“We were immersed with day-to-day fighting. 249 RAF Squadron, who were as young as he was. “We didn’t think strategically or anything like that,” Neil said of his fellow pilots in the No. Seventy five years ago, a 20-year-old Neil flew a Hawker Hurricane for the Royal Air Force, shielding his homeland against thousands of German bombers in the Battle of Britain - the first ever battle decisively fought in the air. “It’s so much beyond my comprehension,” Tom 'Ginger' Neil, Britain’s highest-scoring living ace, said of the aircraft’s fifth generation design, which also has stealth features. (AFNS) - The World War II flying ace looked wide-eyed at the instrument panel of an F-35 Lightning II simulator, as a pilot hovered the virtual fighter jet above a warship and safely landed it.