BAD Me109 G-14 restoration.

[harrison987]

Here are photos of the botched "Sandy Air" G-14 restoration. Aircraft has fictitious history, and was built sloppy.

1) original G-10/K-4 type wing aluminum over the wheel bay. Those are original late-war skins, designed for the 660x190 wheels. Notice the large kidney opening that was covered by an aluminum sheet. They then attached the smaller kidney bulge for the smaller wheel. What a way to ruin original Me109 aircraft parts.

2) MiG tires

3) Oil Tank cover way too wide

4) Gun bulges the wrong shape.

5) cockpit is SLOPPY. Too many errors to write about.


If you are going to do a restoration...even a staic one...why not do it right?

One of the worst I have ever seen.

The company is really sketchy anyway...too bad.

[DaveM2]

It is a new build using about 30% original Bf parts and only a few of the original 'Black 2' bits are incorporated, these being in the tail. Plus the data plate of course.

[gilles collaveri]

you are right but.............. you know, this is better than nothing.

If we had more such people doing such restaurations, I would be 100 happy, even if the job is not 100 percent correct.

I wish I could see such restauration in France with a Dewoitine 520 or a Bloch 152;

I think we should be positive to the teams doing such work;

This is just my personal feeling.

GC

[harrison987]

yes, but with any restoration, even static one, there should be "some" accuracy involved.

Having a wrecked tail, then slapping together an airframe so that it eventually "looks" like an Me109, is not really a restoration. Plus ruining original Me109 parts in the process (like the wing skins) does not do the airframe or the company any justice (they could have easily been re-made, and would have looked better).

This quality of work was done quite a bit in the 80's. when no one knew any better. Original blueprints are now available...as well as numerous original parts.

The price tag certainly does not reflect the quality...

Just an opinion.

[Harold Lake]

Perhaps the question then becomes this: If all things are equal, is it always proper and preferable to accurately record history or, to create history in the attempt preserve that which, in its original form, is no longer with us?

[waghorn41]

Restoration of such aircraft is always difficult, 'Black 6' took 19 years and considerable effort albeit by a group of willing volunteers. Even with our contacts and enthusiastic help we struggled a lot of the time, but time we had. A company doing this as a commercial venture obviously has to trade off cost(time) with accuracy and need for the same. I applaud them for taking on the challenge. Very few historic aircraft are going to be perfectly accurate and some engineering license is going to occur to achieve any sort of acceptable result. Of course it does depend on the resources they could access and decide to use - or not.