The A2A Simulations Community

FYI for those not aware yet. Flug Werks, builders of the new FW-190s, are also making P-51s. These are all-new airframes. Only $500,000 US for a kit.

http://www.flugwerk.de/html/page.php?GID=20&SID=5

So, of course, Me-262s and Fw-190s are being built/restored in America, and the Mustang is being built in Germany. Who'd of guessed that some 70 years ago? I love it.

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i7 2600, 8GB, Nvidia 420, 1.5TB, W7, TrackIR-5

Well if you have the money, and can get your hands on manufacturing plans, you can build anything today. Get your hands on some CNC mills, CNC water cutters, lots of steel and aluminium, and you can build exact replica of a Thunderbolt in no time (actually enough time to model every part of it in CAD software). With modern technology available to anyone, you can actually make it much better - better heat treatment, better alloys (7055 instead of 2024), advanced phosphate treatments for steel parts, etc.

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Chris Oleksy

Yes indeed. It's a wonderful time to be alive for warbird enthusiasts. I guess we're in the era where parts are just too worn out to be overhauled, and modern technology like you described has created lots of retooling. Once the tooling is made then it's like, hey why not just build a whole new aircraft? I used to pipe-dream about this stuff as a kid. No way it would ever happen, but it was fun to think about. Well... how times have changed.

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i7 2600, 8GB, Nvidia 420, 1.5TB, W7, TrackIR-5