WIX Archives

Ushering in a new age of understanding

Posted by Rob Mears on Mon Jun 17, 2002 11:15:21 PM

In reply top Quite clearly lots of people do want to talk about it! posted by Paul Coggan on Mon Jun 17, 2002 03:39:56 PM

I look at it this way. There will never be a "line of percentage" that can be agreed upon where an authentic warbird becomes a replica. That's kind of like trying to determine where the atmosphere ends, and outerspace begins. The ultimate answer will always fall prey of speculation.

"Intent" on part of the owner/restorer is part of the key. As best I can outline, the two following examples portray the type of fine line we are trying to paint, and how much of that line is based on matters of the heart:

Imagine an avid restorer locating the wreckage of a famous P-51 and dragging that wreckage to his private hangar in hopes that it could some how be saved and returned to its former glory. In this person's heart, his efforts are being put forth to promote the lineage of the original plane. I have no problem with this situation as long as two responsibilities are adhered to. In the end it would be the owner's responsibility NOT to claim his plane was in fact the original, and the historian/enthusiast's responsibility to confirm and document the restoration and which items WERE in fact retained from the original wreckage. Both the owner and the historian would have to take on the responsibility of relating the identity of the plane more in terms of an essay rather than any convenient one-word definition.

People who create a new-build P-51 (whether they register the plane using a data plate purchased off of eBay or not) should hold themselves accountable for representing the plane simply as a custom built P-51. It is in the end still obviously a P-51. To claim the plane to be "43-23556" in the owner's eyes might be just their way of relating the plane's registry number, but to a historian its blasphemy! :)

The two examples above are one example of the very fine line we're dealing with in regard to promoted identities. A P-51 is a P-51 is a P-51 in my book, but with the extreme nature of this whole debate we're asking ourselves to forevermore take on the task of splitting hairs in regard to identifying historical aircraft. I'm here to define and hand out the responsibility ;)

If we as a community are intent on ushering in the next degree of identifying 'true originality', then we're going to have to agree that it will involve more than just a general term like "replica', 'custom', 'original', etc. More than likely the answer in regard to each plane's originality will be composed of more of an 'essay' rather than a one-word response. People who are enthusiastic about going this far are going to have to invest in researching the detailed lineage of each of the planes that they are comparing to each other.

Regarding Corsairs for example, the XF4U-1 located at the New England Air Museum in Connecticut is the most original, unrestored Corsair in the world as far as I know (100% as it sits). I doubt any other operational Corsair in existance could claim to be more than 80-85% original in comparison to this plane. To "nit-pick" each aircraft through, body panel by body panel, and paint chip by paint chip would be an extremely exhaustive (if not impossible) process, but it seems to be a new understanding that's in growing demand by the historian/enthusiast population. At this crucial point in history we are about the only clan of people who will ultimately have had the resoruces to discover the truth about most of these planes from the time they were surplused to today. Today most people could care less, but in 100 years I believe the truth will be in high demand.

There is no general 'fashion plate' against which all warbirds can be judged as more or less original. Many hundreds if not thousands of modifications and upgrades were put into effect at the assembly line level with all of these planes, and there is no telling in what precise disposition each of these planes emerged from the factory. Also, some people begin their perceptive origin of originality with a particular famous aerial battle a particular plane was involved in. Immediately there is no way to understand what parts a particular plane was comprised of at any point in time, especially if it was operated for another 200+ hours before war's end, undergoing two military overhauls in the process.

Bottom line:

Due to the varying assumptions of what "originality" actually is, the determination of such will never be agreed upon in any definative ultra-critical fashion. I think the popular new desire to label each plane's originality level is simply a crude prelude to the future of this hobby which will utimately entail the detailed documentation of airframe lineage on a PLANE-BY-PLANE basis (as it should be). No broad sweeping single-sylable terminology, no debatable buzzwords, and definately no quick answers. Pick your favorite airframe and dig deep. It seems were headed toward a degree of regard where we will have to investigate the intensive work of researchers to determine how to compose an estimation of a particular airframe. I'm all for this as it makes our relationship with each particular warbird more profound rather than referring to them as just a number in a book.

So, how many of my fellow nit-pickers are prepared for some ultra-intinsive research, beginning with "surviving Spitfire airframe number XXXXX"? :)

Rob

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