OK lets try to finalise some of these issues:
JG891 – as Mark 12 says: doing very nicely at HFL, fuselage relativley complete and final fitting out under way but still some distance to go.
ML417 is very likely staying in the USA as she is owned by Friedkin Family Warbirds (although they have no aversion to crating and sending their a/c over here on vacation).
The parts from ML417’s 2-seat days that were incorporated into the airframe originally known as DM008 were the structural strengthening braces and additional longerons that were particular to the 2-seat conversion along with associated brackets and reinforcing plates. All in all rather more original parts than many airframes that might be termed restorations.
The reason the airframe was serialed DM008 is more to do with the way the proprieter of the re-build company chose to present and identify the project than it had to do with the ‘new to original parts ratio’. Obviously there would also have been issues connected with assuming the identity of ML417 or its later foreign identity as a 2-seat conversion.
The fuselage frames of this airframe were new manufacture including 10A and 13A (I know because I made the latter two frame parts).
There are some vestiges today of ML417s former 2-seat identity including the blanked off port wing root fairing footstep recess but not much else (at least in the fuselage).
The 2-seat parts of PT462 were new manufactured items using the ML417 items as patterns. These were then stored and later used in ‘DM008’.
Hope this helps clarrify.
PS: I do have a problem, despite the undeniably good intentions of the current owner, with this airframe suddenly changing its identity. It was a complete fuselage when it left the UK and the ‘donor’ a/c was nothing more than you can see in Marks pictures. If the majority then accept that this airframe is now
MH 367 then fine, it worked. I don’t though.
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