Warbird Information Exchange

Well, you haven't convinced me that Stalin concerned himself with paying off lend/lease material, or satisfying any terms of is such as return or destruction of marterial.
"They'd have to pay for them" or else, what ? You do realize this was the same time frame that we were facing off in Berlin and Churchill was warning about an Iron Curtain?

Yes, but it's still irrelevant. They were obsolete so destroying them was the obvious thing to do and if anybody considered the legalities, they were covered anyway.

We don't have an experimental category.

We do have a Light Aircraft Association which covers home-built aircraft and I seem to recall has taken on responsibility for some production aircraft such as Austers in recent years.

I think the airplane is the design. If you built a P-51 entirely from scratch but true to it's design engineering I wouldn't consider it a replica, I would consider it "a P-51", just not an original, North American built one. Sir Thomas Sopwith saw a replica Sopwith Camel once, built exactly to the plans, original engine, etc and said "This is a Sopwith Camel". He even issued it a serial number. The airplane is the design, and if it's true to the design then that is what it is. A replica is a 3/4 scale P-40 with an 0-300 in it.

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Defending Stearmans on WIX since Jeff started badmouthing them back in 2005.

That P.51 scenario might work in the US, but without any original parts or provenance, I'm pretty sure over here the CAA wouldn't consider it a P.51.

It was a Sopwith Triplane that Tommy Sopwith saw that he was so impressed with he deemed it "late production". It's still airworthy with the Shuttleworth Collection I believe.

Guess we’ll have to do away with the common saying….. “It’s an exact replica of the original.”