Seafire LF Mk.III RX168

So,I finally tracked Chris down and got the answers I wanted.It seems the bits of spits I worked on went to three aircraft:1)spitfire PV202 2) spitfire MK732 and finally a seafire II that was pulled out of the med near malta.Any idea which seafire this is guys?

MB293

Mystery solved,nearly…

So,I finally tracked Chris down and got the answers I wanted.It seems the bits of spits I worked on went to three aircraft:1)spitfire PV202 2) spitfire MK732 and finally a seafire II that was pulled out of the med near malta.Any idea which seafire this is guys?

Perhaps I was having a “Stevie Wonder” moment when I saw it yesterday then…

DX=Duxford?I phoned them and they had no knowledge of it!

G-INFO provides a clue 😉

PP972 has no current association with either ARC or HFL. I’m sure it will emerge in the next volume of the Book… 😉

Historic Flying Ltd then?

didn’t think it was with them either

When it’s ready, I should imagine…

Historic Flying Ltd then?

So can you tell us when PP972 will be flying again? or is it one of those ARCo secrets!

didn’t think ARCo were doing PP972.

So can you tell us when PP972 will be flying again? or is it one of those ARCo secrets!

Fuselage, wings engine etc all stored at DX for registered owners http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=60&pagetype=65&appid=1&mode=detailnosummary&fullregmark=BWEM

I would imagine from movements earlier this year that you will be seeing PP972 flying first…

Does anyone knwo the exact location of the parts to this Seafire as it is listed in several locations.Also,does anyone know of the whereabouts or contact details of Chris Warrillo or Steve Atkins.As I put in another post which I now can’t find I believe I worked on this Seafire to a small degree and would like to confirm this with Chris.Please e- mail me at [email]ttrimmings@hotmail.com[/email]

I will try and post some of the few pictures I have of it before it was updated.

Rx168

Thanks, Mark. Interesting photos of the cowlings – I wonder where they ended up. How much was being asked for them?

I seem to remember at the time that the parts of RX168 that originally came out of Ireland consisted of firewall, inner wings, plus a few other bits?

The cowlings – asking price £1,500 negotiable – a bargain. I steered them towards EF545 another Mk V wreck from Kiriwina that is just right at the start point of a restoration project.

I saw the inner wings. They were all ex Bolton Street Technical College in Dublin. A new fuselage was created but as with others, there were technical problems with short cuts – lack of jigs and fixtures etc.

I was hoping the imminent flight of Seafire III PP972 of Wizzard plus the Seafires MKs XV and XVII all so tantalisingly close to flight in theory, would give this old girl a leg up – she needs it badly.

Mark

Photo credit: Graham Skillen

Rx168

Since we seem to have gone seriously off-track on this thread…any info or photos, anyone?

Owned jointly by Chris Warrillow and Steve Atkins with an ‘s’.

Last known location – in store in the Swindon area.

Structure – wings and fuselage in a dismantled state. 🙁

Was for sale and possibly still is.

This aircraft is formerly 157 of the Irish Air Corps.

By chance I espied these engine cowlings at the last Shoreham Aerojumble from that very same aircraft – for sale with an Irish dealer. If nothing else they were a splendid reference for the at least two shades of green used by the IAC.

Mark

Apples with Apples

This is complex.

We must be careful in comparing the price of a full production produced Spitfire or Mustang of yesteryear directly with today’s restoration costs.

The aircraft today are ‘short order’ runs of ones and twos more akin to the prototypes produced of this illustrious pair.

In my former ‘proper job’ I would drive and test prototype vehicles that were valued at well over £1m for insurance purposes. The production versions built on amortised tooling would cost in the showroom anywhere between say £10k and £40k in today’s money.

Tooling aside. Just look at each and every piece of a Spitfire structure and say “I need one of these”. Now say assuming one man does everything, order material, inspection, paperwork, paint etc, he starts at 08.00 on Monday morning…now when does he have the part in his hand ready to fit to a sub assembly – 1 hour, 1 day, 5 days. You make the estimate. That number of hours times the business charge out rate, £10ph…£40ph plus the material cost is the price of that component. There are some economies of scale but not many.

That is why I see a Spitfire as £2m+ of engineering.

Mark

Well, in the quick bit of googling I did I found enough information to run a price on a P-51 (tried the Spitfire, but evidently the only prices are for model kits).

In 1944 a P-51D cost $51,000 USD. Converted to today’s inflation it comes out to $502,000 USD, or £277,000.

Definately a lot less than today’s million dollar rebuilds, but just a tad more than the 5,000 needed by the Spitfire Fund.

According to the website in an earlier post the inflation factor would be more like 24. This would give figure of $1,224,000 in todays money which seems very feasible to me, at least for a P-51.

Well, in the quick bit of googling I did I found enough information to run a price on a P-51 (tried the Spitfire, but evidently the only prices are for model kits).

In 1944 a P-51D cost $51,000 USD. Converted to today’s inflation it comes out to $502,000 USD, or £277,000.

Definately a lot less than today’s million dollar rebuilds, but just a tad more than the 5,000 needed by the Spitfire Fund.

To further refine Mark12’s calculations on prewar housing costs as an indicator for a Spitfires potential current costs I went a’Googling and found a numer of inflation indexes, or should that be indices!). One is a British Parliament document of inflation from 1750 to 2000!

This site ( http://www.crowsnest.co.uk/north/rpi.htm ) allows you to pick a month & year and derive a value from which you can calculate a figure up to early 2001. Now allowing for my ineptitude with a calculator (I am not an engineer, nor do I play one on TV) I will leave others to do the sums from this table. This table could be used to work out the current cost of Hurricane, Sea Fury or Seafire FR47 if one new the “then” year cost. A useful activity on a rainy winters public holiday. Just as it is here today!

Chris

Thanks Mark12.

I thought this would probably be the case. So give or take, allowing for productionisation, the costs would still be comfortably over £1.5m by today’s values.

Regards,

Paul