LOL, nah she’s not in need of a major rebuild yet, I think that I’d be in need of one before her as I’m the ‘old man’ seeing as she’s urrrrmmmm a ‘few’ years younger than me 😉 Saying that, my ‘plane’ Mrs does still need quite a bit of work though.
Cheers folks, sorry I’ve not been able to reply earlier but the Mrs takes precedence 😉 The old girl was getting a bit ‘long in the tooth’ and was in need of a major rebuild, the tailplane was rebuilt a couple of years back which leaves the rest of the airframe to do although the Port wing is finished apart from armament and the Stbd is nearly finished as you can see in the pics. The trouble is with spits is that when manufactured they were assembled using Magnesium rivets which go very brittle in time, though admittedly they weren’t exactly expected to last years what with dodging bullets/ropey pilots etc, All of the structure therefore had to come apart and be restored and riveted up using an Aluminium spec rivet which will last for years given the airframe is not overstressed. She’s done well to last this long really given the service she did at OTUs and postwar, even MH434 didn’t last this long before a total restoration and that is a younger airframe. Victor Gauntlett doesn’t own the aircraft now, it’s owned by Sheringham Avaition who also own C-47 N1944A which resides at Kemble. In the end I’d love to see her in the stripy cowled finish but that decision will be up to the owner, I just hope we can indeed fit a Dh prop to make her into a ‘proper’ MKI.
Ralph was based at Ludham but moved out a few years back and unfortunately for us enthusiasts and probably fortunately for him he’s not around at the weekend. The Sea Fury is stored with him at present and I’m planning to take a trip back to the folk’s soon and go and take a few panels off it to try and resolve some troubles I’ve come across whilst rebuilding the Tempest’s sternpost, aircraft don’t respond well to being dragged backwards whilst sitting on their bellies!
Kermit is the owner of 976 and has been for quite a few years now, there is a shipping container full of parts from this a/c at his Polk City site and other parts dotted around both this and other sites. I don’t know how ‘Aeroventure’ have secured the tail section for display but it is possible I suppose that he has loaned it to them.
But….as with the EAA’s XP-51, unless you re-skin the aircraft, losing airframe history in the process, the only way to get a reasonable finish is to paint it as, if the skins are scratched, there’s not much else you can do unfortunately. As mentioned in previous posts the IWM were in such a rush to get it into the AAM, that it didn’t get much attention lavished on it, hence the general ‘tatty’ appearance. The Mustang in there is in the same predicament though, painted and not natural metal.
Well there are mixtures of rivet types in all the types I’ve worked on. Spits have mostly 100 degree heads but there are lots of snap head rivets on the rear fuselage (harking back to the split-pea scenario) and if any repairs were made during the a/c’s service it might have been repaired using 120 deg rivets as the holes can get ‘enlarged’ somewhat. As for the Tempest the skins are usually fitted with 120 deg head rivets, with the rest of the airframe having a mixture of 100 and 120s, believe me it can be a REAL pain in the proverbial! I haven’t worked on a Hurri so I hope our friend Mr YAK11FAN will help us out with that 😉 Hope this helps.
“When i was at Kermits place the engineer giving us the tour said that it will be completed then shipped straight to the states for testing, he was pretty certain that due to the complexity of the engine it won’t be flown over here.”
Well Alexis you’re right about the engine, there’s nobody who could rebuild a Sabre to ‘reliable’ status at present though the rest of the airframe is being rebuilt to airworthy spec and Kermit hopes that she will be able to do ground runs once finished. It is a complex aircraft and an even more complex and rare engine which you struggle to get parts for and know how for rebuilding a Sabre is getting thin on the ground. I don’t know if he will ship her straight off to the States, there was talk about the possibility of taking her to shows for ground/taxi runs and I for one would love to see it happen. Kermit has been very good in the past by getting his a/c certified and test flown over here so lets hope eh.
…well he was perched on the CAA(ish) side of things rather than the warbird side. Can’t wait myself, ever since seeing the pics of the first engine runs they did at Manching I’ve been hoping upon hopes that the CAA would relent and let one into the UK, maybe we will have one on the flightline for Legends this year 🙂
We were asked to bring our C-47 (N1944A) to last year’s Legends but the pilot wasn’t able to make it unfortunately. There were also hopes of dropping some enthusiastic parachutists (Red Beret lookalikes) but the insurance was unbelieveably expensive as it wouldn’t normally be covered if one of the lads got hooked around the tail, though I’d love to see them jump at Legends, would be a bit different from the norm, if not Duxford maybe Arnhem eh?
Unfortunately it sounds like the Lavochkin won’t be over too soon, so I hear it’s ownership is now a joint Garth Hogan/Ray Hannah affair and they want it for show work ‘over there’. As for ‘fewer Spitfires and more mustangs’ no bloody thanks, if they were early Mustangs maybe but with D model after D model it gets a tad boring after the first four! and PLEASE no Breitling fighters, I’ve seen enough loops to last me a lifetime and I’m not the only one who feels this way, these planes are not made to loop, they are made to go fast in a straight line and downhill, I’d much prefer to see them doing run ins from the sides. The BBMF have got lots of experience on the display circuit and you don’t see them doing damned loops all over the shop. I too would love to see either Polikarpov type, they kick the proverbial behind 😉 On the subject of the Flug Werke 190s they are banned from flying at UK shows because the CAA won’t certify them. I’d say another a/c from the Friedkin collection will travel across the pond if history does repeat itself.
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