Spitfire PRXI

If there is enough of a wrecked Spit to justify it’s restoration and get it back into the air, then so be it. The Spit is at least a reminder of our history, something we shouldn’t forget. Leaving it wreckage won’t bring the pilot back, or make the pain any less for his family. As wreckage it accomplishes nothing, but as a restored WW2 Spitfire, it teaches, amazes, is a cause for dreaming, and a reminder of a time long ago. It has far more value in that form.Dan

Nicely put Dan – it makes a lot of sense.

Just my perspective. My son and daughter were killed in a car wreck, not a plane wreck, but the idea is the same I think. What’s left of the car is to me nothing but junk. But if someone wanted to restore that car wreck, so be it. Nothing will change the outcome of what happened. The wreckage is no memorial to my kids. It is, what it is, a wrecked car, a pile of parts and bent metal.

If there is enough of a wrecked Spit to justify it’s restoration and get it back into the air, then so be it. The Spit is at least a reminder of our history, something we shouldn’t forget. Leaving it wreckage won’t bring the pilot back, or make the pain any less for his family. As wreckage it accomplishes nothing, but as a restored WW2 Spitfire, it teaches, amazes, is a cause for dreaming, and a reminder of a time long ago. It has far more value in that form.

Hope that makes sense.

Dan

a different point of view

I can’t help but wonder how the late pilot of the PRXI in question would feel? Did anyone on this forum know the individual well enough to make an educated guess?

I hope this doesn’t offend anybody, as that couldn’t be further from my mind on a delicate topic such as this.

regards

greg v

So for you EN830 it will be less than 12 square inches of flat sheet…and for me it is many many bags of sheet metal fittings, small castings and machined forgings.Mark

Not disputing that Mark, I realise that some parts could be recovered and utilised in a rebuild, in the case of TE566 from the pictures that I saw she ressembled one of the many photographs of the burnt out Spitfire on the beach at Dunkirk in 1940. The engine appeared to be detached and the cockpit gutted, leaving only the tail unit fairly intact.

But like I say, I’m not an engineer. I look at a picture of a car that is decribed as light off side damage and think how the hell can they describe that as light !!!!

May I ask, how much of a the destroyed aircraft is likely to be present in the newly restored one ? Surely not much . . .

From close observation of several such crashes at the total dismantling point I would suggest that it is about 20x more than you would ever imagine.

So for you EN830 it will be less than 12 square inches of flat sheet…and for me it is many many bags of sheet metal fittings, small castings and machined forgings.

Mark

No doubt HFL will do an impecable restoration and ARC will diligently maintain and display her. At some point in the future she will change hands and continue to be flown and maintained.

Periodically she will change colours and markings, and operating bases and even countries. What we know as the airframe from Old Warden will become a distant memory.

Spitfires and other historic aircraft represent all that is of historical relevance. However, they are of the now and the future. Unless repaired PL983 will not have a future and generations to come will not be able to look at her and consider the historical relevance of such aircraft.

In years to come the events of Rouen will be known only to those keen enough to look at PL983’s history. From the Familes and enthusiasts that watch her fly or look at her in a hangar, there will only be the appreciation of what they see before them and what she represents.

I look forward to seeing PL983 take to the skies again.

How much of a crashed airframe would be used in a rebuild, I guess very little. I can’t say in what state PL983 ended up, I believe that it stalled and then crashed, so I would assume at the very least a crumpled mass.

However the former HAC Mk IX TE566 which was written off in a fatal crash in South Africa was virtually gutted, from what the pictures posted around the web show. I’m no engineer but I would hazard a guess that very little of that airframe would be suitable to be recycled for the rebuild that is reputedly happening in Brisbane.

Basically my point is that, all that would relate the new airframe to that of one that took a life either recently or 60 years ago would be the data plates. And we know that data plate rebuilds and the ethics behind them have been debated to death on these forums for quite sometime.

May I ask, how much of a the destroyed aircraft is likely to be present in the newly restored one ? Surely not much . . .

How many quite happily live in houses where people have died? My grandmother died in the house where my parents live. I frequently sit on that spot with no thought about it. It is just a place in time and space. I know of people that woud not want to fly in an aeroplane that someone has died in and I respect that but you can respect the views of people that want to do something different too.

I know of one pilot who would not consider buying a particular aeroplane because it had been owned by a pilot that was killed in a different aeroplane. He thought this was tempting fate. About two years later he was killed in a totally unrelated crash. There as no link.

Each to their own.

also why is PL983 listed only ‘as a rare PRIX’ in the article..

Is that your misprint, or the mag’s? As there are no PRIXs around (far as I’m aware), and only a handful of PRXIs around.

PA908 – Wright-Patterson AFB
PL965 – Peter Teichman, North Weald, UK
PL979 – RNoAF Museum, Gardermoen AB, Norway
PL983 – HFL, Duxford, UK.

OK.. So I have stirred up a bit of a hornet’s nest here… But hey the last time I looked it said it was a discussion forum…

At least one person on this forum have the view that crashed warbirds that have been involved in fatal accidents should be crushed and buried.. I actually do not agree with this viewpoint.. but I respect his opinion…

Someone I know and respect will never now sit in PV202 ever…. again I do not follow that view point.. but I admire his stance….

I for one do not have a problem with HRL anyone else rebuilding flyers, statics whatever, where someone or some people have died in… I would love to see Bluebird K-7 on Coniston Water driven by Gina Campbell…

The problem is as more and more ‘raw material’ is becoming less available in large amounts.. you have to work with smaller bits and pieces… bits that 10 years ago would have been considered unworkable… or bits from crashed aircraft (fatal or not) It is the skill of HRL (and others) that these pieces will become flyable after a period of hard work and time..

In fact a Spitfire historian made the point about raw material fatal accidents this area a few years back in a Spitfire article.. and IIRC asked for a debate about this very subject…

I think setters point is excellent, if you are doing it.. get the ok from those closely affected and wait 5, 10 or ? years before rebuilding it..

However, what I think is missing in this whole area is clarity…. I do not know why HRL decided to start calling PV202.. IAC 161 – but I would imagine a few people would have a guess… also why is PL983 listed only ‘as a rare PRIX’ in the article.. When everyone reading about it will immediately start speculating on the ID and asking on this very forum…. I know I did and I asked an expert in the field the same day and he told me the ID.

The point (the only one) I was trying to make, and still am.. is that once you rebuild one fatal accident warbird to fly… then you have crossed some line. making it more likely that you will build another one in the future, and I have no doubt that there was agonising in HRL over PL983 as well.. perhaps my fault is that I did not spend more time making trying to make this clearer..

..but then again.. perhaps.. if I am in hole.. I should have stopped digging..

Thanks James, yes, I did mean moral.

Oar perhaps Groan not even a Groin strain

He’s not alone. Maybe that the the moral. (Grone…)

Hi James

Maybe Dave meant Morale as in makes him happy to look at old warbirds (Joke intended here!)

John p

Good point Dave, except you mean ‘moral’, not ‘morale’. Of course, as Mark12 knows it’s spelled correctly, so that’s allright. 🙂

I cannot but support James and Dave here – JDK and I recently walked through Wangarratta and were surrounded by the remains of many WW11 aircraft in which people had been killed and which had been used to take life as they were designed to do – You cannot have or be interested in Warbirds (WARBIRDS _ Aircraft which were used in WAR) without accepting that these machines had a purpose and it does involve death and risk. No aircraft killed anybody without human involvement and direction so it is not the aircraft but the humans that were responsible.

I prefer to look at Warbirds as a memorial to what has past , admire them for their beauty and concentrate on what they teach us .

As for rebuilding a crashed aircraft in which someone has died recently – well it is more sensative and my feeling is that the common practice of storing the aircraft for a few years is probably the most appropriate – For the reasons I stated above I don’t believe any warbird should be scrapped on such a basis – I would not ever want a machine in which I was flying scrapped – it makes no sense – at some stage a human was responsable for the crash not the aircraft.

Regards
John P

I fear I may be putting my foot in it like Paul has, but in defence of the rebuilders, the way I see it is…

Many currently active Spitfires and other warbirds have killed people and no-one is concerned about it. ML407 has killed people. TB863 has too. MH434 probably has but i have yet to look that one up. Many Mitchells, Mustangs, Hurricanes, etc flying, all killed. As James says, some have had people die in them too.

An aeroplane is a machine, a tool, not a murderer. I see no morale attachments to an airframe so long as the original intention of weapon of war is no longer attached. After all, they are all now memorials to past times when men fought and died in them, are they not?

OK.. So after you decide to rebuild the first fatal amchine, I suppose the next one is a liitle bit easier to think about…

Paul, I normally respect and support your views and posts – but you are off beam here, and Mark V’s comments should be taken on board.

I dread to think how many warbirds, flying, and in museums, have had crew killed aboard – a high percentage, I think you’ll find. Given the logic above, perhaps it’s OK if they’d only been maimed? 🙁

The RAAF Museum had a particularly moving event recently where a member of groundcrew was able to re-face the Douglas Boston he’d helped remove a dead gunner from, 60+ years earlier. I won’t give the details here, it was not nice in any aspect. The aircraft has been extensively restored.

Sure it’s different, but let’s be a bit less crashing on a public forum? Thanks.

That looks really cool.

Jay