European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 3, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday March 3, 1986 the stars and stripes Page 9 is file photo this 1967 photo shows British airmen polishing an old spitfire fighter plane displayed at the Entrance of London s Northolt Raf base. Enthus ass to Mark spitfire s 50fh birthday London a there never was an air plane like the spitfire. When you were in the cockpit it became part of you said fighter Ace Wing cmdr. Robert Stanford tuck. The fighter plane that helped save Brit Ain in world War ii will be 50 years old wednesday. Stanford tuck now 69, who had 27 con firmed kills and eight More possibles is joining other spitfire pilots for a birthday party at the Airport where Joseph Mutt Summers flew the prototype spitfire on March 5,1936. The owners of All the 14 spits still flying in Europe have been invited to zoom in on the runway at Eastleigh outside the South coast port City of Southampton. I Hope they land All right said another Veteran group capt. David Green founder of the spitfire society. A spitfire was a skittish Little thing. If you did t get it Down right it would Kangaroo along the runway. The nose was 9 feet Long and when that came up the run Way would disappear from View just when you needed it. Sometimes you did come in on a Wing and a  Twenty thousand spitfires were built at a Cost of 5,000 pounds each then $20,000. Updated with More powerful engines big Ger guns and other refinements they stayed in action throughout the War in the skies of Europe Africa and Asia. When the War ended in 1945, a spitfire s scrap value was 100 pounds $400. But when one came up for auction nearly 40 years later in 1984, bidding stopped at 300,000 pounds $420,000which was 50, to pounds $70,000 below the Reserve Price. Some English towns have mounted spit fires like statues. Treasure Hunters scour the Countryside with Metal detectors looking for buried fragments of planes that crashed after fights with raiding German Luftwaffe fighters and bombers. Enthusiasts like 36-year-old Steve Atkins spend years reconstructing them. It started in the summer of 1968, when i was 19," he recalled in his workshop. I was out on my Bike in the country. The Battle of Britain film was being shot and i saw the camera plane go by followed by six spitfires. The look and sound of them stunned me. I did t go Back to work for two weeks i just followed those aircraft  Atkins Learned to Fly but he knew the Only Way he would get to Fly a piece of pure Gold like the spitfire was to own one. He found a very battered one in Scotland that had belonged to the Indian air Force swapped his own plane and quite a lot of Money for it sold his House and Sank the proceeds into his Vintage air works venture to begin repairing and rebuilding spitfires. There Are far More people than you realize who Are willing to spend Over a Quarter of a million pounds $350,000 on a spitfire Atkins said. It s the most Beautiful air plane Ever built All Graceful curves a classic Noth ing else like  the super Marine spitfire was the creation of Reginald Joseph Mitchell who de signed the racing seaplanes that won the Schneider. Trophy for Britain in 1927-31. He never knew the combat Fame of his masterpiece As he died of cancer in 1937. When the spitfire first flew it was so Small and fast that a German officer Dis missed it contemptuously As a  but when the War began in 1939, Luftwaffe pilots came to fear the British Grey hound of the skies. The Standard German fighter the Messerschmidt 109, could climb and dive faster and had More Gunpowder than the spitfire but it was a bit slower. The spitfire s famous stablemate the robust and Hump backed Hawker Hurricane designed by Sydney Camm could outta never both of them but did t have their Speed 334 Mph against the 109 s 354 Mph and the spitfire s 367 Mph. So hurricanes were usually sent after the slower German bombers while spitfires pursued the enemy fighters. When the German Daylight air offensive was fought to a halt in 1940 by the spitfire and Hurricane pilots of the Royal air Force wartime prime minister Winston Churchill said of them never in the Field of human conflict was so much owed by so Many to so  six spitfire fighter planes Are shown flying on patrol Over England in 1940. Is file photo