Ordnance disposal team unearths eight Hurricanes in Ukraine

[Xray]

It's nothing to do with Stalin worried about paying the U.S.

We had exactly the same circumstances with Lend-Lease materiel here. The options were pay for it or destroy it. I think another option may have been return it, but you didn't particularly want most of it back anyway.

If the Russians had kept them they'd have had to pay for them, and being Hurricanes they were obsolete anyway.

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?

[dhfan]

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.

[dhfan]

It's not just provenance. It's "rules" - sometimes it's useful to find an airframe that the FAA or other government agency doesn't have a record of as being "destroyed" which in turn allows for it's being rebuilt.

I believe in the UK only aircraft under 2000 kg in weight can be classified as "amatuer-built" or "experimental" - otherwise the aircraft must have originally been built by an "approved" manufacturer. But with a legit data plate and serial number, you can still "(re)build" what is really a replica.

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.

[Dan Jones]

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.

[dhfan]

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.

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.

[Mark Allen M]

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