With some of the extensive re-fabrication of parts some of these planes undergo. One thing has always made me curious.
How much as a percentage of an original plane has to be used to be considered a restoration. And not simply a replica/recreation?
Example. If I were to take an old house and in the process of restoring it to its original livable condition. I found that the only original parts of it that were still usable and didnt need to be replaced with new were a window, a couple of doors, and some nails. Well then I havent restored anything. But rather replicated it using some of the original parts.
There are a number of warbirds out there that are essentially "dataplate' restorations. It's an ongoing argument in the warbird world as to where a restoration is really a re-creation. Jack Rousch's P51B Old Crow was built around the dataplate and a couple of small parts of a wartime training P51B that went into a lake in Florida. It's essentially all new build, but because of the dataplate has 'provenance' to give it history.
Some of the folks who've been at this a long time consider a firewall and dataplate enough to start a restoration. There are many warbirds out there that started with less. Not many original if any at this point considering their age that are still flyers.
There was one wartime 51 that has been claimed by two different groups are a combat vet. Both had parts from the same wreck. Turned out that in fact it was not a 78th FG vet, but a 5th AF vet, at least the majority of it. It flew for a while as "Twilight Tear" a P51D. In the end it was mostly a P51K from the PTO.
Another 361st P51B that crashed during WW2, was excavated in England. Go to this site and scroll down. You can see the bits that were recovered. It later won Grand Champion Warbird at Oshkosh. Again, pretty much all new built around a dataplate.
http://www.361fg.com/news.htmSearch the web and you can find photos of the cockpit showing the beaten up dataplate in the cockpit. She looks nice anyway.
