About Us

Historic Flying Limited (HFL), based at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford (near Cambridge) UK, is a commercial organisation now dedicated to restoring Supermarine Spitfires of all marks to zero-time flying condition. It is the only such organisation that builds the aircraft to ‘as new’ condition for sale, as opposed to other bodies that restore for their owners’ collections or for trading.

The company was originally set up to save the many Spitfires acting as gate guardians around the UK and further afield. So far the company has restored twelve Spitfires (approximately 30% of all Spitfires flying today) with another two in progress.

Work to date

HFL have been responsible for the restoration of approximately 30% of all the Spitfires flying today. One or two other types of aircraft have been restored, notably the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Hurricane LF363 which earned high praise from the leader of the BBMF as being ‘the best Hurricane he’d flown’. Listed below are the aircraft that have been restored, or are currently being restored to a fully certificated ‘zero-time’ flying condition:

Supermarine Spitfire
Completed :

Aircraft
Ident.
Completed
Mk XVI
RW-382
June 1989
Mk IX
TE-566
June 1989
Mk XVIII
TP-280
June 1992
Mk XVI
TD-248
Nov 1992
Mk XIV
NH-799
Jan 1994
Mk XIV
SM-832
Mar 1999
Mk Vb
EP-120
Sep 1995
Mk V
AR-614
Sep 1996
Mk Vb
BM-597
Aug 1997
Mk XVIII
SM-845
July 2000
Mk IX
MK-912
Sep 2000
Mk XIV

RN-201

June 2002

Other aircraft types
Completed :

Aircraft
Ident.
Bucker Jungman
G-RETA
  
P-51D Mustang
F-AZIE
  
DH82a Tiger Moth
G-AOEI
  
Hawker Hurricane
LF-363