8 minute read
ORIGINAL OR REPLICA?
Replica or original?
LAA Chief Engineer, Francis Donaldson, explains how the aviation equivalent of Trigger’s broom may, or may not, be agreed to be an original!
Recently, we at HQ, have had a number of enquiries from the CAA Registrations Department asking us whether we can vouch for the fact that a particular LAA-style aircraft that’s being added to the register is indeed the aircraft that it claims to be. Sometimes, this is straightforward but there are other cases where the discussions have been complicated and verging on the surreal – certainly not engineering. Given that inevitably, the question involves the fulfilment of one of our member’s dreams, replying to these questions in a fair and transparent manner has needed a great deal of care.
The problem usually hinges around whether the project is an original factory-built aircraft that’s been restored, or an aircraft that’s been built, perhaps incorporating a few pieces of an original, and perhaps with an associated old logbook belonging to the aircraft bearing an original identity, but not qualifying as deserving to be classed as more than a replica. Below The stunningly beautiful Miles Whitney Straight was rebuilt by Ron Souch and his small team at Aero Antiques. Very little of the original woodwork remains, although a lot of the original metal parts were salvageable, and the aircraft rightly retains its original identity.
Photo: Ed Hicks,
FLYER. Provenance
In the vintage car world, as in the art world, issues of provenance are of course treated very seriously. If a modern company makes a car that looks exactly like a Jaguar XK 120 in every respect, inside and out, so that its parts were indistinguishable from the original, in the vintage car world it wouldn’t be considered to be a Jaguar XK120 because it hadn’t been built by Jaguar. In the same way, in our world, the convention is that unless an aeroplane – a Stampe for example – was originally built by the original manufacturer (or a manufacturer licensed to produce Stampes) who issued a serial number for it, then it isn’t a Stampe.
Replica or reproduction
In the aviation world the convention is that ‘replica’ is the term used to describe an aircraft that has no original identity, and the powers-that-be are rigorous in including this term in the designation so as to avoid any risk of confusion. Some have suggested that ‘replica’ should be used for a merely lookalike machine (for example the reduced-scale WAR Replica WWII fighters) and to give it due distinction, the part-for-part identical copy should be called a ‘reproduction’. This idea seems to have failed to find traction with the CAA, however, who’ve stuck to the all-embracing ‘replica’.
The situation is different if the plans for a factory-built aircraft are later knowingly and legitimately supplied to the amateur-built market, with the intention that amateurbuilt examples can be built from them. In that case, as with the Jodel and Emeraude ranges for example, amateur-built examples are not termed replicas because amateur-building of certain models was officially sanctioned by the respective designers. This contrasts with the situation where, for example, de Havilland drawings have been available for many years from BAE Systems, and latterly DHSL, only on the strict proviso that they are not to be used for the purpose of building new aircraft, only for maintaining the existing factory-built fleet.
Type certificate responsibility
In the aviation world, there’s another side to it again, because of liability, where the original manufacturer of a certified aircraft (or those who subsequently pick up the
type certificate) have a formal ongoing responsibility for the safety of the aircraft they have built, even where the aircraft has been re-built many times since. When a genuine Piper J3 Cub has an accident anywhere in the world, and there’s any suggestion of an engineering design or component quality issue being involved, there’s potential for litigation against Piper in the USA who still maintain the active type certificate (TC). The same doesn’t apply of course, if it’s one of the many latter-day look-alike Cubs that have the accident, for example the Wag Aero Cub derivatives – even though they might contain major parts that, when purchased, were tagged as being genuine Cub spares. The type certificate holder has no responsibility for homebuilt replicas or lookalikes. But the TC holder will get extremely hot under the collar if they think that their liabilities are being expanded by an additional aircraft flying around purporting to be of their original manufacture when actually it’s, perhaps, a collection of spare parts put together at a maintenance outfit, with a faded and dog-eared logbook claimed as proof of provenance that, if truth be known, has turned up separately at an aero-jumble or suchlike.
Type data sheet compliance
The other area where originality and identity has relevance, this time in a technical sense, is to do with the link between the assigned serial number of the aircraft and the details of its build standard, which sometimes affects the applicable operating limitations or the applicability of airworthiness directives. The manufacturer may have incorporated subtle changes in the design from particular serial numbers onwards, for example, which the type certificate data sheet or equivalent document describes as allowing a higher maximum gross weight, wider cg range or similar expansion of the operating envelope. Or where production problems occur, a batch of aircraft serial numbers may be identified in an Airworthiness Directive as requiring special inspections, replacement parts or even being grounded. Clearly where these matters are concerned, it can be critical to safety that an aircraft is correctly identified, and its assigned serial number correctly reflects its build state.
Fuselage is the identity…
Going back to the opening words of the article, how does an owner make a case for his or her project deserving the identity that’s been applied for? How much of the original aircraft must be present for the project to qualify as being the original? Generally, the key element is taken to be the fuselage, and where applicable, the wing centre section, which in some way embodies the aircraft’s soul (?!) or the ‘heart’ of the aircraft. This is simple in an aircraft like a Piper Cub, which has a fuselage consisting of a single large, welded frame covered with fabric, or a wooden or composite machine where the fuselage essentially forms one structural unit. It’s not as straightforward with a Tiger Moth, with its modular fuselage construction, where it was not unusual (and indeed, part of the design intent) that the bolted-together sub-frames could be quickly changed in service to repair major damage as quickly and cheaply as possible, so that over a period of decades and a number of re-builds there might be little of the original fuselage frame left, but the aircraft could retain its original identity.
…but not always!
Above With so many surplus Tigers around post-war and their built in ‘repairability’, some of them really must be a bit like Trigger’s ‘original’ 20-year-old broom – which famously had 17 new heads and 14 new handles. Photo: Neil
Wilson.
crucial component as regards ‘identity’, the CAA has accepted cases where a complete replacement fuselage has been made, to rebuild an aircraft where the other major components (wings, tail, undercarriage etc) were clearly from the individual aeroplane concerned and made up the majority of the final build. In this case, a significant factor is that there must be no chance of the original, wrecked fuselage being reclaimed off some dump and re-emerging as the basis of another project, so that two aeroplanes end up both claiming the same identity. This can be prevented by ensuring that the ‘dead’ fuselage is purposefully destroyed once its value as a source of reference has been used up.
Rebuild the start point…
In this slightly strange arena, a rebuild project is ideally viewed at the starting point so that a determination can be made that enough wreckage from the actual aircraft with the claimed ‘identity’ has been gathered to justify the status of the project as a rebuild. If this is agreed, then strangely, it’s considered OK for the rebuild to progressively replace parts of the aircraft’s wreckage with new parts, even if, at the end, that means that nothing of the original remains apart from the data plate – and even that, actually, can be perfectly legitimately replaced providing it’s open and above board. This process, it seems, allows the identity of the original aircraft to gradually ‘merge’ into the new airframe.
…not the other way around
What isn’t acceptable, in contrast, is to build an aircraft from miscellaneous original parts and raw material, and then when near the end of the project, ‘find’ a logbook and a few parts from the aircraft that the logbook relates to, and then somehow tack them on to the project and claim it as being transformed into the original logbook machine, rebuilt. Even though the finished aircraft might end up embodying more original parts than in the previously described legitimate rebuild, the fact that so little of the original machine’s wreckage has been onsite, the link with the new machine so tenuous, and the possibility that ‘persons unknown’ somewhere in the world might possess more of the original wreckage and claim that to be the legitimate basis for a restoration, makes this scenario untenable.
Between these two extremes lies a whole range of intermediate scenarios, and with the best will in the world, there will always be a degree of subjectivity in the decision-making process. The CAA have however, endorsed the basic ground rules above and we hope that this note will help explain the questions you’re likely to be asked these days if you apply to add a vintage aircraft to the UK register. ■
