Spitfire restoration costs

CBAF-1X-1886

This Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IX is on Static Display at The Museum of Flight, Seattle, Washington.

The Museum’s Spitfire was built at Castle Bromwich in early 1944. Assigned to a fighting squadron by May, this Spitfire was flown in support of the D-Day Invasion on June 6, 1944. After World War II, this plane served with the Royal Netherlands and Belgian Air Forces.

In 1961, the Spit was used in the filming the movie The Longest Day and was later owned by TV actor Cliff Robertson.

http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/supermarine-spitfire-mkix

Apparently he was writing brand new equipment off as *scrap* & just hauling it right out the gate by the truck load. It ran into $Millions.

You’re wrong…;)

A few years back some local white power skinhead type firebombed the local gay bar. The cops arrest the guy & go to his house to search for evidence etc… When they get there they discover the garage is crammed full of mills, lathes, drill presses, sheet metal brakes, slip rollers & all manner of other industrial tools… & it all has USAF & Govt tags… FBI get involved…
Turned out the firebomber lived with his dad…. who was comptroller at the main machine shop on Edwards AFB. He had been stealing & selling this stuff for years.
Dad got a longer jail sentence than the son…

Man oh man, those guys had some big as$ed lunchboxes. 😮

There were surely multiple duplicates of the Original Tools (differentiated from tooling) that could have been sold off as excess. That does not exclude the possibility that they kept originals. Oh, and BTW, a lot of those tools found their way out of the plant in sticky fingered workers lunchboxes. That could be why they are showing up in yard and estate sales. Now of course, that wouldn’t include a five axis milling machine. For many years Boeing in Kent, WA had a surplus store that anyone could pick up tools, tooling and many other items. It is now online since they closed the store. Maybe NAA had one also. Please don’t shoot the messenger. 🙁

You’re wrong…;)

A few years back some local white power skinhead type firebombed the local gay bar. The cops arrest the guy & go to his house to search for evidence etc… When they get there they discover the garage is crammed full of mills, lathes, drill presses, sheet metal brakes, slip rollers & all manner of other industrial tools… & it all has USAF & Govt tags… FBI get involved…
Turned out the firebomber lived with his dad…. who was comptroller at the main machine shop on Edwards AFB. He had been stealing & selling this stuff for years.
Dad got a longer jail sentence than the son…

I know they can’t possibly have *all the original tools* because tooling from NAA (& other local aviation companies) shows up at yard & estate sales in the LA area all the time. Neighbor picked up some NAA tooling just a few weeks back which I’ve been meaning to take photos of.

There were surely multiple duplicates of the Original Tools (differentiated from tooling) that could have been sold off as excess. That does not exclude the possibility that they kept originals. Oh, and BTW, a lot of those tools found their way out of the plant in sticky fingered workers lunchboxes. That could be why they are showing up in yard and estate sales. Now of course, that wouldn’t include a five axis milling machine. For many years Boeing in Kent, WA had a surplus store that anyone could pick up tools, tooling and many other items. It is now online since they closed the store. Maybe NAA had one also. Please don’t shoot the messenger. 🙁

We have a current FAA Production Certificate and all the original North American data and tools. (according to Alan Harris a representative for Saberliner.)

http://www.aerofiles.com/noram-co.html

I know they can’t possibly have *all the original tools* because tooling from NAA (& other local aviation companies) shows up at yard & estate sales in the LA area all the time. Neighbor picked up some NAA tooling just a few weeks back which I’ve been meaning to take photos of.

I thought the US restriction on proprietery secrets with vintage types has been quashed by the Greg Herrick – Fairchild 45 drawings legal case

http://www.lightaircraftassociation.co.uk/2012/News/us_records.html

“The new law invalidates the trade secret claim for aircraft from that era”

Interesting stuff! But I fear it only applies to the FAA records, and a manufacturing company are still not obliged to part with anything they don’t want to. But it does point to an interesting avenue for our reseach.. thanks.

I’ve heard of issues concerning P51 stuff & Boeing who now hold the intellectual rights to NAA through Rockwell or somesuch BS, but I can’t tell you what the issues are.

In March, it merged with Rockwell-Standard, and the merged company became known as North American Rockwell. The company changed its name again to Rockwell International and named its aircraft division North American Aircraft Operations in 1973.[6]

Rockwell International’s defense and space divisions (including the North American Aviation divisions Autonetics and Rocketdyne) were sold to Boeing in December 1996. Initially called Boeing North American, these groups were integrated with Boeing’s Defense division. Rocketdyne was eventually sold by Boeing to UTC Pratt & Whitney in 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Aviation

We have a current FAA Production Certificate and all the original North American data and tools. (according to Alan Harris a representative for Saberliner.)

http://www.aerofiles.com/noram-co.html

I thought the US restriction on proprietery secrets with vintage types has been quashed by the Greg Herrick – Fairchild 45 drawings legal case

http://www.lightaircraftassociation.co.uk/2012/News/us_records.html

“The new law invalidates the trade secret claim for aircraft from that era”

Russell, do you still have that 3D40?:)

With reference to this old thread – was recently foiled in my attempts to get blade data from Hamilton Sunstrand (ex Hamilton Standard) and also one of their former licence holders in Europe for a blade type from 1935, and not used on anything since 1947

The offiicial reasons? Proprietry and confidential design data (US) – and a military secret (Sweden).

Prop Hubs are not hard to find I have one here and a set of Blades

🙂

Prop Hubs are not hard to find I have one here and a set of Blades

Also have a Hamilton Std 3-D-40 with 6601-18 blades hub is zero time brand new, blades are O/H as new although this will not fit a Spitfire it will fit a lot of lesser HP warbirds

The Boeing issue is about trademark law rather than copyright, as I’ve understood it.

I’ve heard of issues concerning P51 stuff & Boeing who now hold the intellectual rights to NAA through Rockwell or somesuch BS, but I can’t tell you what the issues are.

Further to the ‘Data Plate’ question. The drawings for the Spitfire formerly held by Vickers Supermarine, are now more than seventy years old and thus out of copyright.

What’s copyright got to do with it?

AFAIK the protection of the intellectual property of a company hasn’t ever been at issue (and certainly not for a long-gone one) but the issues over product liability are another thing entirely, and are an issue – or not – on a national legislation / registration case-by-case basis.

I’ve heard of cases of needing permission to use drawings, and costs based around drawing repro & research, but never licensing for use of the IP. Anyone know different?

Are there any mechanical bits that you just can’t get anymore, or has every major assembly been remanufactured by now too?

ie throttle box, chassis control, undercarriage legs, pintels, cylinders.

What about prop hubs, are these still hens teeth?

Anything can be built given the $$$ & access to spiffy toys like 5 axis milling machines etc Undercart legs & pintles etc would be a piece of cake. 😉 You need some serious wedge to throw down $500K on a mill though

Isn’t FlugWerk doing just that at the moment with the Palomino?

cees

I may be wrong but I think that to build an aircraft from scratch, you must hold the type certificate for that particular aircraft, or you must be licensed by the type certificate holder. That’s the only way that you will be able to build a ‘new’ Spitfire.

With a restoration, the aircraft already exists, but needs repairing. So as long as one pile of metal with dataplate goes into the hangar and an airplane comes out with the same dataplate on it, you’re legal.

In the US you do get new build warbirds sometimes but they get around this by registering this as a –insert name of person who restored it– P-51 Mustang in the experimental category. Basically you’ve then created a one-off home-built aircraft that happens to looks suspiciously like a Mustang.

If they were available, could some of the extict or rarer mark’s be rebuilt? Mk VI, VII, or X for example?

Definately.

Would this have classed as a dataplate restoration?

MH

Definately not!

Spitfire RM689 restoration has recently been put on hold, does anyone know how much this has cost so far? Or how much it would cost to finish off?

Would this have classed as a dataplate restoration?

MH