Warbird Information Exchange

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-Bill
B-17E 41-2595 "Desert Rat" Restoration Team

First, engineering drawings are no longer kept by the Smithsonian, but have been transerred to the care of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), specifically NARA's cartographic section.

Everything else Craig has stated is quite correct (at least as experienced by me personally). The drawings received may not be used to reconstruct parts for a flyable aircraft. Likewise, before NARA will release any copies or microfilm, one must secure written approval from the manufacturer that currently claims proprietary rights on those aircraft plans. In the case of my securing microfilm on the TBY's drawings, I needed approval from Lockheed Martin (Who, by the way, were very accomodating to my request. I've heard that other manufacturers aren't quite as helpful in this process). I found NARA to be very helpful during the whole process. Especially helpful was archivist Daryl Bottoms from the cartographic section--even gave me his personal e-mail and answered a lot of my "dumb" questions patiently.

As to quality of the drawings on microfilm... Well, some is quite good, some is so-so, some looks like a cat got at it, and some has simply disappeared (One bulkhead is simply listed as "cancelled" in the index...HOW DO YOU CANCEL A BULKHEAD?).

NARA's 1995 prices for microfilm was $34 a roll. The TBY took 17 rolls.

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

Doh! Make that $34 a roll was the 2005 price. Lost an entire decade there. Bad rum methinks.

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

I'd like you to do that. Good luck. There is an argument that we suffer from too many of a few types at the expense of diversity. But my point sadly, stands. A unique single engined W.W.II era fighter is going to cost a exponential amount more to rebuild to fly than a more common machine - and to make that worse, it will be 'worth' (financially) after all that, a lot less that the popular equivalent, and less than it cost to build, for certain. Still, with the continued rise of warbird prices we are seeing more that we might never have expected, such as the Me262 replicas.



I think that might be the Militaire Luchtvaart Museum, who have parts of a wrecked Dutch NEI Martin B-10 on display.

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Raven

Hi Raven,
I disagree with respect to building a small production run of the Buffalo. There is a great mistique to this aircraft. From what I understand the construction is mostly sheet metal, with very few forgings, and most, if not all, of the extrusions are currently available. Chris Prevost did a lot of looking in this area, and he was convinced that it would be a practical effort. He didn't undertake it in the end because he really wasn't set up to do it. However, if you look at past projects, such as the Grumman F3F production run, I don't see why a Brewster Buffalo run of 4 or 5 airframes would be such an unrealizeable effort. The G-36 series of aircraft are hardly the most aesthetic of beasts (despite my affection for them) and not exactly the first aircraft that spring to mind when one thinks of re-creating a classic fighter. The technology in their construction is little different to the Buffalo. All it took to get the ball rolling was a wealthy individual to plant the seed money down. I am sure that the Dutch museum would be willing to provide the parts they have as a source for a reconstruction project if they were to receive a completed aircraft in return... Someone like Murray Griffiths could do the work in comparatively short order judging by the immensely fast progress they have made on so many aircraft in such a short space of time. They could probably do it very economically too. I can't see it costing more than a million per aircraft, at the very top of the range. With mustangs going for over $2M now... there is room for a buffalo.

Cheers. Richard

Cancelled usually means the drawing was cancelled and replaced with another drawing number. The entire bulkhead was probably redesigned for easier manufacturing or improved strength.

You are correct, Brandon. I was just voicing/typing my frustration over the fact that neither the old nor the new drawing is found on microfilm. I'll need to guestimate dimensions and such.

Of course, no one will be able to look at the final product and say, "You built that wrong" either!

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

Thank you for all who posted to this thread!
While I'm disappointed that the archives have the stipulation that the blueprints cannot be used to create an aircraft, at least they are still available.

Richard - I completely agree with you!
It does appear, however, that it would depend upon getting patterns and measurements from both the Dutch and the Finns - sourced from the original aircraft. (Maybe the blueprints could be supplemental to the actual aircraft measurements and templates?)
I'm just disappointed that Chris Prevost didn't have the means or funds to undertake the effort to rebuild/create the Buffaloes.
Seems like a fair trade to offer the parts they have in exchange for a completed aircraft.

Does anyone know if there's an 'official' Brewster/Brewster Buffalo organization in existence?

Thanks and regards,
Mike

Is there a market for the Buffalo? I'm guilty as hell of being one of those guys on the airshow ramp or hangar party discussing how neat it would be to see a flyable Me-262, or FW-190, or whatever but haven't exactly ponied up the $2 million per copy for the Me-262. There are a few things killing the new production warbird market as far as I can tell. For one, there's a huge following for Mustangs and if you sink a lot of your hard earned cash into a repro it darn sure better out perform a Mustang or Bearcat. How many aircraft can make that claim? Until they make a few hundred repro mustangs I don't think people are going to get over the "piss on anything that's not a mustang" attitude that a lot of warbird folks have.
The F3F's came about because 5 or so guys got together and ponied up the cash in advance and commisioned the project. And yes one or two F3F's changed hands but for the most part, if you don't have one you can't get one.
The same would have to be done for the Buffalo, it would have to be funded, and the shop, like Mr. Tischler would have to have an excellent track record. You could reduce the costs if say the first 10 went to national museums as non-flyers and maybe the second ten went to private collectors with the additional items such as wiring, fuel tanks and airworthy flight instruments. Maybe this would generate enough interest to build another 10 or so as airworthy kits, such as flug werks did where you have to sorce your own powerplant, avionics, etc.
YOu would want to require a sizable deposit to go into an escrow account
so as to fund fabricating the fuselage and wings, etc. To get the trust of the national museums you would have to be a major player in the warbird industry with an ironclad reputation. From there it would make sense to sub-contract the major components to a foreign aircraft manufacturer maybe in The Czech Republic, CHina, Romania, or Brazil or Poland. Remember these are going to be certificated experimental and there are several countries that can do pretty good fabrication work. I would omit the armament so as to avoid import problems, and have the US company finish the aircraft to the buyer's specifications in country.
The Buffalo has the same wing airfoil as the F8F Bearcat. Lightly loaded and with a stronger engine it might be a heck of an airshow performer!

Hi Richard,
I'd like me to be 'wrong' too, but the numbers currently don't stack. Taking all the points that Marine Air's made above, the bottom and top line remains that it would cost more to build than it would be worth rolled out of the hangar - I don't think your 1 million is realistic, for an aircraft were everything is to be built from scratch - including retractable gear, curved section and so forth. Even if it is, it's got no comparative value to a Mustang except (sadly) way below. For instance there's been a perfectly good Firefly project sitting with Courtesy for ages, and no bites. It's got loads going for it, but it's not 'worth' the same as yet another P-51D rebuild.

A Bufalo rep / production line is technically possible, but you'd need minimum one millionaire prepared to make a big loss just to play with a low-reputation warbird - and it won't be an original with an alleged 'combat history' lowering the potential value further.

It could happen, but it won't. Not for a long time, until values change a lot in the market.

It would be nice though!

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Raven

Question,

Is there any time-frame for an out of production military airplane documentation, i.e. drawings, that were paid for by the US taxpayer to become considered public domain and not subject to permission or licensing areeements from the origional manufacture, or "owner of tyoe certificate" that has no intention of ever manufacturing them ever again?

Just wondering.

Kenn

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May all your bent wings be F2G Corsairs!

The drawings were paid for by the taxpayer, but the company's proprietary data is not public domain unless they release interest.

The ex-Australian Buffalo remains have been bought by the Aviodrome in Lelystad, the Netherlands.
Cradle of Aviation are building a static display replica for the Militaire Luchtvaart Museum in Soesterberg, and delivery is scheduled for some time in 2007. The museum has no original ML Brewster or even parts, but it does have a port outer wing panel of a Glenn Martin which was shot down near Miri in December 1941. The wreck was discovered in 1985 and the wing panel and a few other parts are now on display in the museum.
Regarding possible reproduction of a Buffalo, since Brewster went out of business in 1944 and no other company bought their assets there won't be any legal hurdles to clear as regards manufacturer's permission etc. Biggest problem would be getting the drawings or, failing that, cooperation of a museum to measure everything up.
In reality the Buffalo was, in its F2A-2 guise (note: NOT the overweight F2A-3 and British B-339E) a better aircraft in many ways than the F4F-3. The reason the F4F got the nod was partly political (always easy to blame the Buffalo for the fall of Malaya, Singapore and the NEI) but mainly lay in the production sphere. Brewster's production facilities simply could not supply fighters in anything approaching the quantity the USN required, and Grumman could.
It is interesting to see how horribly effective the Buff was in Finnish hands. Makes one wonder what the results would have been in Malaya and the Indies if the Commonwealth and Dutch pilots had had combat training approaching the same level as that of the Finns. Unfortunately they did not.

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The KNIL is dead. Long live the KNIL!

I have had several conversations with Ashley Ezell over the years about the Buffalo. He said " Dad would really like to build a Buffalo". There ya go! Powerplant and prop are not a problem, but drawings are not the end all, be all. Some are very inaccurate. Case in point, the drawings for the spar for the Corsair. In this case (Buffalo), the best way might be to jig an actual example then check the "as-built" specs against the drawing. Dan, Brandon, Rob M, Rob R, Lex, Mike R, has anyone ever checked drawings by Brewster for accuracy? Alan

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Just call me Al.

There has been a forum about the Buffalo, unfortunately it does not exist anymore since september last year. One of the main contributors was Jim Maas, he realy knows a lot. I am building a cockpit from a Fokker G.1 and use drawing made by a man who make them with the help of incomplete drawing, photos text etc, have a look at www.fokker-g1.nl to see some of his work. Try to find such people and just start!

Best regards,

Mathieu