Doug McManamny's Spitfire, Builder #11

On The 6th of June 1994 I purchased the Clive Du Cros book ‘Birth of a Spitfire”.

It never occurred to me that someone would take on a project of that magnitude and see it through to completion.

Needless to say I was very impressed.

At the time my work as a doctor and my family commitments prevented me from embarking on any such endeavour.

Fast forward to 2012 and I came across Russ Harmuth’s S.A.C. website and although I was still working I decided to ‘give it a go’.

I built a workbench and purchased an emperiage kit from Russ.

Work proceeded at a glacial pace but I had assistance and encouragement from ex-R.A.A.F. pilot Ron Tayles and fellow builder Frank Deeth who fortunately lives in the same city and is some years ahead of me with his build.

However in 2016 I decided to enlarge the garage / workshop and in doing so put a halt to building progress until it was completed.

That having been done I took another shortcut when Bruce West’s project became available and I purchased that.

In 2017 a partially completed fuselage, wing main spars and another emperiage along with a host of other parts arrived from New Zealand.

I have now retired and our children have moved out of home and I have returned to building.

My emperiage is well on the way to completion and when that is finished the next part of the project will be the fuselage completion.

The workshop with removable mullions and doors