
What does it take to restore a World War Two Spitfire? - bootload
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32935757
======
WalterBright
"It's timeless, it is the most perfect piece of engineering - a work of art."

True, except it was hardly perfect engineering. If you nosed it hard into a
dive, the carburetors would spill fuel into the cockpit. Pilots learned to
roll it on its back and pull it down that way. The Me109 was fuel injected and
didn't have that problem. The 109 also took half as many hours to produce.

All WW2 airplanes had their various problems that would kill the unwary pilot.
The good pilots would avoid the defects in their airplane and play to the
defects in the enemy machine.

~~~
jabl
Hum, that's the first time I have heard that explanation. What I've heard was
that negative G caused the carburetor to flood, yes, but the result was the
engine stalling, not fuel spilling into the cockpit. Which IMHO sounds more
plausible..

Perhaps you're thinking of the typhoon & tempest which had a problem of
exhaust leaking into the cockpit. Solution: pilot wad required to always use
the oxygen mask.

~~~
WalterBright
I read about this problem in one of many accounts on flying Spits in combat.
Yes, it was the gas, not an exhaust leak. Sorry I don't have a cite.

The Merlin engine had other issues - it was very sensitive to battle damage.
This is in contrast to the engine on the P47, which could take a lot of damage
and keep running.

~~~
Agathos
Bug or intentional design tradeoff? When you choose an inline V12 over a
radial engine, you're implicitly choosing to be more sensitive to battle
damage.

But the R-2800 Double Wasp is an engineering triumph in its own right.
Hellcat, Corsair, Thunderbolt, Black Widow, Bearcat... they put it in
everything.

~~~
bootload
_" Bug or intentional design tradeoff? When you choose an inline V12 over a
radial engine, you're implicitly choosing to be more sensitive to battle
damage."_

@Agathos you have to remember history to understand why the RAF selected this
design.

The conflicting design problems at the time (mid 1930's) dictating power plant
choice? How do we create a fighter with enough power and speed that will allow
bombers & fighters to be shot down using the limited resources we have
(dollars, manpower and materials) post, _" great depression"_?

The answer, the Rolls Royce V12, inline Merlin. It did the job. Especially in
'39 and 1940, when the only thing separating a full out invasion by Nazi
Germany was 22 miles of water and the sky.

References:

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_engine#Radial_versus_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_engine#Radial_versus_inline_debate)

\- [http://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/2920/why-are-
inl...](http://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/2920/why-are-inline-
engines-more-commonly-used-than-radial-engines)

\- [http://www.warbirdsforum.com/topic/545-radial-vs-inline-
engi...](http://www.warbirdsforum.com/topic/545-radial-vs-inline-engines/)

------
PaulRobinson
Little known fact: when Williams, Kilburn and Tootill were building the SSEM
(nicknamed the Baby) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Small-
Scale_Experim...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Small-
Scale_Experimental_Machine) \- the World's first stored program computer, some
of the parts they used such as switches and so on were the same as those used
by the Spitfire builders because there was plenty of them around spare in
wartime Britain.

When the reconstruction was being built, the restorers had to track down parts
from Spitfires that were no longer airworthy to be as authentic as possible.

Source: I know somebody who spent a lot of time talking to somebody involved
in the restoration.

------
ourmandave
I really like learning about all the counter measures and the like that went
into these planes. I'm curious about a caption from one of the pictures
though.

 _The yellow diamond of reactive paint on the wing was supposed to give early
warning of a gas attack by turning black._

Do they mean gas attack like, mustard gas attack or my wing is shot up and
leaking fuel?

~~~
Mtinie
The former. [http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aircraft-markings-and-
camou...](http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aircraft-markings-and-
camouflage/spitfire-mk-gas-sensitive-paint-33039.html)

------
alistairSH
Is it just me, or does $4 million seem quite "reasonable" for something this
rare and with this much work invested? Yes, it's a large sum of money, but
given the choice between a vintage race car or the Spitfire, I'd take the
warbird every time (and I'm not a pilot).

~~~
akiselev
The cheapest fighter jet you can get is the L-39 Albatross from the 1960's
which will run you between $200k-1mil depending on work required for flight
worthiness while on the higher end a supersonic trainer like the F5 would run
at least $2mil.

Considering how rare the parts are and the difficulty of finding someone
qualified to actually do the work, $4mil is certainly very reasonable,
especially if the Spitfire is actually flight worthy.

------
rebootthesystem
The Spitfire is a beautiful airplane. It was my first 1/4 scale (large) radio
control project many, many years ago.

------
ommunist
these days it seems Britain prepares its spirits for the next war.

~~~
nbevans
Because America isn't just as passionate in restoring P-52 Mustang's.

~~~
TylerE
A - It's the P-5 _1_

B - There are plenty still flying. There used to be a lot more actually, as
they were sold off the public quite cheaply after the war. Many many have been
lost to accidents over the years - The P-51 is NOT a forgiving airplane.

C - The biggest challenge - Really the ONLY major challenge,
airframe/structural work is basically a solved problem - are the engines. The
Rolls Royce Merlin engine, used in both the Spitfire and the P-51, was last
manufactured in 1950. While there were many built (and thus many to scavenge
from), that inventory is only shrinking as engines are replaced or overhauled.
Basically the world's entire stock of Merlin parts lives in a group of semi
trailers in the California desert
([http://www.51-factory.com/merlin_overhaul.html](http://www.51-factory.com/merlin_overhaul.html))
- when they're gone, they're gone.

~~~
WalterBright
I find it hard to believe that there are Merlin engine parts that cannot be
made from scratch. Even engine blocks - if the drag racing industry can make
custom engine blocks from scratch, why can't a V12 be made?

~~~
Someone
Every part _can_ be made, and eventually, likely, every part will be made in
order to keep these things operational, but enthusiasts find these machines
more authentic if they are made from authentic parts.

If one starts building new parts from scratch there may come a moment where
people say something has become a replica, more so if one also uses new
technology (philosophers discuss this as
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus)).

The weird thing, though, is that the road along which one gets to an object is
more important than the end result in determining authenticity. Replace all
parts of a spitfire until just one piece remains original, and you have an
original spitfire. Build a replica, buy that one original part, and include
it, and you still have a replica.

A nice example is HMS Victory, a wooden warship that saw battle at Trafalgar.
It is kept afloat by replacing its parts. By now around 20% of the original
wood remains ([http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/05/world/europe/hms-
victory/](http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/05/world/europe/hms-victory/)). Yet,
we think of it as the original ship.

However, it is not a given that replacing all parts makes a new object. The
Ise grand shrine in Japan is over 2000 years old, but gets rebuilt with new
materials every 20 years
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ise_Grand_Shrine](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ise_Grand_Shrine))

~~~
WalterBright
I understand the desire for "authentic" parts, but one is chasing rainbows. I
recall once a business was selling "authentic" 1960s air in a can one could
use to fill the tires on one's authentic 1960s muscle car.

My personal opinion is that wrecks dredged up from swamps and such should be
put into museums as is. Flying airplanes should be replicas, made as close to
the original specifications as the owner wants.

For example, a few years ago there was a project at Paine Field to build
flying replicas of the Me262. They took apart an original to measure
everything and make a specification. As a concession to safety, they used
modern jet engines and instrumentation, and used lead weights instead of guns
(to maintain proper balance).

I would have bought one if I could afford one!

Nobody would actually want to fly an original, because the engines only lasted
about 20 hours, were extremely unreliable, and nobody bothered with corrosion
protection (didn't expect the machine to last long enough to corrode).

