we might even have to work for a living.

Steady on mate 😮

OK Morley – no hard feelings. 🙂

Well with respect Morley, if you do not know about these matters why make a statement as in your last post? By all means ask the question but uninformed statements like that do not help anyone. Sorry if I seem harsh but it needs to be said.

As it happens the CAA will permit a US registered warbird type to fly in the UK for three months before a Permit to Fly application is necessary in order for it to continue operating here.

Irregularity? The PR.XIX is incorrectly trestled.

Cor, I think WUK would have something to say about that. What do you not like about their trestling (which I suspect is still in progress)?

Welcome from me too,

If you are serious though you really should post a lot more information about the project, including location to at least county level. Volunteers need to be motivated but generally do not like travelling very long distances. If the project sounds enticing enough you will generate interest.

Good luck!

Sure Mark V, that’s kind of what I was trying to put across.

I think the bit you were leaving out is (relatively) cheap or volunteer labour as well?

No not really, although labour in this sector is comparitivley (unfairly so)cheap. I am reffering to an all professional re-build under the appropriate CAA authority but with the project owner managing the process but not actually ‘hands on’. This would be in contrast to say, shipping in the unrestored airframe/parts to a restoration shop and then waiting for the phone call to collect the finished aircraft!

If I sit and look at a freshly restored Spitfire, unemotionally in 2004, as an engineer and project manager in a parallel industry, I see £2m of engineering at sensible labour rates and a profit margin commensurate with the risk.

James – my understanding of what M12 was saying is that it ‘should’ cost £2m if the job was being done commercially in a parallel engineering industry. In reality it does not cost (in £££s) anything like this (less than half) and the complete, test flown and permitted aircraft will still be worth a little more than the expenditure it took to get to that stage. The hidden factor (and this may be what M12 has factored in) is the time and stress to the instigator of this lengthy process which is a little bit more difficult to put a figure on.

In many respects the Spitfire (and Hurricane) represent good value for money if you are purchasing a flyable aeroplane but embarking on a project may be a different prospect all things considered (sanity included)!

Value of a flyable Spitfire

Well Dave it depends on what you mean by value and which variant of Spitfire you are talking about and how long it is out of restoration. If you are asking how much money do you need in the real world, today, £750,000 would be a bare minimum starting point and you would need to be very lucky and to be in the right place at the right time. £800,000 would be enough to realistically negotiate a purchase but there would be little choice of variant (probably a Mk XVI). £900,000 to £950,000 would bring more choice but if you want the pick of anything on the market then seven figures comes in to play. Of course what is available is not always obvious (no Spitfire section in ‘Exchange & Mart’) and the situation can change by the day.

Market value is influenced by many things certainly perceived rarity is one of them. 15 years ago it would have been extremely difficult to purchase an airworthy Hurricane but today it is possible thanks largely to the efforts of Hawker restorations. In this case availibilty has not significantly affected the price.