WaltBJ wrote:

FWIW I just recently viewed a Hurricane and a Zeke 32 being
constructed from "scratch" plus a pile of badly corroded pieces to
copy. There wasn't anything I saw there that required much more that
could be made in a decently equipped 'job shop'. The two shops didn't
have any unique tools either. Just lathes, milling machines, shear,
brake, drill press, hand tools, a thousand Clecos and lots of
material. The Hurricane surprised me in that the formers for the
fuselage were partially constructed of plywood. The aft half looked
rather like a 1:1 scale model aircraft. No, I won't tell you where
they are - they don't have time to spare for a flood of visitors.

One wonders just how many skilled person-hours it will take to complete
them, and how many years total it will take to produce one of each; mass
production it isn't. The Hurricane is interesting, as it was just about
the last mass-produced western fighter to be built that didn't use
semi-monocoque construction, and also had a large percentage of fabric
covering. Structurally the Spitfire was the next generation, and it was
quite a shock at first; Jeff Quill described taxiing up to a halt at one
RAF base he was visiting with the prototype or one of the early
production a/c, and hearing this odd rapping sound as he shut down. He
couldn't figure out what it was until he got out and found a large
contingent of fitters and riggers gathered around the fuselage, rapping
it with their knuckles and making exclamations along the lines of 'cor,
it's made of tin': theyd apparently never seen an a/c with a
metal-covered fuselage, never mind one using semi-monocoque contruction.

Guy