A rare Spitfire that escorted American daylight bombers over occupied Europe in 1945 is prepared for a new mission. Its home, the Shuttleworth Collection in Bedfordshire, faces financial difficulties - and engineers maintaining Britain's biggest fleet of flying vintage aircraft believe their iconic fighter can spearhead a recovery, if it can be returned to the sky in time.

Engineer and pilot Richard Grace and his team fight to complete an epic 40-year project to return the RAF's fastest wartime fighter to the sky. The Hawker Tempest could reach about 500mph, but it weighs six tons and it's so complex that missing parts have to be recreated by hand. Then Richard must find someone who's prepared to fly a fire-breathing 3,000-horsepower monster.

Following the restoration of a Spitfire that was discovered as an unlikely plaything in a children's playground. The TE517 was built to fight Hitler but then became a pawn in the Cold War, before ending up in the Middle East. Engineers at Biggin Hill in Kent are determined to return her to the air and proudly restore her to her original markings as a member of one of the RAF's legendary Free Czech squadrons.

Engineers fight to prepare a squadron of 10 Spitfires for Britain's biggest warbird air display in years, along with Corsairs, Hurricanes and Mustangs and a dozen more rare warbirds. Technical boss Martin Espin and his team must fault-find and repair against the clock, while display mastermind Jane Larcombe juggles the logistics of an event that involves a small air force and thousands of fans.

Eighty years after it crashed in flames during the Battle of Britain, a rare Spitfire is reconstructed from a wreckage dug from the soil of the South Downs. The mission for modern engineers at the Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar is to make P9372 fly again. In doing so, they honour the pilots of the RAF's most flamboyant fighter squadron whose social life was almost as legendary as their aerial exploits.

At 100-years-old, David Berry is one of the last surviving wartime airmen who flew the fragile Fairey Swordfish biplane, which helped sink Hitler's Bismarck battleship. Now engineers from the charity Navy Wings are fighting to return a rare example of the Royal Navy's last biplane to the sky in time for David to see it. At the same time, 250 miles away, another team are determined to make the US Navy's last biplane fly again.