Wreck Vs Restoration

wreck Vs Restoration

Of Course! I would take it apart and use the bulkheads as templates to make the tooling to make new ones and then I would have the tooling to make further repair parts for future restorations. I never throw anything away that could be used as a template! It sure is alot easier that making from a blueprint alone! I am just tired of guys the would let wrecks rot as some kind of shrine that really doesn’t mean anything. I’m soory but if the part can be used I’m going to take it.

So if you had one of Joe Foss’s machines for example you would discard all of the original bits if necessary to get it airborne?
Surely if you have those ideas it would be better to use one
as a pattern and build another?

wreck Vs Restoration

I would rebuild an old wreck and replace anything to get it flying. Regardless of the precived historic value

Originally posted by SteveYoung
The provenance issue is something that we’ve all got views on, and can all argue about until the cows come home.

If an old Bomber Command veteran can be reduced to tears at the sight of the Elvington Halifax, and the rekindling of all those memories… well who the hell am I to say that it lacks provenance?

Well said Steve. No one can argue with that.

Willow:)

The provenance issue is something that we’ve all got views on, and can all argue about until the cows come home.

Mark 12’s right about the importance of provenance to a prospective buyer and the impact a perceived lack of originality can have on the price.

But lets face it, restorers, owners and operators are just a very small (albeit essential!) slice of the general population, most of whom aren’t really fussed about whether an aeroplane’s identity is correct – in fact many wouldn’t even know the aircraft HAS an identity. Surely in this case, it’s more relevant for the aeroplane to be representative of a type, of a time, of a period in history. Something that the public can look at, hear, touch, and go Ooh and Aah to.

So the Hendon Halifax lies battered and broken, and the Elvington Hali-stings / Hasti-fax is a bitsa. The BBMF Hurricane is a substantial re-build using an existing heavily damaged airframe. As will be Jim Pearce’s FW-189. TFC’s Beaufighter has bits from all over the world, old and new. But every single one of these aeroplanes means something to those who see them.

Sorry if I’ve rambled a bit, but one final thought – If an old Bomber Command veteran can be reduced to tears at the sight of the Elvington Halifax, and the rekindling of all those memories… well who the hell am I to say that it lacks provenance?

We can all draw a personal line on this – originality, provenance etc and those lines will move as time rolls by. If we start saying these aircraft are replicas, lesser machines or something similar we run the risk of deterring extremely wealthy people investing the thick end of a £1m in what a few years ago was considered just a bunch of junk.
If these restorations, or re-constructions as I like to call them, have a proven provenance thread and are built with full visibility, the market place will determine whether an aircraft that is 95% original material is worth more or is more desirable than one built with 5%.
The law declared, if I recall this correctly, on the case of ‘Old Bentley Number One’ if there was continuos history you could change everying over the course of time and still call it the original. So perhaps in law ‘Trigger’s Broom’ does prevail.

Sorry Bruce, I stand corrected. (Should have asked you in the first place, lol)

I still think that if you start out with a section of airframe such as a cockpit, then these parts can be reused in an airworthy restoration, and you can call it that airframe.

I think it’s fair to say that a lot of aircraft that have apparently started out with minimal amounts of original material from the original aircraft have large amounts of WWII material in them. For example undercarriage forgings, fittings, systems, electronics…

The ‘debate’ above leads me to an interesting point, on a slighlty different tack.

LF363 was clearly rebuild to modern warbird standard, ie very, very good, and using as many original parts as possible. I assume it was rebuilt to a standard that would allow it to get a British Civil ticket from the CAA in the future, if required.

How does this standard compare to the other aircraft in the BBMF fleet?

I know that servicing and repaints have recently been done privately, and to the same high standards, but I remember seeing a BBMF aeroplane (I’m not saying which) on maintenance at Coningsby a few years ago, and thinking that I had never seen a ‘civil’ warbird that appeared to be in such a poor state under the covers.
Note I have said ‘appeared to be’. I am not an aircraft engineer, although I have been involved in static restoration work and have some appreciation of what’s right and what’s not.

Are the BBMF aeroplanes still maintined in exactly the same way that thay would have been when built?

If so, how does that compare with the maintenance of a privately operated warbird?

Willow

Morning Bruce

Are you around at teh museum this weekend, we were thinking of a trip up. How is the Vampire going.

James

Steady on chaps

A very great deal of LF363 was used again!

We used all the fuselage main brackets, eight of the fuselage tubes (doesnt sound many!!), the rear centre section spar, The section of wing up to the gun bays on both sides, a lot of the trailing edge from the centre section, quite a bit of the fin, rudder and elevators, and all of the systems, clips, brackets and so on. Oh and the entire undercarriage!!

So yes, a good deal of the structure was replaced, but it can be compared very favourably to RM689 – a complete aircraft was wheeled in, and a complete aircraft wheeled out. There is clear lineage here.

Bruce

Blimey!Didn’t expect this one to go to three pages. I’m not sure I understand the debate which is going on at the moment. It seems to me that David’s point is based around the continuity of an airframe’s existance,the idea being that even if there is nothing of the original machine in 50 years’ time,then at least some of the older parts were at one time attached to the original and so are a link to the aircraft’s beginning.Correct?:confused:
If I’ve got this the right way round,then I would have to lean towards David’s point of view.I do feel there’s a difference between a machine which has appeared out of thin air with a supposedly original ID than an existing machine which has gone in for overhaul or repair and come out with a substantial amount of new parts.
This thread has actually strayed a fair distance from what I original intended.My original post was about the pro’s and cons of displaying wrecked aircraft or restoring them,so was really directed more at museum exhibits than airworthy machines. Interesting the way our posts always seem to meander from the original topic!

Eddie – i would check on that.

From what I’ve been told the usable percentage of LF363 was practically nil.

So… I would say that if you rebuild a plane from a cockpit area you’ve probably got just as much if not more of the original airframe than LF363 has.

How can that then be less genuine than LF363?

Eddie – Hurricane LF363 was 99 % complete when she was sent to HFL. The rebuild was of her using whatever they could.
Is the rebuild of a firewall and cockpit area the same or different? How much of that area was actually used?

Originally posted by David Burke
Regards PT462 – what came back to the U.K is far removed from the view taken at the Kibutz . I don’t actually think the serial lineage means very much . After all it’s incredibly easy to transfer a plate to any substancial firewall remains and have an instant
‘aircraft’ . The RR Spitfire I am sure will incorporate a large number of her original parts but having also seen what they are starting from I feel that realistically they are doing the same that
was done to the BBMF Hurricane LF363 .

Uh-oh David. Didn’t you say that the “I don’t actually think the serial lineage means very much.” and then use LF363 as an example?

And… then didn’t you say that LF363 was clearly a rebuild?

Isn’t there a bit of a contradiction there?

Yak – I have no problem with that at all. The problem exists with some projects were the machine was quite clearly totally destroyed during it’s service career and then ‘reappears’.
Data plate restorations are exactly that and they do happen – mainly in the U.S .

Tom – why do I need to do that ? Can you not work it out for yourself?

Tom – British warbird rebuilds are by far the best in the world,
‘shoddy’ isn’t a term that comes into this. We are talking about
the origins of a machine rather than what it’s made of .
Any rebuild to fly must use traceable materials and spares that comform to the original build. My point is clear and precise –
the TFC Hurricane has a clear and traceable provenance. We know that she is that machine extensively rebuilt to the highest
standards. The machines that are the worry are the ones that ‘appear’ with little or no provenance .

I know it’s late, but I can’t see the difference between something which was damaged in the 1990’s and rebuilt and something which was damaged in the 1940’s and has been stored since and then rebuilt, both machines existed, both machines would have suffered extensive damage and most likely had the same amount of work go into them. Just because one has been in hiding for 50 years doesn’t make it any less genuine.

I think you need to name some names and tell us all which restorations flying in the UK are ‘new build’