WIX Archives

Right then.....

Posted by James D on Fri Oct 04, 2002 07:40:39 PM

In reply top Re: This may be the same old can of worms but for me the wor posted by Paul Coggan on Fri Oct 04, 2002 11:59:05 AM

....even though I inwardly cringe when this debate comes around again and I am definitely one of the "don`t cares" when it comes to authenticity, I also kind of look forward to the coming arguements (sorry - that should of course read "informed debate"!) No-one has yet really suggested a way to categorise originality. I offer this suggestion up for discussion - I realise it isn?t perfect but it could be a start. So, in the interests of burying this topic once and for all, what about this...

First off - no more use of potentially prejudicial terms such as "replica" or "reconstruction". These are far too open to interpretation to be of any use.

What I would suggest is much simpler. A percentage number. To be calculated by weight(excluding the engine), that indicates the amount of original metal in the aircraft. This should accurately reflect how much of the aircraft has been replaced since the day it was struck off charge from military service, or crashed, ditched, whatever. I feel that anything that was replaced whilst in service would count as military history and can therefore qualify as original.

So the owner could say with pride, "This Spitfire is 60% original". Of course once you get below 50% it would sound a bit daft, so we could substitute with "This Spitfire is 70% New Construction" or some such.

There could be no more arguement(except for hybrid machines from more than one donor - maybe someone can fathom that one out for me). It would either be original material or not. No getting into the "Grandads Broom" arguement and no pointless waffling about the "Spirit of the thing" or "Continuous Historical threads". Only new metal or old metal. The ID number could come from whatever aircraft supplied the most original material to the project.(Hmmmm)

The only slight problem of course, would be getting owners to agree to do this - but then most of them don`t seem too bothered anyway. They just want to fly.

So there you have it - just a dumb idea, but a fair one I think.
Feel free to kick it to death, but lets settle this thing.

Cheers
James

Follow Ups: