Indestructible Paint Ltd., Birmingham, manufacturer and major supplier of specialised coatings to aerospace companies in Europe, North America and Asia, regularly finds time to support the restoration of historic British aircraft.
The latest example of this, the restoration of three Tiger Moths, was started four years ago, and finally reached fruition when the first of these, G-AMIV, was test flown on 2nd May 2011.
All three, owned and worked on in ‘parallel’ by Kevin Crumplin at his premises near Wells in Somerset, were assembled at the onetime Fleet Air Arm, now civil, airfield at Henstridge.
Kevin, who is 72 says: “I have been building boats since the mid 70s and aircraft since I retired in 1996. The Tiger Moth holds a particular fascination for me, it was the first type of aircraft I flew at Dartmouth in1960”.
All three Tigers were finished in authentic WW2 RAF colours (1944), courtesy of Indestructible who supplied more than 90% of the final coatings free of charge.
The three Tigers, current civil registrations: -
were built at Morris Motors, Cowley in 1943, De Havilland in 1940 and De Havilland in 1935 respectively.
Rebuilt by Deltair Airmotive Ltd at Waterlooville, the engines have all been zero timed.
The first aircraft has been bought by a German flying museum, the “Airfighter Academy” and will be flown there in May. The second will go to a flying syndicate at Henstridge and Kevin will be keeping the third for his own use.
