I’m going to start with a brief detour into American pop culture – do bear with me! The 40th‑anniversary rerelease of Top Gun in May 2026 inspired me to revisit one of my mid‑1990s favourites, the medical drama ER, which also starred Anthony ‘Goose’ Edwards. At the end of the pilot episode, Edwards’ Dr Mark Greene empowers Noah Wyle’s young Dr John Carter with a line that recurs throughout the show’s run: “You set the tone.”

 

As I considered how best to articulate the theme of Echo III for this editorial, that line struck me as the perfect encapsulation of what defines this volume. It’s a thread that runs through the candid, revealing conversations we’ve had with historic aircraft owners and operators – especially in our four marquee features, three of which offer exclusive first looks at new restorations. Their stories reflect the realities of working with vintage aircraft today, each setting the tone in their own way – whether by preserving originality, upholding authenticity, or carrying forward the responsibility of stewardship.

 

We are delighted that Jeff Thomas has entrusted us with the public unveiling of his P-38H-1-LO Lightning project: this is 42-66534, a Pacific theatre combat veteran recovered from New Guinea more than 20 years ago and now taking shape across workshops in Australia, Hungary and the USA. It is a project defined by its owner’s insistence that the aircraft’s restoration should honour the methods, materials and even the mindset of its original manufacturers. “I think those of us that care about real history feel that the details matter,” Jeff told me. “The ‘real’, whether original or reproduced authentically, is far more intoxicating and far more evocative and visceral.”

 

With the rebuild of Spitfire MkI P9372, engineers at The Spitfire Company (Biggin Hill) Ltd have gone to great lengths to represent the aircraft as it looked on the day it was shot down in September 1940. “We’re reconstructing the fuselage and wings,” says Peter Monk, “and it’s essentially all new structure, so you’ve got to put the life and soul back in the cockpit. That originality goes such a long way towards keeping that aircraft’s spirit.” The result is a beautifully realised recreation of a 92 Squadron Spitfire, its character defined by the many tactile components salvaged from the original aircraft’s wreck.

 

In his pursuit of uncompromising authenticity, Bill Reid’s decade-long restoration of Avro Anson MkI MH120 demanded far more time and money than it might have otherwise – and the result is a benchmark achievement that captures the essence of RAF Coastal Command’s Ansons. “I was fortunate to be brought up in an environment where you respected attention to detail”, Reid recalled of a childhood spent around his father’s pioneering helicopter business in New Zealand. “We understood things needed to be done the right way and that you don’t cut corners.”

  

As we prepared to press this volume, 517 Ltd’s P‑51D Mustang Hurry Home Honey broke cover at Sywell. The story of this Mustang is, at its heart, one about the people who have contributed to its preservation – three markedly different paths that converge around a single aircraft. One begins with a computer science specialist whose path into vintage aviation started in the RAF’s Tornado force and later evolved through the discipline of competition aerobatics. Another belongs to a husband-and-wife team who, 37 years ago, took their newly acquired Mustang to Reno and made history with their respective victories. The third is that of a young engineer raised within the historic aviation fraternity, stepping into the management of his first major project inside one of the UK’s leading workshops. Their backgrounds could hardly be more different, yet their stories intersect here.

 

“Today,” Warbird Colour Ltd’s Steve Atkin observes in our coverage of Hurry Home Honey, “there is no place for originality or ‘artistic interpretation’ – only the slavish reproduction of what went before.” It’s a bold, potentially controversial statement, but one that captures the spirit of the owners, restorers, engineers and pilots featured in these pages.

​

Elliott Marsh – Editor & Co-creator