Restore or conserve?

Always a difficult call as to whether to restore or conserve an item. However, with an item as complex as an airframe, in the long term the answer can only be restore.

Even if dismantled down to its major airframe section components without any un-necessary drilling of rivets or disassembly, there will still remain hundreds of inaccessible locations where the insidious effects of corrosion will continue to develop un-checked. Without correct disassembly this aeroplane, along with “Swamp Ghost” and many others, will simply corrode away from within to the point that the precious original material which could have been saved and preserved if the job were done correctly to begin with, will in a number of years have decayed to a point whereby replacement will be essential.

There is a great deal of naivety on the long term effects of corrosion and decay on an airframe. Simply ignoring its presence will not cure the situation. There has to be positive and deep-reaching activity to halt the decay (to whatever extent that is ever possible), and that cannot be achieved without proper disassembly and corrosion control. To believe otherwise and opting for the (initially at least) easy option is simply burying ones head in the sand.

We need a similar trestle suitable for a Hunter or similar, so, if anyone knows of any please let me know.

Thanks

For a couple of restoration projects……..

Any T-6 or Harvard parts. Particularly centre section, main and tail undercarriage, windscreen and decking, fin, horizontals and elevators, ailerons and flaps. Anything is of interest however, particularly if in the UK/Europe.

Type J landing lamp (5C/1515 I think), any Gipsy Queen parts, de Havilland two blade bracket propeller seals. American style magneto switches. American style air filter this type http://www.ebay.com/itm/vintage-aircraft-air-filter-skinner-purifiers-inc-p-n-647984-/360723345924?pt=Motors_Aviation_Parts_Gear&hash=item53fcc97204&vxp=mtr

Also de Havilland Dove or Heron fuel filter, hydraulic pump and hydraulic filter.

I think that’s it for now.

Wimpy

Hi Barry, great posting, and there are no insurmountable reasons why not given sufficient cubic £. The tooling to produce the geodetic structure was put in place by the Brooklands museum to rebuild R for Robert, and indeed Brooklands holds a substantial spare fuselage section which would be a great basis for a project. Wings, albeit rough exist at East Kirkby, and the remains of a tail section were at a location in Gloucestershire, although sadly outside. A large amount of the system components needed will be fairly generic stuff still available in varying quantities if you look in the right places, and I have no doubt that a great deal of the more type specific parts are still out there to be found, and no small amount of which will be held by various members of this forum!

Regarding the CAA, providing you have the funding, technical support in regard of literature and engineering data and a good chunk of airframe from which to make a start, like any commercial organisation CAA will be happy to be recipients of the extra fee revenue. And despite what you’ll see elsewhere, they’re actually a pretty good bunch of folks if you treat them with respect and civility.

So, in short, given the right support and infrastructure there is no reason it couldn’t be done, and I for one would be delighted to see someone give it a go. Long overdue. The biggest stumbling block will be the politics involved in gathering all the required parts together in the first place, but if those with the parts have enough vision, why not?

Following on from Redhillwings earlier post regarding switches, does anyone have a supply of the switch safety covers used on the wartime types? We need a handful for a couple of Harvard projects.

Thanks

Companies

David,

I am perfectly well aware of the statutory financial reporting obligations of companies within the UK. The reason that these details are made available is quite well established within business law, and is done so in order to assist other legitimate businesses in assessing the viability of mutual business transactions and investments. Conversely, the business plans and objectives of a company are not public domain information for quite obvious reasons. What I find ironic is that you consider it fine to discuss on a public internet forum what is still another person’s private business, when you would no doubt, and quite rightly so (and no-one should ever argue otherwise), be the first person to call for action if your private business was discussed and questioned in public in such a manner. I simply find myself somewhat amused by the double standard of this position.