Already done old boy, (underground map indeed!) guess what I’ve been doing whilst you were in a nice warm pub (easy, nothing crude now)

The mini was a brilliant little car, and no you didn’t need to drop the engine to change the gearbox oil, as it was designed to compete with the motor bike and side car, the best description for the engine/gearbox arrangement was “unit” i.e the engine oil was the gearbox oil. Whilst the oil needed to be changed more regularily than a seperate arrangement, the gearboxes were bullet proof with the exception of the drop gear, which due to being helical had a tendancy to force its way out of the casing when the engines were extensively modified (the cure was straight cut gears). I personally never had one cut out in the rain ,but by virtue of the fact that the distributor was located at the front it needed waterproofing when fording. I did read somewhere that part of the Swifts problem was due to an un-named subcontractor making a tiny modification to the fan blades of the Avons subsequently fitted to the Swifts.

Thanks Ben, I think your post brings this discussion almost full circle ,initially I was a bit concerned that without the facts all being present the seller on ebay may have been treated harshly, from what nick was saying I got the impression that the permit holder was the owner regardless of whether it was on private property or not. He (Nick) obviously knows his stuff , the point I was trying to make was that the landowner has the final say as to whether said remains are recovered or not and as such he is entitled to apply for the permit for himself, and can dispose of the items (after declaring them and having them gifted back) to who he wishes(if that doesn’t make him the closest thing to the owner ,I don’t know what does) As to whether the seller of the aforementioned item is the legal owner, will not depend on what the FAA say ,so much as the individual who was gifted the items (he may be a member of the FAA ,that is what we all want to know) I’m with you on the sale of dig recovered items, but as you say if we use any of them in our projects we will probably have to part with cash , unless we are very lucky . (by the way there is an instrument or two in 599 that was crash recovered).

What I meant was that in this day and age many spits are running a XX series ; the BBMF’s mkIX, the Grace spit, (MH434 used to have one installed) there are probably others; the advantage is the huge amount of spares ,some of which are new, I believe that the XX series has the same prop reduction ratio as the early 60 series although whether that makes a huge difference I don’t know.

I cannot see a legal issue with this, it probably can’t be proven that the engine was dug intentionally, and it hasn’t been removed from the land where found and as long as it stays there the farmer /landowner is within his rights; in law he may well be seen as the custodian whether it is buried or not .The only definition of land I ever found was in a legal book some years ago and it was ;”from the center of the earth ,to the stars above”. If you dug up a coin in your garden that was clearly not considered “treasure trove” then you would consider it your property ,it might be worthless (relatively) but if it were “coin of the realm” is it not still owned by the bank of England? On another tack what about the German wrecks? the MOD don’t own them ,the original purchaser, (the third reich) no longer exists.

Nick, I tend to agree with you r.e the sale of crash recovered artifacts, although you have to take the view that in this day and age, most of the “do-able” digs have been dug and yet there is a greater interest in these things ,now than at any time ,so it is only natural that many people (including myself) still want to “own” a piece of history, and, how else might that be achieved? I do however draw the line with people that try to get big money for dig recovered stuff ,often suggesting that the small pile of corrosion is an actual A/C. I would however take issue with you r.e landowners rights ;there is no way you can dig on private land without the owners permission, and as such any permit granted would be worthless without it. Possession is still 9/10’s of the law in the UK and as a landowner I take a dim view of “metal detectors” and the like nosing around,digging little holes and not filling them in etc. I used to own some land that had the rermains of (I believe) a HE111 the main recovery of which was made before my ownership by (amongst others) Thameside Aviation. I have it on good authority (a reliable eye witness) that at least 1 engine was removed but no one that I spoke too was responsible (apparently). Really my concern was that you didn’t stir up a hornets nest as things are never what they seem.

Just to wade into this debate myself, I have purchased items from this seller and can confirm that he knows what he’s talking about, (I believe he is a former employee of one of the UK’s formost restoration workshops) in fact he’s probably a member of this forum ; although that last statement probably contradicts the first !! and yes Rocketeer’s project will take him a “squillion years” but he’s only young (and it keeps him away from the spitfire bits!!).

I know that up until recently (still?) the swift at Newark was out in the cold ,it wasn’t earmarked with one of those “I’m going inside” tags like other A/C on site were; I don’t know where the one at Southampton is kept but the Scimitar was outside last I looked, I think that we all accept that it rains about the same in the three areas that these A/C are kept. I wouldn’t hold your breath r.e its restoration , when I was there last year looking at the S6 ,and asked why the engine cowlings were lying on the floor under another A/C ,I was told that there wasn’t anybody with the necessary skills to fit them!. When I said in a previous post that the owner wasn’t interested in money ,I should have quantified that statement- they are not interested in a fair price ,but are probably hoping to make up the shortfall on the Spitfire with the swift. Alas for all (including the swift) these types will never attract huge sums of money, and so the best that can be hoped for is that someone makes the “right” offer for it (whatever that is). I should point out that I was in negotiation with the previous owner of southampton’s f7 ,some of you may remember that originally he was after £250k! for it in bits! , although subsequently was prepared to accept £200k less than that (and then a bit!) its very probable that the owners of 272 heard about the first figure for the f7 and thought ” ker-ching!!”