I’ll stand corrected, but I was always under the impression that it was an aid to the Observer Corps, in order to identify who was who from the ground.

I can’t resist suggesting taking a local ghost-hunting society to an abandoned airfield with a haunted reputation and seeing what they can pick up. The haunted airfield topic was covered very thoroughly in this forum, so you’d have heaps to choose from! Everyone loves a good ghost story…combine it with aviation: sure-fire winner!

This won’t help, but Derek Robinson’s book “Damned Good Show” features Hampden crews throughout it, written in his usual excellent style. It’s lovely to see the earlier period of Bomber Command represented, great read! Especially the bit about stabilised yaw…..some good research there.

I for one would like to see more recreations… but not at the expense of the real thing. The A1 Pacific steam engine “Tornado” and some Jaguar D-type recreations are nothing short of stunning… but more of the people that build these things need to be proud of what they have built and not try and fool people by implying that somehow they are original production vehicles.

As for the aircraft that get split up, and two emerging with the same identity.. when the rest of the aircraft wears out it is not impossible it will be re-united; as has happened with a couple of D-types lately.

I know that with a lot of older aircraft having an identity makes the paperwork a little easier, but sooner or later someone is going to have to take a step forwards and think “Sod it.” and get one of these recreations where it needs to be the hard way, making no apologies for what it is.

I would love to see a “new” Defiant. A “new” Hampden. But it is not going to happen when people won’t accept them as real.

Ask yourself what makes it real. Combat History? No… as then aircraft such as PA474 would not be real. Military Service? No… there are aircraft out there carrying military serials that never carried them in service. A manufacturers data plate? Maybe… but not all of them were built in the same place.

Think of shadow factory’s. Places that made cars, buses, furniture even, building things they never would have dreamed of, with another manufacturers name on it. They are no less real than those that came out of the designer’s factory.

Real for me, means built to the drawings. The proper engines. The proper size. rivet for rivet, as though it was an extension of production. It looks the same. It feels the same. Sounds the same. A serial number is just something someone, somewhere, assigned to that “Job” to keep track of it as an asset; nothing more.

Regards

Ric

Thanks Ric, well put. As a case in point, look at the absolutely stunning SPADXIII, all new-build to the drawings with a Hispano engine. Do we call it a repro? A recreation? I don’t care. I call it a SPAD. And enjoy it for the beautiful aircraft it is.

Fine! And let’s say the Omega watches that you see for sale at car boot sales, and the fake Constables that fooled the art world some years ago, are the real thing! I think that you’ve misssed the point.

No-one is critiscising fine recreations of classic aeroplanes. It just that some want their recreators to tell it as it is. If, in the course of that work, the majority of the parts used are new, just call the finished result a recreation or a replica. It doesn’t make it any less worthy. If the industry does not seize this nettle then, eventually, the legislators or the courts will do it for them.

The bottom line is – does a register plate make a genuine period aeroplane?

Im not completely sure why fake watches and fake paintings have entered in to the discussion. I don’t think anybody is calling anybody’s restoration, be it flying or static, a “fake”.

What I’m pointing out is that if these aircraft had originally been designed or expected to fly as long as they have, then they would have by now had very little ‘original’ components left in them.

I don’t know who these “some” are that want “recreators” to tell it as it is. I haven’t encountered anyone who’s had the gall to point at an aircraft and say, “yes very nice, but it’s not a real one”.

If someone has the finance and logistical support to recover a crashed, ditched or abandoned aircraft and restore it to flying condition within the strict guidelines applied by his/her appropriate authority, then it does not matter one iota whether it’s got 10% or 100% “original” parts. No-one has the right to point the finger on the flightline and judge.

No, I haven’t missed the point. The rivet counters just need to have a good, long, hard look at themselves.

Maybe with today’s engineering and computer-aided technology we’ve kept aircraft flying that were really not expected to last this long. Air Forces across the world certainly had no compunction with taking an aeroplane off the front line, making it a training machine, and from there reducing it to pieces for ground instruction.

So the fact that a classic aircraft is full of ‘new-build’ bits and pieces is really just natural attrition.

There will always be rivet-counters who will pontificate and criticize someone else’s efforts. ******** to them.

Let’s be happy, no: let’s be bloody delirious that we have more stunning restorations to watch and hear than we ever have.

And let’s not try and stuff it up by putting anally-retentive labels on things. Just enjoy.:D