Robbing peter to pay paul…….

Picking up from what Malcolm has said, Roman numerals were also used in the construction of timber barns, again easy to mark with a chisel; one would have thought that the same joint recognition system would have been used in shipbuilding, and as much of the terminology from that industry was carried over to the A/C manufacture, perhaps its was just a hangover from days gone by.

I wasn’t “laid down” as a transportable display airframe, it was originally built to be as exact a recreation of that made by Supermarine; don’t get too hung up about how the wings fix on, or their composition or whether there is an engine or not, (it was always intended for it to have an engine), indeed the owner has an engine, and that could be retro fitted.

Think more along the lines that over a 28 year build priorities change, I believe that at one point it was going on display in a museum, and the builder had the original wing booms to complete the wings correctly but time passes and things change.

If you subscribe to the view that it is a replica unless it was made by Supermarine, then you must take the same view of all those flying A/C that have either been extensively rebuilt or else come back from the dead.

The sensitivity issue is down to the mockups, lash ups, and FSM’s which are all referred to as replicas, even though technically they aren’t replicas at all, at best the better ones are facimiles, a true replica would be exact in every detail; blame the press they can’t tell a jet from a glider!

If you hadn’t seen the A/C disassembled and know that “the real aeroplane” is still extant in Italy, how would you know it wasn’t real ; on a recent film set the lead actor (yes I know not a bona fide expert) was asked to pick the “replica” out from the “real ones” to the great annoyance of the owner he picked a flyer as the replica!

“A toy aeroplane is something you wind up and it rolls along the floor; a model aeroplane is completely different”.

Beermat, when you say main spar do you mean the wing or the firewall section? this reproduction has original stub spars (carry through spars) and rear spar attachments, so you could remove the short wings (out as far as rib 5) and replace with full length wings, or indeed folding wings; I think terry realised (somewhere around year 24) that if compromises in the wing design were not made, he would never finish it!

Edit, just to add that whilst no one can see the structure buried in the wings, that is also true of the fuselage which is accurate, and even the elevators and the rudder are connected with the correct wires etc; my understanding is the wings just needed to be finished for sanity’s sake!

Lets be fair they are all reproductions, the devil is in the detail, and bank balance.

Yes unfortunately it’s Terry Arlows Spitfire replica;it probably has more genuine supermarine parts than most of the “real ones” that is a terrible shame.

Yes the woods are full of ww2 era tyres, but also Hanningfield metals had no disposal policy for tyres, some found themselves the other side of the fence; completely by accident of course!

They could make reporting the sellers easier; when I joined in 2003 it felt much more like you were part of something mainly honourable, not now though and not for sometime.

The one that got away.