obscuring the pilot’s forward view. The plane’s narrow undercarriage made it difficult to taxi, take off and land, too.
Another small hitch quickly discovered by the overworked pilots was just how easy it was to override the warning horn indicating that the landing gear wasn’t fully extended. Several of 19 Squadron’s Spitfires were damaged following belly landings in those early days. On the first public demonstration of the Spitfire at Duxford’s 1939 Empire Air Day, Sergeant JA Potter completely forgot to lower his plane’s undercarriage. The Air Ministry fined him £5 for his carelessness.
Despite this blunder, the Empire Air Days of May 1939, attended by about a million people, garnered huge admiration for the Spitfire. “The streamlined beauty of the [Spitfire’s] efficient sinister lines attracted a great deal of attention from the vast crowd,” said the Cambridge Independent Press and Chronicle following the Duxford Empire Air Day. Even before the Spitfire fired its first shot in anger, it had captured the public imagination.
In May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force faced a crisis in France. Yet Hugh Dowding, chief of RAF Fighter Command, begged the Air Ministry not to send precious fighter squadrons to the continent. He could see what would arrive all too soon: the vicious aerial clash that became known as the Battle of Britain.
Cultural geographer Pyrs Gruffudd has suggested that the vast skies and distinctive light of south‑eastern England have become inextricably linked with the RAF in shared memories of the war. In the popular imagination, it is the Spitfire that soars through these ‘Battle of Britain skies’ – though its Fighter Command stablemate, the Hawker Hurricane, engaged the Luftwaffe in far greater numbers during that pivotal summer.
In the popular imagination, the distinctive Spitfire soars through ‘Battle of Britain skies’
Of Fighter Command’s 56 squadrons in July 1940, 29 were operating Hurricanes, 19 were flying Spitfires, six had Bristol Blenheims and two had the Boulton Paul Defiant. Unsurprisingly, given the Hurricane’s preponderance among the RAF’s available aeroplanes, 60 per cent of the Luftwaffe aircraft destroyed during the Battle of Britain were shot down by those planes, earning the fighter its reputation as the unsung hero of that aerial conflict. Crucially, the Hurricane was more resilient than the Spitfire. Its Irish-linen-covered structure was easier to repair than the Spitfire’s all-metal skin, with bullet and cannon damage patched up in mere hours.
Dog fight
Geoffrey Page was one of the few pilots to fly both aircraft during the Battle of Britain. He likened the Hurricane to a bulldog, a “tough working animal”, and the Spitfire to a greyhound, “a sleek, fast dog”. While Hurricanes were tasked with intercepting German bomber formations, Spitfires engaged the escorting fighters, their manoeuvrability making them a better match for fast, heavily armed Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters. Both of these fighter planes, guided by the innovative Dowding air defence system, were vital to victory in the summer of 1940. To quote Jeffrey Quill, it’s “absolute rubbish” to suggest the Spitfire won the Battle of Britain alone.
Regardless of the division of labour, the spectacular sight of these lithe planes dogfighting with 109s over England’s south coast cemented the idea of the Spitfire as the hero of the Battle of Britain. Spitfires were mentioned more than twice as frequently as Hurricanes in the British media during the summer of 1940. And it was the sleek silhouette of the Spitfire that darted across propaganda posters and newsreels.
In 1940, minister of aircraft production Lord Beaverbrook harnessed this popularity with the launch of the Spitfire Fund and Pans into Planes aluminium campaign (“We will turn your pots and pans into Spitfires and Hurricanes, Blenheims and Wellingtons,” promised Beaverbrook). Comparable to modern crowdfunding initiatives, these aimed to collect money and materials. To widen the Spitfire Fund’s appeal, the aircraft and its components were priced up, with costs ranging from sixpence for a rivet to £5,000 for a whole Spit.
It was a clever marketing tactic. Every individual, from schoolboy to housewife, could feel as if they had a stake in a front-line fighter aeroplane. Meanwhile, a business, corporation or wealthy individual that donated enough could have their chosen name emblazoned on the side of a Spitfire. Squadrons were filled with planes sporting names ranging from Lloyd Bank’s The Black Horse to Skysweeper, sponsored by Hoover.
An impressive total of £13m was raised through the Spitfire Fund, contributing to the production of more than 2,500 aircraft. Over the course of the war, a significant proportion of the population became invested in the success of the Spitfire not only emotionally but also, crucially, in terms of cold hard cash. In a conflict mythologised as the ‘People’s War’, the Spitfire became the ‘People’s Plane’.
Adaptation and evolution
The Spitfire served across multiple theatres and in diverse roles thanks to its remarkable adaptability. The aircraft’s strong stressed-skin construction and powerful Merlin (later Griffon) engine gave the design flexibility for the evolution of new variants.
In the Mediterranean and north African campaigns, Spitfire Mk Vs fitted with Vokes Air Filters operated from desert airstrips and aircraft carriers. In 1942, Spitfires proved pivotal in securing control of the skies over Malta, a strategically vital stronghold that had been under near-constant Italian and German air attack since 1940. Canadian ace George Beurling scored 27 of his 31 aerial victories defending Malta in a Spitfire Mk Vb.
As the war progressed, the Spitfire served across multiple theatres and in diverse roles
Although the large expanses of water, tropical climate and threat of the nimble Japanese Mitsubishi Zero mitigated against the Spitfire being used extensively in the Asian war, later Spitfire marks were deployed effectively in India and Burma (now Myanmar). Moreover, the Spitfire’s adaptability extended beyond its fighter duties. During the war, the airframe was modified for photo reconnaissance use and ground attack, and navalised Seafires flew from aircraft carriers. By 1944, Griffon-powered Spitfires were intercepting V1 flying bombs.
However, though the Spitfire was pressed into all manner of roles, it was only a matter of time before an even more versatile aircraft superseded it in many situations. The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang, for example, arrived in the European theatre in 1943. It took over bomber escort duties from the Spitfire, which didn’t have the range to accompany American bombers deep into Germany. And though the Spitfire was an acceptable ground-attack aircraft, it was outperformed by the rugged British Hawker Typhoon and American Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.
Then there was the De Havilland Mosquito. Developed as a wooden twin-engined light bomber, it also flew as a night fighter, a pathfinder, a reconnaissance aircraft and on anti-submarine missions. It was so fast that, when it became operational in 1941, it could outfly the Spitfires sent to escort it. So in terms of multi-role aircraft, the ‘Wooden Wonder’ takes the honours. It was as a high-performance interceptor that the Spitfire was virtually unmatched – at least until the arrival of the jet-engined Messerschmitt Me 262 in 1944.
Postwar legend
The Spitfire continued to serve after the war’s end, retiring from front-line RAF service only in 1954 – the last piston-driven front-line fighter, and the only British fighter to be manufactured before, during and after the war. Even in later years, as the deployment of jet fighters became the norm, the Spitfire was beloved by pilots for its light handling and superior manoeuvrability. Flying a Spitfire in 1947, John William Fowles was amazed by how “the old Spitty could literally run rings around” faster aircraft thanks to its tight turning circle.
Though the curtain had come down on the Spitfire’s operational career, it was still very much airworthy in the imaginations of a generation of adolescents growing up in Cold War Britain. A combination of Airfix models, comic books and films such as Battle of Britain (1969), starring Michael Caine and Sir Laurence Olivier, brought the exploits of the Spitfire and the drama of 1940 to new audiences. (During filming of that movie at Duxford, dogs had to be deployed to guard the Spitfires from hordes of onlookers.)
Also in 1969, the RAF’s collection of airworthy Second World War aircraft was officially renamed the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, framing the Spitfire and its contemporary aircraft as living memorials and ensuring that the British public could continue to witness these fighters in action.
After 90 years, the Spitfire’s reputation endures today not because it was the greatest aircraft of the Second World War, but because its elegant design, responsive handling and capacity to evolve made it an indispensable asset in the Allies’ arsenal. Its visibility in the Battle of Britain and clever wartime publicity helped cement its legend. It is at once an engineering achievement, a national symbol and a powerful memorial. In wartime skies or modern air shows, the distinctive roar of the Spitfire has always sparked recognition and pride. And its place in our shared cultural memory shows no signs of fading.
Hattie Hearn is a historian and curator, author of How to Fly a Spitfire: A Nut-and-Bolt Guide to the World’s Greatest Aircraft (Frances Lincoln, 2026, illustrated by Adi Gilbert)