Way O.T.

i don't remember too many steel planes...

I read it too.

all is not lost! The sound of a Merlin or Griffon still has me running into my garden with my binoculars - thankfully a fairly regular occurrence where I live! Regards, Chris>>

Where do you live? I didn't know if there were any Spits still flyable. Someone had a two-seater trainer at Oshkosh this year (appeared to be genuine, not sure what Mark), but that's the only one I've ever seen. For reasons unknown, I've never really cared for any beyond the Mark V, and would love to see a genuine BoB version flying, but any of them in the air is a good thing. On a similar scrapping note--we had a guy locally who had thirty+ classic 30's,

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return. --Leonardo Da Vinci

I live in England and we see Spits all the time! A couple of years ago at Duxford, we had about 20 in the air for the 60th Anniversary! We had 11 in the air last month.

The 2 seater which flies here in the UK is a Mk IX trainer, converted from a D Day veteran Mk IX. On the 50th anniversary, the owner, Caroline Grace (only female Spit pilot...) took the N Zealander D Day pilot for a spin over the beaches...

There's another 2 seater taking shape at Duxford, she's ex-Irish Air Corps and will fly in their livery.

Regards,

Chris

Also keep in mind that Ford and Packard built over 85,000 V-1650s, not to mention spares support. There are still plenty of P-51s toodling around with these engines, which might not be precisely the right species of Merlin for accuracy's sake, but would probably work for flying's sake.

Mark Schynert

Thanks Ruf...will remenber that next time I win the PowerBall...:-))) Mike IPMS

Hold on a minute..if you bought a car, a refrigerator, or a John Deere tractor...it probably came from a former military air craft or Sherman tank...or deuce and a half truck...what they couldn't sell as scrap they simply pushed into the sea and made man made coral reefs...especially off Okinawa.. Mike IPMS

FWIW Those "new build" FW-190A's are powered by surplus Russian ASH-82 radials, same engine that powered the LAvochin 7,9 & 11. Seems the engine was kept in production for some time after W.W.II to power a number of other aircraft and they have a surplus of them around.

Bill Shuey

Merlins were made from steel as were most other aircraft engines so there was some steel content.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

It's amazing they didn't have them hauled away and try to bill him for it. That's what they do around here. Even folks with considerable acreage can't have their car collection get too large or the neighbours complain to the township and then they start harassing the owner. Behaviour like that caused at least one death by gunshot.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

The Meteor was turbocharged instead.

Hideously expensive assuming you could find one in suitable airworthy condition needing only a repaint to your desired finish. Wild guess (in any dollar currency) probably $2M. It will cost you more to have it fly and/or learn to fly it yourself.

However, for $2M USD I believe you could get a brand new Me-262.......

D'oh! You got me.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

During my recent visit to Davis-Monthan I was sickened to see airframes being prepared for smelting. Certainly some of these airframes are "tired" and should be smelted but I wanna know why I can't buy an airworthy Phantom and do the airshow circuit? What law changed that; when you used to be able to buy a war surplus P-51? tia

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

Perfect solution for nosy whiners! Cheers,

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

"Keeper" wrote

What prevents you from flying that Phantom and 500 others to Iran?

KL

From what I understand there is a law on the books that prevents private citizens from owning any military hardware which is still being carried in active service inventory. F-4's (for example) are still in active inventory as full scale target drones, so no-sale.

Export Control laws...