Russian Hampden bits

Market forces.

To rebuild an a/c can (often) cost more than you can sell it for. If it’s not first rank famous it’ll just cost a lot more than you could ever recoup. That’s fine if you want to, but sadly, by definition, few people want to compared to the more famous types.

Cheers

(1st rank: Spitfire, Mustang etc.)
(Others: Miles wooden a/c; Supermarine Walrus etc…)

Which leads us to the old question of when it becomes a replica… (no, NOT a good one to discuss, especially as it began life as a thread on the flying tadpole).

Sorry folks, I am just interested in how much or how little one can rebuild from a crash site – Spitfires do seem to have the biggest cachet if you can rebuild one (probably P-51 next) – and why some aircraft seem to be rebuildable from small piles of scrap whilst with others you don’t seem to be able to do it if you have an near-intact airframe.

So presumably the major factors are:

availability of components

Availability of important things to make components with (like money)?

Adrian

If it was a Spitfire someone would be restoring it to fly right now.

Discuss the above statement.

ADrian

If it was a Spitfire there would be a much greater stock of off-the-shelf components available to be used in any restoration.

Moggy

That’s a very interesting point, Yak 11 Fan. I’ve been rather bemused by some of the reports of aircraft coming out of Russia “to be restored to airworthy condition” – one in Flypast a number of years ago particularly comes to mind as being a spread of wreckage laid out in what from a plan view was recognizable as a Spitfire, but from side on looked more like roadkill. I’ve no doubt that some will fly (Fw189, I hope!) and some HAVE flown, but I do wonder whether some recovery teams might have over-egged the cake a bit….

Adrian

Maybe, maybe not, there have been a few Spitfires out of Russia most of which are currently stored.

hmm not much to look at eh?

Cat amongst the pigeons time…

If it was a Spitfire someone would be restoring it to fly right now.

Discuss the above statement.

ADrian

hmm not much to look at eh?

Thanks very much Mark,

Much appreciated. The HP52 is another one of my interests. Or should it be Handley Page Ltd. 😎

Cheers

Cees

Russian Hampden number two – P1273

Cees,

Here are the photos at the recovery site in Russia.

To the best of my knowledge they are still with the Brothers Hunt in Surrey/Sussex.

Mark

Cees,

I have the prints/negs taken both in Russia and the UK – not the RAF machine.

I just need to locate them.

Mark

Are the items still with the Hunt’s Mark12?

Tail end – Hampden

Cees,

I have the prints/negs taken both in Russia and the UK – not the RAF machine.

I just need to locate them.

Mark

Hi Steve,

No, not that one but that is my fault, I had to be more specific.

I was meaning the other bits among which was a tailsection that were recovered by the Hunt Brothers IIRC and last thing I know was that it was put in storage at Jim Pearce’s facility.

Cheers

Cees

I guess you mean the almost complete wreck that belongs to the RAF Museum. I believe it is still with Skysport being half-and-half restored.