Hi Stuart,

I was told once that with one type of Bugatti car there are more around today than were actually built in the 20’s! Whats has allegedly happened is as parts were junked during restoration, other collectors have aquired them and based new restorations on the junked parts.

I also spoke with a Tigher Moth owner/restorer who had a full kit of parts, upon contacting the Moth Club in order to establish its identity he was informed that the fuselage’s id was already a flyer, and the wings belonged to an example which was approaching first flight.

Makes you think.

Steve.

Steve, another comparison is the manx Norton (motorbike) 490 were made 500 survive!! (figures not accurate but distorted out of all proportion to emphasize point) I have to put my hands up and say that on the subject of recycling Spitfire parts, I am as guilty as anyone; original parts will make up about 50% of my project ,some of which were removed from airworthy A/C, however not enough from anyone specific A/C to endanger the provenance (or undermine its owners claim that it is what the serial no. says it is.) I used to think that it was a crying shame that A/C were left in dusty museums when they could be out there flying, and giving enjoyment to all, but you have to take the view that with all the alterations and new build parts in flying A/c together, with the unfortunate accidents in recent years and the subsequent loss of A/C, that, perhaps the safest place is under all that dust !

Q: Do all the bits that all the resto shops junk when they ‘restore’ an aircraft go in the scrap bin or back on museum aircraft never likely to fly again? do they exchange the next best and recycle the fleet.?[/QUOTE]
I think that much of the airframe parts removed from restorations to fly are held onto by the respective restorers ,not quite sure what to do with them; some are kept as patterns, but I think in some cases to use the original stuff in a static would highlight just how little originality the “new” restorations actually have.

I took so long trying to spell peugeot that two people beat me to it!!

David, Just the instrument panel for the hornet or the rest of it as well ? Tony ,what planning !! seriously though, do you know anyone else with spitfire related “stuff” that might be forced ,sorry encouraged to display at cockpit fest; I did speak to Bill O sullivan a few weeks ago and he said he liked the idea of a spitfire related theme ,but conceded that cockpit wise ,it might be a bit thin ,but panels, seats, windscreen assy’s, controls etc there would be much more potential. What say you?

If lady Houston part funded the s6b then presumably the s6 was already in existance.. I was under the impression that the 1931 R series engine was the major recipient of the funding, which externally was similiar to the earlier one, but internally they changed from fork and blade con rods to master rod and link ;having never had an R series apart I am of course only quoting reference work on the subject, but I have worked on Merlins ,and they are fork and blade . The R series also I believe had epicyclic prop reduction which the Merlin did not (nor the production mk’s of the Griffons) ;my view is that there is no direct lineage between the R and the merlin ,as all of the Rolls-Royce engines at that time were 60′ v12’s with varying displacement. I think your correct in saying the Mitchell learnt more from the s4 ,as this apparently introduced the largely unknown phenomenon “wing flutter” on un braced wings. The only thing you could say about the s6b (regarding the spitfire) was it made Mitchell a household name (i.e 3 wins and you keep the trophy) and gave credibility to his radical design (type 300) ,without such credibility one might think that a designer of “seaplanes” might not be the best person to produce a fighter capable of competing with the bf 109.

My God Stuart, How could I have made a blue like that? Must have something to do with that amber liquid as I freely admit it was not my deliberate mistake to catch you out.

I’m sure most people noticed it but were too polite to mention it,which doesn’t say much for me does it! Still a good photo.

I’d be interested in seeing a pic of J Fawke’s “Spitfire” project ,for no other reason than to use as a bench mark for my much humbler offering.