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Re: Spitfire MK959

Posted by DAVE LEES DUXFORD on Wed Jan 08, 2003 02:55:32 PM

In reply top Re: Spitfire MK959 posted by simon king on Mon Jan 06, 2003 01:39:26 PM

Having made numerous sets of wingtips from scratch for Spits
I can say that there is a differance between full aileron wings and short aileron wings as to the profiling of the trailing edges when building wingtips. This in turn can affect the leading edge shape if you don't pay attention when shaping and drilling off. In operational service wing tips were made for rapid change if required and were made to be interchangeable but in practice when this was done they were never a really good fit. Nowadays when wingtips are made to a project they are tailor made for that aircraft mainly because an owner wants his aircraft to look as neat as possible. Our aircraft at Duxford are all clipped winged but have a set of wingtips that can be fitted in about two hours for filmwork etc and the tips are made for each aircraft and are not fitted to each other. As for fitting the tips there are a row of 2ba screws top and bottom, a 5/16 bolt downwards through the main spar attachment and a 1/4 BSF bolt down through the rear spar attachment. Hope this helps if not contact me at the Fighter Collection.

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