Spitfire Restoration News - November 2006

Remembrance Day at the Y2-K Hangar

The largest number of visitors to ever visit our restoration hangar other then an open house event took place on Saturday November 11, 2006. 115 visitors streamed through our facility on this day, due in part we assume to the fact 3 Spitfire pilots were attending after the Remembrance Day ceremony, in Downtown Comox. Former Wing Commanders James Francis “Stocky” Edwards, Duke Warren and former P.O Jim O’Toole paid us a visit. What was most gratifying was to see the many families that attended with youngsters to meet veterans from the Second World War. Jim O’Toole spent 4 hours in the hangar and spoke to dozens of different people; the young people hung on every word and asked the veterans many interesting questions about flying the Spitfire.

Vancouver Island was under the influence of some pretty wet weather this past month; as a result visits were down. Many areas on the Island were affected by very heavy rains, flooding and boil water notices and in some places power outages. With these kinds of conditions people tend to stay close to home. Thankfully the rains stopped only to be replaced by heavy snow; then it snowed and it snowed and snowed some more, we’ll stop bragging about our typical Vancouver Island mild weather now as were able to share some of the same miseries as our fellow Canadians that live on the prairie. Meanwhile we’ve managed some progress on the cross control rod (the device that controls elevator and rudder) and some of the tail wheel parts. Tom, Bonn and Dave are busy machining various tail wheel parts and the occasional part for the cross control rod assembly. We are attempting to locate a pair of specific rubber bushings that help retain grease in the mounting assembly for the tail wheel (part number 30036/19) so if any Spitfire projects have a source for these items or a set of spares, let us know, we can work out a purchase price or a trade.

We often get inquiries from other restoration projects from around the world seeking information on our parts inventory with a view to trade or sell some of our spares. We do have a considerable quantity of spares for our project and would consider trading or selling them in due course. If you have connections to a Spitfire project or to a Spitfire owner and you are in need of some spares get in touch with us. 

We may have mentioned this before but it’s worth mentioning again, the most challenging part of restoring an historic aircraft like the Spitfire is raising the money, we have invested just slightly over $500,000 to achieve what we have and, we probably require an additional one million dollars to get her back into the air. You can help our project by donating funds, (we’ll give you a tax receipt) or by purchasing one of our limited edition prints. “Touche” complete details on how to acquire one of these prints is featured on our website, you can obtain this print complete with the signatures of 12 Canadian Spitfire pilots, help put Y2-K back into the air and be the proud owner of a piece of Canadian aviation history.

During November we have been eagerly awaiting a package of Y2-K Spitfire profiles from Brian Cauchi, we use such profiles for publicity and to market our project. Brian is from Malta and lives in a Spitfire rich environment, among other things he is a world class modeler having built many beautiful Spitfire models. He has researched the RAF Squadrons that served in Malta and the pilots that fought in that theatre, he is considered a leading authority on Malta Spitfires. Over the past few years we have had the pleasure of viewing the results of Brian’s modeling work, he has successfully completed models of aircraft flown by 3 Spitfire pilots that are frequent visitors to the Y2-K hangar such as Stocky Edwards, Duke Warren and Art Sager.

Brian has offered to complete a set of Spitfire profiles for our project and we were honoured to have him do so. Canadian pilots served in Malta with distinction during the Second World War and many of them went on achieve considerable recognition and honours for there efforts. We hope to display Brian work here on our next report.

Plans are well underway for our 2007th annual open house. The date is set for Sunday May 20th and over the next few months we shall be sharing our plans with you all. We had the good fortune to have 10 Spitfire pilots attend this year’s event and we are planning to even better that total next year.

If you have any questions abut our project or how to donate funds or acquire a copy of our "TOUCHE” print contact me at pjmurphy@shaw.ca

Thanks again for your time and support

Pat Murphy
And the Y2-K Spitfire restoration team.