@avion ancien – I recall there was a legal kerfuffle in US a couple of years ago with two P-51s “emerging” from the same wreck, thus being given the same serial number and having their respective owners arguing which one deserves to keep the number and “identity”.

You guys are more knowledgeable on this subject – does any of you know what came out of this mess in the end?

I didn’t notice anyone here saying that the aforementioned Spitfire is not a Spitfire or Fournier Boy’s Minor is not a Minor (from my perspective these two are very different cases anyway). I’d love to see either of them at the airshow myself. Nor did I read here anything even remotely suggesting Trumper doesn’t like watching warbirds fly, or he “disapproves” warbird movement. The problem arises when NH341 (and similar “warbirds”) is being advertised as a “WWII veteran” when even the dreaded stencil / dataplate is new. That’s what Trumper was getting at I assume, and his involvement, or lack thereof, in the restoration business is completely irrelevant here (so is Fournier Boy’s, actually). If I create a perfect copy of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, using modern, computerized techniques (very much doable nowadays), and add a little bit of original’s wooden backplate to it, damn, even perfectly recreate author’s signature (should I say “dataplate”? 😉 ) on it, that won’t quite make it THE Mona Lisa, will it? Even if the original gets destroyed in fire or lost somehow. I don’t have to be a painter or museum curator to say that.

I know that people who reconstruct these planes and people who spend 7-digit numbers buying them “know better” what’s exactly installed (or not) inside, but the “genuine WWII veteran” notes being written all over magazines, newspapers, airshow advertisement posters etc. somewhat do fall into the “deliberate misleading” category Bruce was writing above, at least in relation to ordinary folks attending the shows. That’s my point of view about it.

Not a native Eng. speaker myself, I’ve been noticing “hangers” for quite a while, thinking that maybe it’s one of these old, traditional, British ways of spelling things, like propeller vs. propellor (is “propellor” correct form then?), tire vs. tyre, maneuver vs. manoeuvre etc. Glad to see that’s not the case!

Even I’m becoming a grammar Nazi, despite being non-native speaker ;). Or maybe just because of that? It’s just more awkward to understand a written English sentence when someone uses the dreaded “they’re/their/there” incorrectly, because my in-head-translator gets more easily confused, trying to decipher correct form and meaning!

^ Now THAT’s interesting. The setting, the paintschemes. What’s the story behind it?

No, it is not truth. They were mostly built like every other plane, although the Sturmovik did feature lots of steel elements in the front and middle fuselage, serving as both armour and load bearing elements. Rest of the airframe, however, was typical mixed duraluminium and plywood construction. On the German side, Hs-129 also used lots of steel panels in front fuselage to protect the pilot, but the rest of the plane was conventional as well.

The only full steel designs were considered in Japan (and maybe in Germany?) in the final months of the war, but this was only caused by desperation and dramatic shortages of aluminium.

Reviving the classic warbird with turboprop engine for CAS duties was already tried with Cavalier Mustang III, but it turned out to be a flop. The Tucano and Tractor-based conversions You mentioned above seem to be more viable option anyway.

^ Very well put. Maybe it was just “a piece of metal” after the war, but it’s much more than that nowadays (that applies to any recovered/restored aircraft or vehicle), and obviously we’re not talking about money value here.

Same event, but quite a bit longer clip and MUCH better sound quality 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh1-tYoZgtU

Basically, I guess it’s safe to say that before introduction of direct fuel injection (Daimler Benz 601 and Jumo 211, bench tested first in 1935), injection-type carburettors (Bendix-Stromberg, 1944) and speed/density-type carburettors (SU, Rolls Royce, Bristol, somewhere during the war), all of these devices working WITHOUT any float chambers, there were no planes out there, capable of sustained inverted flight or negative G manoeuvres. Well, not until famous “Mrs Shilling’s orifice” was introduced as a stop-gap measure.

Therefore, although I’m not familiar with engine details of pre-war biplanes mentioned in initial post, I’d presume they were most likely positive-G-only machines indeed.