Hi John

Pm sent

Hi John

Sure. If you pm an address i’ll send you one. I have a number of these pullies – they do not fit the Whitley so they are up for grabs.

Elliott,

With respect, you have your sights on the wrong target. As we all know, Peter is very well connected in the vintage aircraft world, and as such gets to know a lot more than those of us on the fringe.

Carrying out a recovery exercise, at a distance, at a sensible commercial rate is always going to be an expensive proposition.

Bruce

I’m sorry Bruce – you are far too accepting what you are being told. I have carried out many aircraft recoveries over the years in the UK and abroad, many of these in remote and difficult areas. I cannot see how this would be equitable with a Spitfire exchange, even at the bargain basement price of £120,000, if that was the value.

£120,000 is a ridiculously high figure for a land based aircraft recovery.

Perhaps this figure was spent, but I would recommend they don’t make a habit of it as they do not seem to have a very good business model.

Were the entire team (possibly 100 strong) flown out to the desert by Lear jet? Did daily breakfast in the desert consist of caviar and dom perignon followed by a relaxing foot massage? Who drove the recovery truck? Messrs Tom Hanks and Cruise perhaps on a handsome retainer?

I assure you these figures do not add up in a sensible way and I strongly object to Mark12’s insistence on calling this an equitable trade, because it was not.

Thanks for that Mark12. I’d be very interested to know your estimation of the value of the exchanged Spitfire. I’d also be very interested to see the costings of the recovery, although I doubt they will be available. Funny that. I would be very interested to compare the two, because I cannot see how they would be comparable.

Can you add any more facts please?

After the event I was privileged to see all the costings of the recovery from this difficult country on the one side, and on the other had been commissioned about four years back by the RAF Museum to inspect and value all the remaining Spitfires at Stafford. I can assure you the numbers were uncannily similar.

There has been some comment of the the UK losing an invaluable ‘National Icon’ here with Spitfire PK664…but let us look at the facts. PK664 was the very lowest order of all the dozen or so Spitfires the RAF Museum has traded over the past forty years. It has no engine and auxiliary gearbox. Firewall systems forward zilch. Cockpit gutted and the rare 20 series undercarriage legs sans brakes/wheels discarded when it was pylon mounted at RAF Binbrook. It was last seen complete in public there in 1988, twenty-eight years ago, while individual component parts were put on display at the Science museum in 2005-7.

So now like DX based EP120 and BM597 before it, and I don’t remember any complaints there, PK664 is in private restoration hands in the UK within an established facility at North Weald. As a bonus it will provide reverse engineering technology to restore a Seafire 46 to full flying condition, along side it. It will take time, but take your pick, two late Mark Spitfire/Seafire examples to airworthy in the UK or stored out of public view at Stafford for another ‘x’ years.

Mark

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Okay, maybe more like 3′ 🙂