Next August, two British pilots will attempt a world first by circumnavigating the globe in a restored 1943 Spitfire, one of the most iconic planes of World War II.

By the time they are done, just before Christmas, Mr Steve Brooks and Mr Matt Jones would have covered 43,000km and made 150 stops in 30 countries, piloting the aircraft - which won victory laurels during the Battle of Britain in the early 1940s - through extreme conditions and air spaces it once served, as well as those it has never entered before.