2004

Progress of the Restoration on Hawker Hurricane AM274
in 2004 ~ page 1:

The center section, engine mount, and cockpit section off this Hawker Hurricane wreck
we purchased, was the most 'square' piece of wreckage of them all. For that reason,
John Norman decided this wreckage would be used as a template to begin the painstaking
process of re-building the new fuselage one tube at a time, using every airworthy piece of
fuselage tubing from AM274 first, then using airworthy fuselage tubing from other
Hawker Hurricane wrecks, and finally using new aircraft tubing to make replacement
tubes for the pieces we don't have and cannot find elsewhere in the world.

View from the aft side of the template fuselage. AM274 tubing begins at the first joint
seen at the top, right of the photograph, and continues to the tail. A replacement
instrument panel has been cut out from a pattern taken off the remains of the
original instrument panel off AM274.

The original landing gear legs removed from the center section off AM274, cleaned,
inspected and now mounted on this display stand. Because AM274 crashed with the
gear retracted, there was virtually no damage found on them!

This Rolls-Royce Merlin replaced the original U.S.-built Packard Merlin 28 that the
Canada Car and Foundry company of Ontario, Canada had built
the Hawker Hurricane AM 274 with in 1942.
After AM274 arrived in Great Britain, the Packard Merlin 28 was removed and the
Rolls-Royce Merlin installed before sending AM274 to Russia in January of 1943.
This engine has damage from the battle that made it crash land in June of 1943.

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The original center section, and cockpit section off the Hawker Hurricane AM274.
The armor plate can be seen at the top of the firewall remains. The landing gear is still
tucked securely in place in the wheel wells underneath this center section