Yeah, I've been eagerly following along with the progress of the project over the past several years as well, back to the days that John still had the Hurricane. It is an absolutely incredible project, the lengths that John Norman has gone to in order to make it an absolute clone, in every respect (including the imperfections and elements of aging) as that of the original. The ORA Spirit of St. Louis reproduction is amazing, and this one is even steps beyond that (of a rather "fanatical" level, which I love) - absolutely every last item/detail had to be made specifically correct to the original, so that it would be just as if the original was pulled out of the Smithsonian and now flown. For instance, the paint and markings on the wooden instrument panel match the same aging and wear & tear as that of the original in the Smithsonian, and all of the flags on the cowlings of the original in the Smithsonian had originally been painted by hand (no decals), and without any stencils, and that is the way they have been applied on this one. So much was checked and cross-referenced with the original to ensure it is absolutely correct, and items like the "Spirit of St. Louis" script on the cowlings comes from tracings made from the original cowlings.
As I recall reading at one point, John Norman plans on flying this aircraft all over the country, on a tour, like that of the one Charles Lindbergh made following the Atlantic flight.
The project has its own Facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/jnespirit/For those that don't do Facebook, here is a photo of the aircraft, just about complete now, that was posted to the Facebook page last week:
Eagerly anticipating seeing it fly this year!
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