The Y2-K Spitfire....now in its 6th year of restoration

It was 6 years ago this month that our assembly jig arrived at the restoration hangar; it was built specifically for our project by Ralph Hull of “Hull Aero” in England and delivered by a Canadian Forces Hercules to our project hangar on Vancouver Island. Once it was moved into our hangar work started on restoring TE294. Under the direction of our project engineer Bonn Svensson, our volunteer team then mounted the partially assembled fuselage into the jig, we quickly realized that TE294 would not line up with our datum marks and the decision was made to “undo” the work that had been started by the previous owner. The rivets were drilled out, the skins removed and the fuselage, frames and longerons were separated and we started from square one, rebuilding our Spitfire.

Two things happened that are partially responsible for our successes to date. We were fortunate to locate an experienced engineer that could lead our team of dedicated volunteers. Bonn Svensson was born in Sweden and has been rebuilding aircraft all his life; he brings a tremendous amount of skill and experience to this project. And secondly we were fortunate to assemble a team of volunteers with a wide variety of skills that would assist Bonn with fabrication, cleaning original Spitfire parts, fund raising and lending a hand wherever they could, our teams of volunteers have all been with the project since its inception 6 years ago and all play a vital role in returning the Y2-K Spitfire to the air.

Over the last 6 years we have achieved a considerable amount of progress; given the size of our little museum, we have learned a tremendous amount about restoring heritage aircraft, the Spitfire, finding parts, raising money and gaining support from the 31,000 visitors that have visited our hangar. The experience has been rewarding to say the least. The highlight for our entire team is meeting the veterans that drop into our hangar from all over Canada The restoration hangar will be open on Saturday November 11 and we expect a few Spitfire veterans to be on hand to help us all remember the price Canadians paid for the freedom we all enjoy to day. Remember we are open every Saturday for tours and you are most welcome to attend.

As we are a small museum we can only work as fast as our fund raising allows, during the past 14 months we have managed to keep our engineer working steady and we are proud to inform all those individuals that follow this site on a regular basis that our fund raising efforts have been relatively successful and we have enough funds to keep our engineer on the job till year end. Fund raising continues to be the most challenging aspect of restoring heritage aircraft. We have to thank those many people that have purchased hats, T-shirts, prints, greeting cards, lapel pins and those that have made a cash donation to our efforts, without your continuing support we would still be scraping corrosion off Spitfire parts waiting for the Government to open it’s purse strings. Every cent raised goes straight into the Spitfire restoration and will eventually put “Canada’s most significant aviation project back into the air”

One of the most often asked questions by far is “when will you get this Spitfire back into the air” our answer has always been to explain how important fundraising is to our success and it will probably take another 5-7 years for the Y2-K Spitfire to get airborne again. To date we have raised and invested just over $500,000 in our project and expect it will take another million dollars to complete the Spitfire project. Now if somebody wins the 6/49 Lotto and donates a million dollars, we would have TE294 back into the air in 3 years.

Late in October we removed the horizontal stabilizers so the fairings could be riveted in place; this took Bonn and Tom just over a day to complete. The tail section has also been removed from the fuselage so that some flight control hardware could be installed. We then re-attached the stabilizers to the tail section and placed this assembly on a pair of sawhorses so that work can continue on those flight control components and allow us to complete and install the tail wheel. Dave continues to machine hinges for the elevator plus some tail wheel parts and mounting hardware for the cross control shaft. If you have any questions about our project or how to make a donation to the Y2-K Spitfire, do not hesitate to contact me at pjmurphy@shaw.ca

Thank you for your time and support.
Pat Murphy and the Y2-K Spitfire restoration team

“The Y2-K Spitfire will Fly Again"