Reproduction vs. Replica

[bdk]

Captain Kangaroo was a really good TV show that should still be on the air. If it can’t be, we should have a Captain Kangeroo Court show to help kids with legal issues that arise on the playground.

The reproduction vs. replica debate will go on indefinitely without resolution, that is certain. This is why the discussion goes off-topic which brings up other interesting points.

Maybe we need a sticky to provide links to the various original vs. reproduction vs. replica threads? Would save a lot of typing! These discussions permeate many hobbies that deal with antiques and historical artifacts.

[menards]

Captain Kangaroo was a really good TV show that should still be on the air. If it can’t be, we should have a Captain Kangeroo Court show to help kids with legal issues that arise on the playground.

The reproduction vs. replica debate will go on indefinitely without resolution, that is certain. This is why the discussion goes off-topic which brings up other interesting points.

Maybe we need a sticky to provide links to the various original vs. reproduction vs. replica threads? Would save a lot of typing! These discussions permeate many hobbies that deal with antiques and historical artifacts.

There is not really much to debate...

In terms of defining terms....

Original: As built from the factory. Original Parts. Original Markings. "Flak Bait", "Swamp Ghost", Black Cat Pass, any example where you are looking at original unchanged unrestored items.

Restored: Mostly original structure, NOS parts, repainted.

Reproduction. Mostly new-build structure using OEM materials, Some NOS parts.

Replica: New build structure using material differing from original (ie. carbon fiber/fiberglass instead of aluminum. ie. the full size carbon fiber P-51 http://cameronaircraft.com/Team51%20Photos%20Plane.html )

[James D]

There is not really much to debate...

In terms of defining terms....

Original: As built from the factory. Original Parts. Original Markings. "Flak Bait", "Swamp Ghost", Black Cat Pass, any example where you are looking at original unchanged unrestored items.

Restored: Mostly original structure, NOS parts, repainted.

Reproduction. Mostly new-build structure using OEM materials, Some NOS parts.

Replica: New build structure using material differing from original (ie. carbon fiber/fiberglass instead of aluminum. ie. the full size carbon fiber P-51 http://cameronaircraft.com/Team51%20Photos%20Plane.html )

I disagree!

[bdk]

There is not really much to debate...

In terms of defining terms....

Original: As built from the factory. Original Parts. Original Markings. "Flak Bait", "Swamp Ghost", Black Cat Pass, any example where you are looking at original unchanged unrestored items.

Restored: Mostly original structure, NOS parts, repainted.

Reproduction. Mostly new-build structure using OEM materials, Some NOS parts.

Replica: New build structure using material differing from original (ie. carbon fiber/fiberglass instead of aluminum. ie. the full size carbon fiber P-51 http://cameronaircraft.com/Team51%20Photos%20Plane.html )

Whose definition is that and by what authority do you enforce it?

[Noha307]

I found some notes I had made on the topic around two months ago. As a follow up to the summary at the end of a previous post, here are some potential additional factors I couldn't remember at the time. Do any of the following affect whether an aircraft is an original or reproduction or replica?

• Same construction methods?
• Same people?
• Same materials?
• Same configuration?
• Same manufacturer?
• Unbroken production run?
• Mass production?

EDIT:

Any chance we can get back on topic ?

Thanks!

https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/FAA_Order_8100.19.pdf

That's more of the type of reference I was looking for. Thanks for the and link and excerpt!

You reminded me of a story about a mechanic getting in trouble with the FAA for swapping data plates between helicopters.

Maybe we need a sticky to provide links to the various original vs. reproduction vs. replica threads? Would save a lot of typing!

That's kind of what I was trying to do by including the links at the end of one of my previous posts. If anyone knows of any more, feel free to link 'em 'ere!

[Noha307]

As a follow up to the subject of replicas made by the original builder, I was perusing a list of the aircraft at the Musée de l’air et de l’espace today and I found out that their Nieuport IIN actually falls in this category. According to the page I found, it was "a reconstruction made by Nieuport factories in 1919 especially for the Air Museum".

[Noha307]

I know it was already mentioned earlier in the thread in as many words, I just came across a particularly good and very succinct explanation of reproduction vs. replica in NASM's style guide:

According to the Museum’s chief curator, a replica is a copy by the original maker; a reproduction is a copy by someone else.

[ffuries]

Why don't we just use the term "Representation" or "Representative" covers all the bases, but doesn't say anything definitively. The term would cover them all, and can mean what the reader wants it to mean.

[Iclo]

As a follow up to the subject of replicas made by the original builder, I was perusing a list of the aircraft at the Musée de l’air et de l’espace today and I found out that their Nieuport IIN actually falls in this category. According to the page I found, it was "a reconstruction made by Nieuport factories in 1919 especially for the Air Museum".

Same thing happened for the Bleriot XI owned by the Salis familly at La Ferte Alais : this plane was built by the same factory than the original batch of ten airplanes as a present for Louis Bleriot, could it fall in replica for this reason, I don't know it was just built later (And to be funny, considering the rarity of this plane, a replica of a Bleriot Pegoud was build to be operated on a regular basis, avoiding to put at risk the "original" one. Because it's a tricky airplane and he requires to be dissassembled and trucked to each airshow, not something to consider easily for an historic airframe.

So, in my point of view, a replica / representation/ call it how you want is a nice thing allowing to show a plane "very close of the original" and keeping this original in a museum (or flew it only on specific occasion)

Last edited by Iclo on Wed Oct 16, 2019 5:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

[p51]

What about the outright replicas on display in museums these days? I'm seeing/hearing of it more and more every day.
I was quite disappointed, for example, at the WW2 museum in New Orleans. They supposedly have a massive collection of WW2 'stuff' yet a lot of reproduction stuff was on display. I noted on display of personal gear and saw repros on display within it. I realized I could have put on a much better display with just the stuff I had in my own collection.
Yeah, it's not the same thing as an airplane, but we all know of the plastic 1:1 models on display at some museums, the "Midway" movie airplane going on display soon and the like...

[Noha307]

I came across a really good paper today about the warbird community. Among a bunch of excellent analyses, was this highly relevant paragraph:

In pursuing the aim of making the airplane just like it was, fitting the token to the type, warbirders draw on the authority of both received schema of the type and the qualities of the airframe/token itself. When restoring an aircraft to be/of particular type, the schemata guide the remaking of the material object. The restoration work on CD, for example, was guided not only by skilled mechanics and pilots who drew on long-ago experience with C- 46's or similar aircraft, but also by a collection of blueprints which lent their schematic authority to the Wing’s work on the airplane. If they were ever challenged on the correctness of their restoration, they could pull out those blueprints. Such has never occurred with CD because the object’s connection to its wartime production as a token of the type is relatively well-documented. Even when the material object is radically altered by adding all-new materials, however, the object’s typological identity (and therefore its claim to historicity) can remain intact if the object fits the schema, or the ideal form, of the type. Warbirders often alternate between attending to the token’s fit with the type’s schema and to its documentary connection to the type in tracing their referential connection to the wartime airplanes. Indeed, the alternation between these modes of identification allows restorers to cover ruptures in the airframe’s connection to the past, as with the Hellcat, as well as with aircraft “built around” a data plate. Only when a connection is entirely severed does the ontological status of the aircraft come into question. When the connection fails, the airplane will be called a “reproduction.” For example, one company has built a number of World War II German jets using an “original” as a model. In that case no material linkage to an original airplane can be produced, but the schema — drawn from an object as model — matched exactly. Similarly, when an aircraft deviates from the schema, its type identity might be challenged, rendering it a “replica,” like the ½ scale home-built kits that exist. The tension between the current instantiation of a warbird and the material and schematic link to the type provide the basis for much debate within warbirding about authenticity, replication, and reproduction.

It seems to support the reproduction/replica division along level of authenticity, rather than connection to the original builder, lines. Or, rather, it supports the notion that this is the way the division is understood within the community - whether or not it is accurate. As a matter of fact, based on the rest of the paper, the level of authenticity division seems to contrast with the author's own understanding of the subject - although it is worth noting that he does not explicitly make a judgement call as to which interpretation is "correct".

[Fearless Tower]

but we all know of the plastic 1:1 models on display at some museums, the "Midway" movie airplane going on display soon and the like...

There is a big difference with the Movie Devastator going on display as there are no TBDs left in existence above the surface.

Under the circumstances, I have no issues with the decision to display that one.

[ErrolC]

I came across a really good paper today about the warbird community. Among a bunch of excellent analyses, was this highly relevant paragraph:

Thanks very much for that link Noha307, looks like it should be a good read. A similar study is say five years (making it 20 or so years since) would be intriguing. I vaguely remember one about WW2 re-enactors, noting that the US practitioners often chose that era over the Civil War due to the perceived culture within it.
Unsurprising that the terminology observed is what people here say is generally in use (as opposed to what various sources have used / use as definitions.)