Following “a two-year project that’s now in its 13th year,” Seattle-based Legend Flyers owner Bob Hammer described for AVweb the first flights of the restoration shop’s Mitsubishi A6M3-32 Zero fighter this week. Mike Spalding, chief pilot for the Military Aircraft Museum of Virginia Beach, Virginia, performed the two test flights, marking the first time the aircraft has broken ground since WWII.
Indeed, it is a recreation. Amazing work! A project of this magnitude is more than just a restoration. One could write an article about each and every part of this project. Many people will see this and marvel at the workmanship, but few will truly appreciate the expertise, the effort, the perseverance, and hard work involved. Kudos to Hammer and the team for such an extraordinary accomplishment!
There were likely few/no useful engineering drawings in existence from Japanese archives… much less suitable for salvaging/recreating a HAMP from scratch. I suspect that even working tech data and manuals were few/far between… most being burned or burred in pits or simply decaying.
Due to wartime construction I’d bet my life savings that the original ‘mostly pile of salvaged junk’ was ‘a hot-mess’… BUT it was complete enough… and provided vital data for everything from the critical dimensions [and layout, external] to the inner-workings/details of the structure and systems.
The fact that only a ‘few parts of the many thousands within every aircraft’ were even salvaged is sort of unusual… especially in the oceanic environment that it was found within… and the ancient aluminums and steels and minimum corrosion protection… etc… that it was built with.
Recreation versus restoration makes little difference in this case. Created as a machine of war, it has now morphed into an airplane of timeless beauty, from a time when function followed form instead of the other way around. Even today, with F15’s and F-35’s streaking through the sky, hardly anyone stops to look and listen. Let a P-51 or a B-17 pass overhead and the world stops, even if for a moment, to take in the classic lines and sounds of freedom from a by-gone era. Kudos on the team on getting the Hamp airborne again. I hope I’m lucky enough to one day see it up close and get the communal feeling that comes from a gentle, tactile touch.
Words matter.
There was nothing to restore. They built an entirely new plane and then added a few bits of old instrument glass and a real data plate. It’s not a 1970 Hemi Cuda if you build one today with a different engine and different drive train and all new body panels but use an original gear shift knob from a junk yard. No, it’s a replica, a tribute, even if it looks the part.