I had the immense pleasure of being at Duxford, only a day or two after the beautiful restored Mk I Spitfire was rolled out. I was allowed to observe it very closely, but did not ask to touch.
It seemed tiny, but over-aweing me was its history, not its size. My father fought in WW2, along with his brothers-in-arms and their opposers, far too many of whom did not outlive that conflict.
That sense of history lives on through the Marks, as it does in so much other wartime artefact. We see, and when lucky, can touch, the results of furious efforts to advance technology in the name of freedom.
Do the manufacturers of the Mk XXVI think that their product sits in the same family?