Proctor VH-AHYLSFM Museum aside
This has to be a major for museums generally in America, these hurricranes seem to becoming a feature of the gulf coast and tornados in the mid west.
I can’t help wondering what can be done in the longer term, sure you can build structures that will resist the sort of damage as occurred here – but at what cost.
I sincerely hope that the LSFM is able to recover and that its exhibits are able to be bought back to pre-hurricrane standard.
Proctor VH-AHYGreat looking wood work – worthwhile project and worthwhile training – would be nice to see it an entire aeroplane (or at least an entire fuselage)
Proctor VH-AHYWHY? Because it’s on prime land. Close to the CBD (never mind the fact the freeway can’t handle the traffic now, let alone in the future), exclusive (Essendon has always been ‘old money’) and a windfall that would enable all concerned to retire to the Gold Coast without any thought for the chaos and heartache they’ll leave behind. My favourite T-shirt has always been the one that says “DIE YUPPIE SCUM”. Most appropriate.
[ATTACH]165211[/ATTACH]
What makes you think we want any more Victorians up here in the Sunshine State (Queensland), The place is plagued with them already – No you are welcome to keep your own brethern down there.
As for Essendon – it would be a great shame if it went, however I feel that it is a bit like Archerfield up here in Brisbane, death by a thousand cuts. I think Archerfield may be ahead a bit on the historic values with similar WW2 connections.
It started when the Commonwealth Government started down the Corporatisation route for all of the airport infrastructure, country airfields were handed over from the formed Dept of Civil Aviation (DCA) to local government, government owned corporations were set up to run the bigger airports and secondary airports (only to be subsequently sold).
Up here in Queensland because of the rapid expansion of Brisbane caused by the interstate migration (mainly Victorians) airfields such as Caboolture which were on the edge of the city are under threat.
Its a very one sided battle to oppose the closure because you have to overcome the “growth is good” syndrome. Good luck – you will need it!
Proctor VH-AHYHere in Australia where the rebuilding of projects (ie old aeroplanes) is very active we are having similar problems. What projects are available? The answer is very few basket cases are available for a complete rebuild.
At the recent Festival of Flight at Watts Bridge a few of us were talking and we think new build of Gipsy Moths are the answer, all wood and very few, if any, metal castings. I was told the metal fittings were from flat metal and thus not too hard to fabricate.
What are others opinions and is there a market if some produced plans and a kit of the metal fittings?
Proctor VH-AHYShane was a loyal friend and a great mate – I once had him as a co-pilot in my Tiger Moth for a re-enactment flight for Qantas of the first mail run from Charlieville to Concurry (Queensland Australia) a distance of about 500 miles. We did it in formation with 4 other Tiger Moths over a number of days, one of the pilots of another Tiger Moth in the formation was Barry Hempel who was killed in an aviation accident the day before Shane’s death.
2 friends lost in 2 days – very hard to comprehend and very upsetting!
Shane’s love of Tiger Moths is something I will always remember – it was the aeroplane type he loved!
Proctor VH-AHYI would have thought that in practical terms, that is just a modification. Aeroplanes are modified for all sorts of reasons and the owners desire to have the aeroplane look different from its original configuration is one of them.
Proctor VH-AHYHello All
Been away for a week and went to the QVAG Watts Bridge ‘Festival of Flight’ – boy what a great fly-in over 100 aeroplanes in attendance, most vintage/warbirds. There was a Mustang doing joy flights for most of the weekend, so we had the background noise of a merlin, along with a couple of T28’s and Yak’s doing joy rides as well. Plenty of Tigers, Austers, and Cubs as well as many of the rarer types – went for a ride (and flew) in a Fleet biplane built in the 1930’s and was lined up to go for a ride in a Stinson Reliant built in 1935 – what a BIG aeroplane.
Spoke to a mate of mine who lives in New Zealand about this thread and he made the point that one way of determining the proverence of an aeroplane is that there can only be one aeroplane and it should be the one which contains the greatest amount of the original aeroplane.
Another point he made was that the former RNZAF Skyhawks only contained about 25% by weight of the original Shyhawks at the time they were retired. He made the point that operational aeroplanes are a work in progress as far as originality goes.
cheers
Proctor VH-AHYhow far does it need to fly?
Just out of interest, how far does the Vulcan need to fly to attend these airshows.
Here in Australia a short distance would likely be about 500nm
cheers
Proctor VH-AHYI want the important historic aircraft to be around for my great grandchildren’s generation. ,
That is a problem with large public collections, they collect so little and much of what they do hold is not on display and slowly deterorates.
I personally know over 150 owners of vintage/warbird/historic aircraft – these are privately owned. Most of these aeroplanes would have long dissapeared if not for these private owners.
Take my own example, My Tiger Moth (A17-300) had not flown from its days in the RAAF until I rebuilt it and put it back in the air in 1982. My Proctor hasn’t flown since 1962 and sometime in the distant future it will fly again after the rebuild is completed. Neither of these aeroplanes would have surrived if their future had depended on some public-owned instution.
The Proctor owned by the National Museum of Australia VH-FEP (Fred Edmunds Proctor) is it on display, it was rebuilt to flying condition involving several thousands of hours of work by Fred. I think that FEP may be a bit like my rebuild in that a lot of non-original material was introduced. How does that fit with a collection policy of public-owned national bodies.
The Moorabin Aircraft Museum has a Proctor (VH-AUC), it is a Mk.1 done up as a a Mk.5 that was once owned by the RAAF. Now a Mk.1 and a Mk.5 are very different aeroplanes structurally.
Off on leave for a week to work on my Proctor and get ready for the QVAG Festival of Flight at Watts Bridge airfield (in a week’s time). Hope to catch up with a couple of you there.
JDK – Have we met?? You seem to know a lot of Australian vintage aeroplane history that I do.
cheers
Proctor VH-AHY!
So is it unreasonable, in circumstances where financial loss might result from a misrepresentation of what a particular aircraft is, to require the person making that representation to be truthful and accurate? If not, then the case for an agreed definition is made.
Nameplate engineered := maybe that is the label that should be attached to aircraft that represent themselves to be a particular aircraft shown on the nameplate, but the airframe only contains an extremely small quantity of the original aircraft.
I prefer to leave the static museum side of things to those who get off on that sort of thing, I am more interested in flying museums where a significient percentage of the exhibits fly on a regular basis. Bits and pieces in support of that main objective are always welcome.
The Australian Flying Museum (of which I am a member) says it all in its moto: The preservation of Australia’s Historic Aircraft in Flying Condition.
Back to the main topic – it would appear that a rebuilt aircraft in flying condition is more valuable that a original static aircraft. That there is an inverse proporational relationship between dollars and the percentage of original material in the rebuilt aircraft.
The aircraft’s history counts and figures somewhere in the $ value however all history has a starting point.
cheers
Proctor VH-AHY[QUOTE=Eddie;1287531]Personally, if an aircraft is a modern recreation of the original, even down to the “nut and bolt” accuracy, I would call it a reproduction.
QUOTE]
Then you think if it, the original prototype of a particular type is the “original” all the others are reproductions of the original.
It really depends on how much of the original aeroplane is included in the rebuild. If you want to imagine who sat in the seat, held the control column, feet on the rudder pedals, used the throttle/mixture/pitch controls then you at least need those parts.
In my case I have that and a lot more besides I started with pretty much 100% of VH-AHY (Percival Proctor MK1 with RAF history) which was registered in the normal category. I end up with a Ross Stenhouse – Percival Proctor Mk1 able to be registered in the Experimental Category. It will look like a Proctor, handle like a Proctor, sound like a Proctor – Its a Proctor but ………..
Proctor VH-AHYI don’t know if that was directed at me, but I’m not that fussed about Spitfires per se, and I’m not a Pom; however the examples I used seemed apposite, and probably familiar to most forum readers.
No – not targeted any anybody, just the conversation seems to decend into discussion about SPITFIRES (great aeroplane) but there are so many other great aeroplanes to talk about as well in examples as you have done with the CAC Boomerang (Matt is a long term friend of mine by the way and someone who I admire greatly for his tenatacity in recreating the design of the wings)
When you talk CAC Boomerangs, there is an example based on a Harvard Fuselage and Boomerang Wings, Matt Flight tested his wings on that from memory, there is a genuine CAC boomerang metal tube frame with the plywood covering and a CAC Wirriway Centre section modified to Boomerang specs and the new wings around from memory – I think that is about as close to the real thing as you are likely to get today (remembering that a CAC Boomerang is a derivative of sorts of a CAC Wirriway.
The debate is very interesting and a lot of thought has gone into some of the answers. I am really enjoying reading the thread. Money always plays a part in a lot of things. Do the Poms have an Expermental Class to resort to – One that you could put a new built spitfire into. Obviously it can’t be a Supermarine Spitfire (breaking my rule here) as it wasn’t manfactured by Supermarine.
cheers
Ross
Proctor VH-AHYMore important than ANYTHING is…How long until we see the Proctor in it’s rightful element? All the best of luck mate!
Cheers, Matt
Unfortunately a long time. This is a total rebuild and I only work on it about 1 1/2 days a a fortnight – so progress is slow but has been steady this year. I am working around the forward part of the fuselage at the moment.
cheers
Ross
Proctor VH-AHYFor an aeroplane thats intended to actually carry on flying, these seem to be the two most important considerations – at least among the rebuilders I know.
JohnL
I think you can divide the postings on this thread into two categories :- rebuilders/pilots/owners and those more focused on the museum/historical flavour.
There is room in this world for both, I know I love both.
cheers
Proctor VH-AHYI would love to see a “new” Defiant. A “new” Hampden. But it is not going to happen when people won’t accept them as real.
Ask yourself what makes it real. Combat History? No… as then aircraft such as PA474 would not be real. Military Service? No… there are aircraft out there carrying military serials that never carried them in service. A manufacturers data plate? Maybe… but not all of them were built in the same place.
Think of shadow factory’s. Places that made cars, buses, furniture even, building things they never would have dreamed of, with another manufacturers name on it. They are no less real than those that came out of the designer’s factory.
Real for me, means built to the drawings. The proper engines. The proper size. rivet for rivet, as though it was an extension of production. It looks the same. It feels the same. Sounds the same. A serial number is just something someone, somewhere, assigned to that “Job” to keep track of it as an asset; nothing more.
Regards
Ric
As the original poster of this thread, I think I should set a rule: NO MORE POSTINGS ABOUT SPITFIRES!!!!!! You can feel your IQ drop when you read yet another posting about the spitfire.
You pommies have an obsession with them, as though it was the only decent aeroplane that you ever built! – get over it, strange as thought it may seem you have designed built more than a few more good aeroplanes as well!
Rick
I agree, I do have most of the construction drawings for Proctor Mk1/2/3 over a 1000 drawings and these are what I am working from. I do also have the complete remains of VH-AHY, so I have the best of both worlds, my aeroplane would pass OldSpitty’s test of more than 20% of the original airframe.
What is most important from my point of view is that I rebuild my proctor to airworthy standards as close to the original as possible (and that means getting rid of the civilian interior that most proctors that I have seen photos have). It will be using modern glues (K134) and covered with modern fabric (ceconite) and use modern dopes, and use american-sourced spruce from “Spruce and Speciality”
I want it safe to fly and I want it to last!
As an aside, static aeroplanes in a museum leave me cold, they are so dead. Better put a fibreglass replica in there and get the real thing out and breathing smoke and oil fumes and creating noise (even if only to taxi around). ALIVE is better than DEAD!!
cheers
Sign In
