Is this true?

Not that I know of. I think they have it confused with a DH Caribou.

Fr5 would be “Frame 5”. The firewall on a Spitfire (or Seafire!).

Ah! That clears up a lot that I’d been confused about. I though “FR5” was some type/mark of Seafire, and I was wondering why Conners was restoring one Seafire in Missouri for his boss and a shop in England was restoring yet another for the same person. Obviously Airframe Assemblies is subcontracting the work on the firewall for the Mk XV that Conners is restoring.

it is just a shame that it has stayed locked away in the owner’s hangar since a one-off static appearance at Oshkosh over 3 years ago.

It’s not the same airplane. That was (is) a Mk XV, PR 503. Why would a complete rebuild be done on a grand championship Oshkosh airplane (Best Fighter)? The owner of that Seafire at the time had at least one other intact Seafire, and this is apparently one of them.

we tend to see the same aircraft doing the show circuit when really what I (for one) want when I go to a different venue is to see something different.

I went to the famous (and very expensive) U. S. classic-car gathering, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, three time before I realized that I was just looking at the same cars, year after year, just parked in different places. Same goes for Oshkosh, which I guess they call “AirVenture” these days. Same old same old, maybe one fabulous new restoration a year, but is that worth the trip and the expense? (And please, don’t lecture me on the many things Oshkosh offers. I exhibited my Falco there three times. I’m talking about the major exhibits that the public comes to see.) Basically,there are only so many old car and old airplanes out there, and once you’ve seen ’em, you’ve seen ’em all.

Have you read it?

It’s now on my Kindle, but I just got Scott Crossfield’s autobiography, which turns out to be more than excellent. Sucked me right in, Lopez will have to wait a few days.

If you can find it buy it!

I wasn’t responding directly to you, since obviously you own the book, my comment was for people who might read your post and think there was something rare about the book and that it was difficult to find.

John Boyle, thank you. That’s exactly what I was looking for. I’ve been trying to find a copy of Crossfield’s book with no luck, guess I’ll have to bite the dum-dum and buy an expensive used copy from amazon. (Richard Hallion has Crossfield comparing the X-4 ride to “driving fast over a washboard road” in his book “Test Pilots.”)