An original Spitfire plane landed back in Britain on Thursday after successfully completing a first-ever attempt to fly the iconic World War II fighter around the globe.
The gleaming silver aircraft touched down on the grass runway at Goodwood Aerodrome outside Chichester, exactly four months after it took off on August 5.
The restored 76-year-old plane, which flew in World War II, visited 24 countries on its epic journey westwards around the world, clocking up more than 23,300 miles (37,500 kilometres).
The aircraft has been de-militarised, stripped of its guns and paintwork, revealing the shining, silvery aluminium underneath.
British aviators Matt Jones, 46, and Steve Brooks, 58, took turns at the controls over 74 legs.
Jones flew the final one-hour, 57-minute journey from Lelystad in the Netherlands back to the Silver Spitfire's home hangar.
The fighter, registration code G-IRTY, did a loop around the White Cliffs of Dover landmark as it reached the English coastline.
It was flanked by two Red Arrows, the Royal Air Force aerobatics display team, trailing white smoke as it approached Goodwood, near the south coast of England.
Jones did a roll and a few flypasts for the onlookers before touching down. After stepping out of the plane, Jones hugged his partner and their newborn son Arthur. The former banker had to dash home for the birth from Russia during the circumnavigation.
The so-called Longest Flight expedition saw the plane fly over the Statue of Liberty in New York and the Pyramids in Egypt. The Silver Spitfire traversed the Atlantic Ocean via the Faroe Islands and Reykjavik, crossing Greenland before flying south over the remote wilds of northern Canada.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019
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