Who builds the best aircraft?

The finest piece of aeronautical engineering from the second world war, was, in my considered opinion, the FW190. Streets ahead of anything we were building – though extremely complex!

Bruce

In todays times who builds the spitfire the best?

The mustang the best?

Not which was the best in the war……….

Are you asking who built better aeroplanes or who built their aeroplanes better?

The Brits versus Yanks is always a good debate when it comes to best aircraft.
Very generally speaking I think the British built the best quality and over engineered aircraft, but more often than not of limited or expensive appeal to customers, whereas the Americans seem to nail the requirement (civil or mil) on the head and build a product that is well suited to it, but the aircraft is built to a cost.

There are specialists in most fields, though at least one has left the stage recently…

For Spitfires, I think HFL are on about number fourteen – which gives them a lot of experience! For Hurricanes, there is no-one else but Hawker Restorations for the job.

I dont know the Mustang market well enough, but Mid West Restorations must be well up there.

However, ‘best’ is very subjective – as has been said, it depends what the customer requires.

The where could also be the factory as for example aircraft were built in many factories all over the country (and the world in some cases), so you could ask is a Castle Bromwich Spitfire better than one built in Southampton for example or if a British Built Hurricane is better than a Canadian one?

And would a Canadian factory build their Hurricanes differantly to the British one or would they make additions to the given design?

curlyboy

Now i don’t want this turning into a cat fight!

When it comes to detail and building who does the better job is it the british or the americans, aussies, germans, etc etc?

The p-51 is it built better in the states is the spitfire built better in england, if so what are the reasons.?

Who builds the better engines & why?

Looking at many pictures of a p-51 with the machine guns in the wings awsome picture for detail.!

Or are they all built exactly the same to the exact same standard, any extras are just that extras?

It all depends on what the customer wants and who he/she wants to do the job.