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To: Atlantic Bridge
MAN!,I wish my uncle had a 109. Check out the Stormbirds website; www.stormbirds.com.

There you'll find links to the other two projects that are underway. They've got two Bf 109 F-4s and an Fw 190 F-8 that are on their way toward becoming airworthy again.

49 posted on 05/23/2006 10:16:56 AM PDT by yooling (I don't have anything nice to say...)
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To: yooling
The stormbirds are marvelous! And their new 109-project is wonderful too.

I think the problem with the restauration of the Me 109s are the motors. Those Daimler-Benz engines they found with the leftover of the planes somewere in Russia are junk. It will be impossible to restore them again. Therefore they have to look for other suitable Daimler motors which is quite a problem in the meantime :-). Other motors like a Rolls Royce Kestrels do not have hanging pistons. That means that the aerodynamic (and the look) of such a 109 is comletely different then. This is the reason that there are only that little flying Me 109s left. My uncle and his buddies had the luck that one of their friends preserved a brand new (!) DB 605 motor, which was not scrapped after the war. Their 109 was once used in the famous film "the battle of England" with a Royce Royce Kestrel, which gave the plane a really awful look then. When my uncle and his friends found the badly damaged cell of the aircraft in the mid-90ties they would not have restored it if they didn't have had a motor then.

The Focke-Wulf is easier to restore since there are quite simular motors to the BMW 801 available.

Unfortunately the "red 7" of my uncle and his friends had a crash-landing last summer. Thank God no really important parts (like the motor :-)) were damaged then and the plane is restored in the moment. Even the pilot survived (although he was nearly crucified after the landing as you can imagine). Anyway it will still take some time and a huge amount of money. We are not talking about peanuts here.

64 posted on 05/23/2006 2:32:52 PM PDT by Atlantic Bridge (De omnibus dubitandum.)
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