Spitfire TE184

Back to TE184,

It is true that it’s cockpit has some non-standard structure comparable to the rear cockpit of a Spit two-seater?
If this is the same aircraft I saw a cockpit photograph of, there were some triangular posts fitted between the fuselage walls and the frame the instrumentpanel fits onto.

Cees

This sort of rebuild/replica/restoration discussion has happened before in the world of historic motor racing. I believe it was the late Denis Jenkinson from Motor Sport magazine that took the trouble to locate all the Maserati 250F 1950’s Formula One cars on a particular weekend in the racing season. He realised something was adrift when he accounted for 42 cars when the “works” records show only 36 were built. I may have the exact numbers wrong but you see the point. If a Buchon is rebuilt with a DB 605 and is then “passed off” as a Bf109 then caveat emptor. Personally the sight of an airworthy airframe transcends any esoteric argument about the provenance of an airframe.

I went and looked up some details last night to get the picture straight in my head. Thought I might as well scan and post these:

Has anyone got a cockpit/instrument panel shot of 184 they could post please?

Well I could be misinterpreting what Mark 12 wrote about splicing / replacing frames, but in TE184’s case the upper section of the fuselage frames had been damaged due to a previous attempt at converting them to high back config, and the fact that the lower half’s were very badly corroded made it easier to replace the whole frame with new build high back items.

The aircraft was very badly corroded, as Mark 12 stated it had a hard life as a gate guard and latterly as an exhibit in the damp/salt laden air of the Ulster Folk Museum.

OK a word of explanation. The annular frames are two ‘C’ sections joined top or bottom. There are high back and low back frames. There are development differences between marks, but in simplistic terms below the midway datum longeron they are effectively the same. Thus if changing from low back to high back it could be achieved by cutting and splicing, with a butt strap, just the upper half of the individual ‘C’ frame. A quarter frame replacement if you like. As I said in my post if corroded or suspect a complete pair of high back frames will have been installed at each station.

I am pretty sure quarter frame replacement is a ‘Battle Damage’ unit user repair scheme

Mark

So basically she has an all-new back end??

Could you perhaps elaborate on that?

Well I could be misinterpreting what Mark 12 wrote about splicing / replacing frames, but in TE184’s case the upper section of the fuselage frames had been damaged due to a previous attempt at converting them to high back config, and the fact that the lower half’s were very badly corroded made it easier to replace the whole frame with new build high back items.

The aircraft was very badly corroded, as Mark 12 stated it had a hard life as a gate guard and latterly as an exhibit in the damp/salt laden air of the Ulster Folk Museum.

The prototype was…

If I remember correctly, the official rumour/suspicion was that the Kestrel engine which was shipped to Germany for the He70 ordered by Rolls-Royce (Heinkel didn’t want to sell the aircraft with its original engine and insisted that they should convert it to accept the Kestrel) was torn down in Germany, test-run extensively and also installed in several aircraft for testing purposes, including the prototype 109.

Obviously the He70’s delivery was delayed somewhat 😉

The high back conversion has been done well, and I am at a loss to know why no-one has bought it and campaigned it.

Just a thought, but perhaps the fact that TE184 doesn’t look like it’s wartime photos (did it have a war career?) anymore has ever so slightly ‘tainted’ it in the eyes of the prospective buyer. By converting it to a more ‘eye-pleasing’ variant it may have depreciated considerably in the eye of the buyer if he values the provenance of an airframe.

All except TE184!

Could you perhaps elaborate on that?

(I’ll be looking up my Spitfire books anyway tonight!)

The prototype was…

Sidetracking slightly (sorry), on the subject of 109’s / Buchon’s having Merlins, weren’t the VERY early 109’s Kestrel powered…?

And shortly after first flight and painting, 1991

I’m intrigued now…

All low back to high back conversions have involved replacing/splicing new quarter frames above the datum longeron or full half frames, if required, due to poor condition.

Frame 11, the station behind the pilot, requires substantial rework.

Mark

All except TE184!

Nearing the end of restoration, 1990.

Having had the chance to look at TE184 relatively recently, it is not a bad airframe at all. It is lower time than most of the relatively recent restorations on the show circuit, and although it is not quite up to the standard of the current rebuilds, it is a good, honest airframe. The high back conversion has been done well, and I am at a loss to know why no-one has bought it and campaigned it. Now, where were those lottery numbers……!

Bruce

Originality: You buy it, you choose.

You are a world class aviation museum, you have rules and guidelines.

Buchon. AFAIK, aft of the firewall, the 109G and the Buchon are essentially the same.

Being ~ah~ economical with the truth of the origins of the artifact is naughty. However, this is all too common practice in the commercial world of auctions, as against the non commercial world of museums. Different scope, different attitudes, different objectives, gets messy when the two overlap.

TE184…

… had had a particularly hard life as a Gate Guardian. Corrosion was so severe in the engine bearer, I was advised by the engineers at Henlow, working on the BoB film, not to stand directly under the prop/engine cowling….and they were not joking.

Mark

Archer – it was built by Hispano, in Spain, and was built to have a Merlin, or Hispano engine hung off it.

Allright, but I’m guessing that the drawings that they used to construct it were almost pure Messerschmidt, apart from the changes needed to fit the different engines. So does laying out the drawings in a factory in Spain instead of in Germany make it a different aircraft? For argument’s sake – let’s view the hypothetical case where Germany would’ve won the war but for some strange reason Daimler-Benz engine development would’ve been discontinued as the now available Merlin was much more reliable. Messerschmidt now sets up a production line of Me109G’s in Spain which produces Merlin engined aircraft. This would then have been called a Messerschmidt 109, but wing rib for wing rib, cylinder for cylinder it would be the same thing as what we now know as a Hispano Buchon. So what governs the name? Pure politics in this case since Germany lost!

Now I’m not argueing for an all-out ‘let’s convert all Buchons’ movement, I’m just playing advocate of the devil here and trying to give some perspective to this issue, stating that there’s more Messerschmidt in a Buchon than meets the eye at first glance.

My point of view is that when you can put the ‘109G-2’ that has just flown in Germany next to the original drawings for this subtype and find a significant percentage of structure and systems that completely conforms to the drawing, then I have no problems with calling it a Messerschmidt. You just cannot call it a restoration! It would be more like a rebuilt, or remanufactured aircraft (perhaps re-engineered would fit better). It is a bit like the TP-51C that was in the latest Flypast, is this a Mustang? Everyone seems to think so, even if there are probably very few original Mustang parts in its structure!

Tin hat on, awaiting incoming. :rolleyes:

All low back to high back conversions have involved replacing/splicing new quarter frames above the datum longeron or full half frames, if required, due to poor condition.

Frame 11, the station behind the pilot, requires substantial rework.

Mark