Home built full scale spitfire

[jas67]

Amazing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzkoTulqA1U

[not-fishing]

Thanks,  I can't tell you how many balsa flying models I've built of Spitfires, Warhawks, Mustangs and even a Lightning.

Prescott Arizona -- I have a son in Tuscon I need to visit.

Mark

[Lannis]

That's incredible.   Every time I hear about someone building an airplane themselves (including Our Chuck in Indiana), I think shame to myself that I get overwhelmed by the task of overhauling and reassembling a motorcycle that I took apart myself and can buy every part for ....

Lannis

[Tusayan]

I spent some time looking closely at this home built Spitfire on the ramp with nobody else around, and it is very very well done.  For the first few minutes I had no idea it was a replica... then slowly I noticed that the tail plane surfaces are too smooth etc.  It's really amazing, super accurate for what it is.

(My dad worked for Supermarine and did design work on the final Spitfire variants, then others)

[Chuck in Indiana]

He makes light of all the work involved, but trust me.. most people have *no idea* of the amount of work required to do something like that.
Amazing is an understatement.. 

[lucian]

Fantastic, I can't imagine the hours spent on something like that. I love the positive attitude of the greatest generation ,never take no for an answer.
 
Some of the greatest posts here have little or nothing to do with motorcycles, It's what makes this place so special.   

Thanks for sharing that!

[Triple Jim]

Thanks Jas, that was fun to watch.

[Shorty]

Thanks! I love those types of videos. I only wish they would include more engine sounds and less filler music.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Obviously, that video was done at Oshkosh. I've said many times that it is a gearhead's mecca. I've been going since the Rockford days, but all those engine sounds can still raise the hair on my neck.
Even if you couldn't care less about airplanes, you should go once. 

[Huzo]

Completely beyond my comprehension..
The sort of bloke that could build a Steinway replica piano with an axe..
BTW..
Did the original Merlins in those jiggers, rotate clockwise when viewed from the pilot's seat ?
The only Pommy things I've ever flown were Tigers and Austers with opposite rotating Gypsies.

[Lannis]

Some of those same skills, and same stick-to-itivness, are used by the guys who build unlimited pulling tractors.

I've seen them with two or three Allison or Liberty engines all linked together, with multiple-stage superchargers, and I wonder how in the world do they come up with that sort of stuff?   

For this plane, you've got woodworking and metal fabrication and cloth-working and IC engine work and sheet-metal and electrics ... it's mind-boggling ....

Lannis

[Roebling3]

What great link, thank you.
I like elliptical wing profiles. Was it a P-47H? Looked like a cross betwixt a P51 and a P47? An America Spitfire, with a Packard version of a Merlin. I'll gladly settle for a flying woody, Piel Emeraude or CAP 10B.  R3~ 

[Chuck in Indiana]

What great link, thank you.
I like elliptical wing profiles. Was it a P-47H? Looked like a cross betwixt a P51 and a P47? An America Spitfire, with a Packard version of a Merlin. I'll gladly settle for a flying woody, Piel Emeraude or CAP 10B.  R3~

No Problemo.. there's an Emeraude for sale in Minnesota. 

[John A]

watch out for carb ice flying it home

[NWrider]

I too have had the good fortune to see this Spitfire up close and personal a number of times at the Coolidge Fly-in breakfast and at the Casa Grande Cactus Fly-in.   It is truly impressive - even more so to see it fly.  Thanks for the video!