Circumnavigating the globe with a restored World War II Spitfire plane is not your everyday project. It's an ambitious, arduous task filled with dangers and challenges, but pilots Steve Boultbee Brooks and Matt Jones are ready—they've been preparing their whole lives for a journey like this. Dubbed "the longest flight," the project is poised to make aviation history when it completes this December, when Brooks and Jones touch down in the U.K. once more after being the first ones to fly around the world in the antique fighter plane.

Though the pilots have set out to make history by flying it around the world—27,000 miles, almost 30 countries—Boultbee Brooks emphasizes that the real purpose is to invite people to witness the Spitfire "in its glory in the air where it belongs, and to inspire young people to want to fly and share in the spirit of aviation."

Through their flight academy in the U.K., Boultbee Brooks and Jones had been flying passengers in a Spitfire for some time when they realized the emotional impact the plane had on people. "[For a while] Spitfires were only kept in museums and weren't allowed to be touched. We received the first permission to fly passengers, and the reaction of those people is astounding," Boultbee Brooks explains. People have burst into tears and cried with joy, so the pair decided to bring that excitement and joy to parts of the world outside the U.K. with the help of IWC Schaffhausen.

A pilot standing on the wing of the plane at sundown. Image courtesy of IWC.

The journey became about more than just breaking records. Despite the amount of time that's passed since World War II, the Spitfire has remained a symbol of deviance and courage, and the pilots wanted to commemorate those who flew the plane in battle, who were prepared to pay the ultimate sacrifice for something they believed in. "This airplane is about people—people's pasts, presents, and, hopefully, will be inspiring their futures," says Jones.

What made this Spitfire particularly unusual was the fact that the plane had been mothballed in a museum for decades. "We were offered this aircraft by an individual based on our relationship with them, and my and Steve's knowledge in the space," says Jones. Much of it was original, but by the same token, the plane now required a complete overhaul. But that very fact was the genesis of inspiration for the circumnavigation journey. Having been in the Spitfire restoration business for a decade, the pilots knew that coming across a plane of this nature required something special—it wouldn't have been enough to rebuild it and fly it in local air shows.