Article: Icon of the skies; Sixty years after production ended, the Spitfire still inspires the imagination, says Chris Upton.(Features)

Byline: Chris Upton

As part of a recent advertising campaign, the British National Party made use of an image of a Spitfire to garner support. It was a curious, if understandable, choice. Curious, in that this was (as Woody Guthrie said of his guitar) "a machine to kill fascists", and (as the press gleefully pointed out) the plane in question had been flown by a Polish airman.

But it was a perfectly understandable choice too, for (more than 70 years after its birth) the Spitfire still has the power to fill British breasts with pride. No airplane (except ...

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