Bob,

Hardly as bad as that but I for one do not feel that any level of threat or abuse should be tolerated on a moderated forum such as this. There are forums which permit this and such people should seek them out if they feel the need to post messages of that nature.

Its a very difficult question and inevitably there has to be some catergorisation if certain aircraft are not to be unfairly excluded. How far does one go to include purely ‘airworthy’ aircraft – indeed it is the very definition of airworthy that is the point at issue here.

Including the catergory ‘resting’ certainly gives a more balanced coverage as there are ostensibly airworthy aircraft that for one reason or another just have not been flown in the past few years. Any complete list of airworthy Spitfires will inevitably contain a number of aircraft that require engineering attention before they could be flown. Just a few months ago we may have included TE184 in such a catergory but we have now seen that comparitivley little effort was required to get her back to flying status, at least for the trip from Halton to Duxford. Other Spitfires, such as those undergoing major repair following accident or incident such as NH799 may not fit so readily in to an ‘airworthy’ catergory but will certainly resume this status in the future.

If for the sake of this list we exclude any aircraft unable to be flown following anything more than routine maintenance how many would we have? If we were then to exclude any Spitfire that has not flown regularly in the past five years would our list get a little smaller?

The definition of airworthy is open to debate, any further thoughts?

PS: Edited to remove inaccurate comment about AR614

what about Mk VIIIc NH631 in India?

Gerry,

That sounds like very interesting information. May I suggest a message to’Fluffy’ here on this forum as he is a senior technician with BBMF and you would be getting straight to the heart of the matter.

OK – you have passed. Can we move on now please :rolleyes:

Kittyhawk,

You are clearly very angry about what has happened and I would be the last one to deprive you of your opinion as this is the basis of this forum.

All of us here who are involved in warbird preservation & operation are to some extent concious of the financial aspects of airframe/project aquisition and restoration and operation of airworthy aircraft. The rarity of these aircraft and parts drives the market and I believe it is fair to say anything is worth what someone will pay but how readily this becomes apparant is more to do with the sellers timetable. The Tidewater/Fighter Factory P-40 would be viewed by many as a pile of junk, in fact it really is just that. However its historical provenance and reasonable state of completeness makes it a desirable pile of junk as it comprises the basis of an authentic P-40 restoration. The cost of putting it back in the air will of course be great but perhaps not as great as it would be if the shop floor engineers and craftsmens rates were charged out at the same as your local VW franchise (with credit to Mark 12!).

It is an expensive business nevertheless and ‘out of bounds’ for most of us with normal earnings levels. I personally activley shun the financial side of the business and as I have a profession entirely seperate from warbirds I do what I can without financial gain. I have however gained an enormous amount of pleasure from my involvement with warbirds over the years and I have the owners of these machines to thank for that.

It seems Mr Kittyhawk is more obsessed with warbird values than any of the owners he chooses to criticise.

Furthermore he ‘could not care less’ for our opinions. What a shame.

Originally posted by Robbo
According to Voytech’s MkV book, the fairing was necessary on Merlin 47 powered aircraft because of the protruding cabin blower gear. MkV’s didn’t use the coffman starter.

Many early Mk V’s featured this fairing even if powered by other Merlin variants.

Of course, correct. I had the image of the bulge in my mind but the book is quite correct to point out they were not installed in association with the Coffman starter on the Mk V but were a ‘carry-through’ from the Mk II cowling design for the reasons VT states.