In the book Spitfire At War vol 2 (Alfred Price) theres a reproduction of a statement of accounts from 1936 for the Spitfire project that shows approx £15000 spent to get the prototype in to the air.. the same document shows a ‘contract price’ (presumably for the production versions) of approx £11930..
a fair amount of money at the time if you consider that Jeffrey Quill as assistant chief test pilot, which mustve been a reasonably paid job, was being paid £500 per annum.. dont belive that this price included weapons, radios etc.. 😮 bit like a BMW today then ! 😀
.. a Lancaster is listed in another book (Lancaster Story Peter Jacobs) as ‘costing’ (again unclear if this is cost rather than sale price) £60,000 again plus the cost of weapons, radar and any other specialist equip…

Neil

That neatly brings me to ask what the BBMF Lancaster is worth in todays money, priceless to our Country I know, but what sort of figure would it be insured for?.

at a guess as its still on the books as an RAF ‘asset’ (current MOD-speak for aeroplane!) its just covered by the MOD blanket 3rd party liability insurance? I could be wrong of course..

ref the aeroplane at the top of the thread, wonder how it got there? did they dismantle a servicable a/c and move it, was it a ‘broken’ one? interested to know what the story was..

Neil.

Spitfire… hopefully thats the engine waiting to go in.. ?

yeah but the D-Type had A FIN !! how cool was that! I love stuff like Lister-Jaguars (knobbly or otherwise), ‘birdcage’ Masserati, SLR Mercs, DB and DBR Aston Martins (and the ‘project’ cars yum) but single seater wise I’ve a soft spot for ERA’s and ‘The Silver Arrows’ and the early Coopers with the Norton engines.. Steve, I went to one of the Targa Florio re-runs a few years ago.. actually it must’ve been quite a few years ago as we travelled there on a BAC1-11 😮 what a great week that was! ah well I’ll remember this thread when I drive to work in my diesel Peugeot tomorrow! 😀
Neil.
ps.. coolest car ever.. Alfa Romeo Disco Volante..

look forward to any pictures.. I must venture up to that end of Lincs sometime..

Neil.

seem to remember that one of ‘the men in black’ that post here mentionned that the ‘major’ check (or whatever the RAF term for it is) was pushed back to next Winter, which is when the repaints normally happen..?

they seemed to be getting on with the winter servicing at CBY the other week after having their posh access staging delivered ! 😀

Neil.