Aircraft identity. How doe it work?

[Fouga23]

I read on several websites about the RB-51 racer which was 44-84961. Now after the crash, Steve Hinton took the dataplate and transferred it to a P-51D serial 44-73053?
How does that work? Can you just take an aircraft and give it a new identity from an aircraft that was destroyed? What happens to the old identity, in this case the 44-73053? If it you take aircraft B and give it a dataplate of plane A, it is still physically plane B, not?
To top it of, seems the crashed 44-84961 is under rebuild? How is that supposed to work if it ever flies again?
Confusing

[bdk]

Depends on the country. The US is not firm on transferring IDs around like some other countries. The FAA is aware of this practice.

When a lot of these aircraft were imported they were bought directly from governments and thus did not have FAA registration and a firm provenance, especially since many were given under military assistance programs. It was more convenient to transfer an existing ID than to register the aircraft under the original serial number. Not much different than a dataplate restoration where you substitute a newbuild aircraft for the original, except that your are using original factory built parts- which the FAA might prefer anyhow.

[51fixer]

I read on several websites about the RB-51 racer which was 44-84961. Now after the crash, Steve Hinton took the dataplate and transferred it to a P-51D serial 44-73053?
How does that work? Can you just take an aircraft and give it a new identity from an aircraft that was destroyed? What happens to the old identity, in this case the 44-73053? If it you take aircraft B and give it a dataplate of plane A, it is still physically plane B, not?
To top it of, seems the crashed 44-84961 is under rebuild? How is that supposed to work if it ever flies again?
Confusing

After the crash Steve got ownership of the RB.
He rebuilt it using parts and pieces he had or purchased and repaired.
He just didn't screw on a piece of metal to a complete A/C.
Other people have parts of the crashed RB. But they are pieces and to whatever degree are used to supply parts or be rebuilt. But there wasn't a whole lot intact after the crash to be rebuilt.

[P51Mstg]

Beat me to it... Rich summed it up pretty well.....

Mark H

[Fouga23]

Thanks all for the explanations

[Badman]

I read on several websites about the RB-51 racer which was 44-84961. Now after the crash, Steve Hinton took the dataplate and transferred it to a P-51D serial 44-73053?
How does that work? Can you just take an aircraft and give it a new identity from an aircraft that was destroyed? What happens to the old identity, in this case the 44-73053? If it you take aircraft B and give it a dataplate of plane A, it is still physically plane B, not?
To top it of, seems the crashed 44-84961 is under rebuild? How is that supposed to work if it ever flies again?
Confusing

After the crash Steve got ownership of the RB.
He rebuilt it using parts and pieces he had or purchased and repaired.
He just didn't screw on a piece of metal to a complete A/C.
Other people have parts of the crashed RB. But they are pieces and to whatever degree are used to supply parts or be rebuilt. But there wasn't a whole lot intact after the crash to be rebuilt.

Are you sure about this story? My recollection is a little different on the Hinton Wee Willy Mustang origins. I may not be remembering this right, but I think the current 7715C was one of the Steve Johnson ex-Indonesian AF Mustang projects he brought back and was selling in the early 80s. I believe Hinton got one and re-built it - not the RB. What I recall hearing at the time is he simply used the same reg number on his new Mustang, but maybe it was a data plate thing too? I definitely do not think he rebuilt the RB using other Mustang parts. As I recall, Hinton got some parts of the RB (canopy, vertical, gear door, and maybe some others), but the larger pieces eventually wound up with Bill Rogers, who used the fuselage parts in creating Miss Ashley 2, and then it was sold to someone who said they were using it to re-build a P-51A somewhere?