PBS America - Plane Resurrection (Hurricane) Monday 9pm

[FourWheelDrift]

Just a little heads up if you haven't seen this series. On Monday it's a Hawker Hurricane restoration. Others in the series have been a P-51 Mustang, Fokker Dr.I, T-6. They have also covered the New Zealand Mosquito restoration previously and and they had a great 2hr long programme on the two Lancasters UK tour last week as well.

Always one to keep an eye on in the listings.


Plus O/T they are also currently showing the excellent Ken Burns documentary The Civil War.

[Eric Mc]

I always miss PBS stuff.

[Ayahuasca]

It is a good series.

The chap who restored the P-51 later crashed it, sadly his passenger died.

[Cookie338]

Believe this series is also on Netflix, I know I've seen the Hurricane and Mustang episodes recently

[Stuzza]

Cookie338 said:

Believe this series is also on Netflix, I know I've seen the Hurricane and Mustang episodes recently

It is... watched the Hurricane (and Fokker Triplane) so far.

[Lurking Lawyer]

FourWheelDrift said:

they had a great 2hr long programme on the two Lancasters UK tour last week as well.

I watched this over the weekend and really enjoyed it. Very well worth a look. It's a Canadian film, so the focus was on Vera, but there was plenty of BBMF personnel involvement and lots of footage of the two together.

I enjoyed the P51 restoration programme. I didn't know the guy subsequently crashed it :/

Lots of good aircraft and military stuff on PBS! I still remember watching the Ken Burns Civil War documentary when it was first on nearly 30 years ago - the music and the voiceovers of the diary extracts have stuck with me ever since.

[CanAm]

I missed the start of the P-51 programme so I don't know what he started with; was it the aviation equivalent of a "gear-knob restoration"?

The Fokker Dreidecker was a bit of a swizz in that it was a complete modern replica with "plastic sheet" covering rather than fabric and what looked like a VW flat-4 engine with three 3-D printed dummy cylinders sticking out of the bottom of the cowling for effect (only while stationary - in flight it would not be at all realistic . The guy had a model as well, with a spinning propellor but static engine! The original was of course an Oberursel rotary (not radial) engine.
(Edited to add) I am visiting the German town of Oberursel this month. The factory is still going strong and is possibly the oldest in continuous production in the aircraft industry, though now owned by Rolls Royce.

Edited by CanAm on Thursday 9th February 07:33

[Ayahuasca]

I agree the Fokker was a bit of a swizz - a lookalike rather than a replica or resurrection.

The others seemed more 'genuine'.

The guy restoring the Percival Q6 was a bit eccentric and did a good character assassination job on Mr Percival.

Re the Mustang crash:

Aviation Safety Network said:

North American P-51D Mustang "Janie" impacted the ground near Hardwick Airfield, a former RAF station 16 miles south of Norwich. There was a post crash fire. According to the following press releases from the local emergency services: "Emergency services were called to Denton Road at 3.38pm after receiving reports that an aircraft had crash landed. The passenger, a man in his 80s, was sadly pronounced dead at the scene.
The pilot, Maurice Hammond, who stars in a TV show called Plane Resurrection is in a serious condition and was airlifted to Norfolk and Norwich Hospital for treatment."