Austin: Is this to be a scratch built project or a restoration? Either way, you need to account for some tooling and fixture costs as well as some hard-core machining and fabrication that are going to be on the fringes of capabilities of non-aerospace shops. There are a couple of extrusions in the Mustang that if you need them, you are talking about hundreds of dollars a foot unless someone has them on the shelf, or a group buy is about to go down. There are some fittings that are also going to be pricey unless you already have good ones on hand. For new construction, I would budget about 100K for direct and indirect tooling costs for the project. That includes whatever hard tooling you need for jigs and fixtures, forms, drills, reamers, countersinks and the like. That would also cover a medium sized CNC/Manual veritcal mill and a decent sized manual lathe and associated tooling. With maching shop time for aerospace work approaching 100$ an hour or more, it won't take many small needs to pay for the equipment.

You should also add a contigency allotment, as you will always run into something that is out of the planned project scope, but is required to procede from the point that you find it. Also, don't forget to allow for staff time and costs for documentation reports and project records. If the grant is like most that I've seen, there is are substantial reporting and documentation requirements to maintain the grant as the project progresses.

Hello, thanks for the reply! This is a scratch build, full-scale P-51. I completely forgot about the tooling and specialty parts, that does make up a significant amount. Also it would only make sens that there would be shop time expenses as well! Thanks for the advice on a contingecy allotment too, that makes sense to me...