Restoring airplanes is not for the faint of heart or the impatient. The story of a Canadian effort to restore a mighty Supermarine Spitfire from WWII has been a start and stop project from its beginning, but despite this latest stoppage, there is hope for future progress. You can see more at Canada.com or at the plane’s own homepage.
As of right now, the deadline to finish the project is 2012. Seeing as it began in 2002, that would mark a 10-year effort to bring the plan back into certified flying condition. Aside from all the mechanical work, fabrication, and parts chasing there are layers of government red tape that need to be dealt with. All the parts used on the plane need to be certified and all the documentation from day one needs to be reviewed to assure officials that the work done to this point has been up to snuff.
The project is being overseen by Vintage Wings, an aviation museum in Quebec, Canada. They have hired two new engineers to complete the project and it will take those two men about two months to check over all the existing documentation and pick the work up again.
The museum has more funding to complete the work, which was begun by a private group and there were doubts that the private group would have ever had enough dough to finish the project. They sold the plane to the museum for $1.00. The feeling of knowing their work would someday see the light of day again was reward enough for them.
Restoring cars can be challenging enough, but this stuff is on a whole different level.
