Without stretching the religious analagy too far, I suspect this would be considered a ‘heretical opinion’ by many involved in restoration! I thought that keeping as much originality in the aircraft (or any item under resoration) is of vital importance, otherwise you might as well just go for a straight forward new build copy of an original?

DS

I did mention that only relics, that could never become part of a restoration, should be used for backengineering.

I’m all for restoration, but when there no longer are parts of restoration quality, we should be looking at the options.

Given the number and quality of surviving Stirling parts, it does not look like a restoration will ever be completed, and certainly never a flying Stirling

Besides, they will not nessesarily be damaged and they will not be destroyed completely in the backengineering process.

Given the chance of having a number of undisplayable relics, or having technical insight in the Stirling (which could become the basis of a recreation), I would choose the latter.

Parts of restoration quality should naturally be used in the recreation.

Question:

Would people prefer authentic Stirling parts (wreck parts and relics, most of which is in storage), to a airworthy recreation (100% backengineered, perhaps even destroying some original parts)?

I think you need to look at those parts the RAFM hold as what they are – relics – if you ‘restore’ them, there will be nothing left of the original part, apart from an odd bracket or fishplate here or there.

Their value for the future is to provide detail of how the Stirling was built, and to enable a reproduction to be made using those parts as reference.

My belief is that the value of unique parts such as this lies in keeping them as they are.

Bruce

Surely everybody is talking about using them for a recreation and not restoring them for flight.

At this stage it must be admitted that no wartime Stirling will ever fly again, so its now a question of recreating one from data gathered from the relics. That means a complete replica, flying or not.

As I understand it, there are no original and complete drawings sets left. Does that mean no original drawings at all?

Does the Stirling project have an estimate regarding what needs to be “found” before there is a chance (however fantastic) to recreate a Stirling?

Would any of the Stirling experts dare to guess on the percentage of Stirling wreckage?

In other words, how much exists in various collections, in case somebody wanted to reverse engineer a full Stirling – how much would there be?

Do we know that the Egyptian Stirlings were “buldozed into the ground” and not melted down?

Has the Egyptian authorities been approached regarding such a dig and is the location known?

As Cees write above, any substantial section would be of great value to the restoration/recreation process.

Does anyone know if Russian archives have been searched for drawings and other information, that is no longer available in Europe?

If the soviets operated a Stirling for some time, its not unlikely that they would have produced (or recived along with the Stirling) drawings and other maintenance papers. Perhaps they would even have begun to reverse engineer the aircraft.

I’m aware the Stirling would have been considered obsolete by the time the Soviets actually got one, but the request could have been made years before they finally got a Stirling. Likewise could the reverse engineering request could have been made while the aircraft still was considered worth it and just never canceled.

Surely they must at least have operational records, pictures, pilot reports and other kinds of “memorabilia” usefull to Stirling historians.

Oh the curse of the “previously unknown large-scale underground air raid shelter”…….where to hide?

Looks very nice 12jaguar (sounds like a name of a mayan king).

Its a huge task, but even getting as far as the picture is quite an achievement. I could sit there all day going “brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…”

With over 500 lost in action, there is always a chance a significant relic will be located. I’m pretty sure all war survivors were scrapped (unfortunatly).

I have no Stirling books, but wikipedia has the number of lost Stirlings at 582. How many of these have been accounted for?

Is there a chance of finding something worthwhile?

I know there are quite a few in the north sea, but they are most likely completely gone by now. Could there be a chance in Norway, or somewhere in the alps?

Did some get stuck in russia at some stage?
I seem to remember reading about an operation, where the aircraft landing in russia were unable to leave. The mission was canceled. Maybe it wasn’t Stirlings…

How did the Canadians fare with them, any aircraft lost somewhere in the wilderness?