Warbird Information Exchange

Joe, can't be a Mk V... twin radiators...six exhaust stubs...

It's obviously supposed to be a ... well... it's a ...

I don't exactly know what, and it sure looks like Mr. DeFord is having way too much fun to care.

Ditto on the thanks for sharing pics, Gary.

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

<drama> Oh no - how can we stand this? The pilot is wearing an MS22001 oxygen mask. Not RAF....and only just barely WWII (I think the A-13's came out at the tail end of the war but weren't in use in the theaters.)

Oh the humanity!!!!!! </drama>



just joking!

Worst of all, the pilot shaved that morning with an electric razor and not the RAF period correct single edge straight razor.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Thanks for the great pictures, Gary.

Maybe now the guy up here where I live will actually buckle down and start his "homebuilt" Hurricane. He's been planning such a project for years, and your photos of the Spitfire should push him off-center.

Oh, by the way, you were right about the tail gun and tunnel being kick-a$$ photo perches.

Scott

Cool pics Gary !

I can't imagine what you would do with a "good" digital camera !!!

Thanks for sharing again.

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Michel C
Thousands of a/c pics at Passion-Aviation

Last month I was on a Lear trip and we stopped in at Coolidge , Arizona.(P08). The airplane is supposed to be based there. It has an Allison engine and an all wood wing, kinda like a Bellanca Super Viking. They said it looks and flies like a dream! It is a plans built Jurca full scale replica and is the only one completed. It had an off field landing following an engine failure last month also. A little damage to gear and it will be flying again soon.
They said there was also another Spitfire mishap . model unknown at CHino, landing gear problem. I didn't pass this on as I didn't know how accurate the information is.

Well, not exactly...
Bob DeFord's airplane is based in Prescott, AZ, where those photos were taken. He did have an engine mishap (nosecase failure, if I recall correctly) a few months back, but made it back to the Prescott airport...barely. He did damage the landing gear, but overall, the airplane came out of it pretty well.

Bob is a heck of a good stick and an amazing craftsman. Replica or not, I HIGHLY recommend all of you to go take a close look at that airplane if you happen to ever see it at an airshow, or if you find yourself in Prescott.

Gary

Very cool. Nice looking machine.

Eric

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The air resounds from the Rolls-Royce roar!
To an enemy the warning is dire: here only eagles soar,
and the last thing he'll see is a mirrored Spitfire!

Not meaning to correct anybody... But I wrote the story about Bob - a longtime friend of mine - and the Spitfire coming out in the next Warbird Digest.

It wasn't a nose case problem... Here is a hint... What component in a V-12 breaks and cuts off ignition?

Bob is a super guy, one of the best sticks I know, and one helluva craftsman. Hope he gets it flying again, soon.

Take care, y'all.

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Scotty G
www.LightAndLift.com
www.WarbirdAeroPress.com

Its a fantastic replica - if it were given an authentic paint scheme I think it would even fool the 'purists', certainly from that distance anyway. Great photos too.

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Warbird Colour - Authentic historic aircraft finishes http://www.warbirdcolour.co.uk

IIRC, following a certain type of failure, both mags failed simultaneously,

You guys are such techno-weenies!
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

Yeah, sorry about my getting it wrong about the nosecase failure. I had spoken with Bob right after it happened and thought that's how I remember him saying it. Maybe that was just his first guess or maybe I just remember the conversation completely wrong. Either way, thanks, and I look forward to seeing it in Warbird Digest.

Gary

Yeah, I can see where one can think the prop disconnected from the engine in that scenario.

I'm looking forward to it, too. I put something a little special into this one.

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Scotty G
www.LightAndLift.com
www.WarbirdAeroPress.com

I don't know much about Allison details, however, in a Merlin therr is one area that gave problems during its early devleopment years and that is called a skew gear or skew drive. One of the ways to make a safe aircraft engine is to duplicarte the critical functions. Thus the Merlin and virtually all modern aircraft engines have 2 sets of spark plugs, ignition wires, magnetos, mag switches, etc. If one mag goes bad, it still runs though not as well. One place where it is not duplicated is where a verticle shaft comes up out 0f the back of the engine, then goes into two shafts to drive each mag. The gear on this verticle shaft, the skew gear can fail and instantly stop both mags, with no warning, and no partial power. Rolls solved this problem early in the war by tighteneing the manufacturing tolerances on this part, and it worked. Does an Allison have a similar design? Is this what failed?
Rolls Royce had some of the finest, if not the finest engineers in the world. Ther approach was to use a good tried and true design, and test the heck out of it. They had a building full of engines running on test stands 24 hours a day, much to the detriment of the neighbors sleep. You can imagine that any noise complaint in those days was about like bad mouthing Russell or Bird in Boston. One compaliner was told he could sleep after the war, When a test engine failed, it was dissasembled to find the flaw. They might change the design, using a stronger, larger part, or better lubrication, etc. Their metallurgy was state of the art,is still good these days. After the improvement was made it was back to the test stand. When an engine could run 100 hours nonstop at rated power it was considered ready. This testing proceess was backed by a lot of the Queen's pounds sterling. This is a process no one today can duplicate, no matter how smart some of the current guys are and all the computer tools we have now, they don 't have the resources of Rolls. No one is going to run a dozen Merilins to failure on a test stand now, nor do they have as much staff to engineer and produce a change.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK