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Post by HB on Jun 25, 2006 12:19:36 GMT -7
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Post by Galvin on Jun 26, 2006 2:16:58 GMT -7
Thanks for the video.
Bob Hammer, the owner of the company that (finally, after 15 or so years of delays) finished the replica and delivered it to Messerschmitt GMBH was over in Germany for a couple of months getting this airplane together and licensed for this show. He just got back and the third airplane is now pretty well along. The second went to a buyer in Arizona and has been, I believe, delivered.
Bob now has a box full of Messerschmitt parts that were apparently collected in Russia. They are Bf-109Fs and the plan is to get a few flying. There won't be any engines to substitute for the DB-603s in the originals so I guess the restoration of the engines will proceed along with the airframes.
I loaned him nearly everything I had on the 109 F and G series a few months back so he could get up to speed on the construction of the airplane and even put him onto a firm in the UK that has actually made a set of fuselage skin forms for the 109. This project should be very interesting.
I know it can be done. A few years ago I walked into Pete Regina's hangar down in Van Nuys, CA and found him making replicas of the entire cooling system for a Bf-109E that had been dragged out of Russia. The airplane was one of the few remaining E models to participate in the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1942 and had apparently been in the Battle of Britain as well. It had been flown by Hans Joachim Marseilles also but he was not flying it at the time it was shot down.
The engine was in the shop also and the bullet holes in the block were conclusive evidence as to the cause of the forced landing.
A couple of years later I was on vacation from the job in Saudi Arabia and driving up the 605 freeway in the L.A. area. I overtook a large flatbed truck with an apparently brand new Messerschmitt 109E on the back. It looked factory new and I was later to find out that it was the very same airplane. It had been restored overseas and was headed for the Museum of Flying (now defunct) in Santa Monica for delivery to David Price. It has since been flown many times and has been the subject of more than one Air Classics article. It is also a first rate restoration of a very historic aircraft and not merely a replica of one.
This reminds me of a question I wanted to ask of someone more knowledgable than I about some of the finer points of engine design. I have seen data in several old publications having articles on the DB series of engines and the compression ratio for the left bank of cylinders is described as different than the compression ratio for the right bank. Anyone know why this is? I thought it might have something to do with the supercharger being mounted on the left side of the engine but I have never found any plausible answers as to why this should be so.
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