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I wonder why there wasn't a boom post-war
Spitfires only had to last a few months at most, before being destroyed or superseded. A bike ridden in all weathers would quickly expose the problems of electrolytic corrosion in aluminium lugs bolted together with steel fasteners, stress corrosion cracking where the lug/tube interface would probably be permanently wet thanks to the thin film of water which would lie in the gap, fretting at the interface caused by small movements which would be inevitable on such a clamped joint etc.
That's before you even get into the question of whether it was actually any better than a brazed assembly of 531 tubes, a skill set which was also in plentiful supply given that a great many engine bearers were of such construction regardless of the material used for the bulk of the airframe.
gbj_tester-
Why the comeback in the Nineties?
That's before you even get into the question of whether it was actually any better than a brazed assembly of 531 tubes...
Given the obsession with weight, I still find it curious that it took forty-odd years for it to reappear.
Even on a kitchen-sink scale, you'd have thought the Mike Burrows of the day would have turned something out.
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"hello I'm buzz killington, would you like to look at some etchings?"
;-)
Scilly.Suffolk
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Interesting: if they could do that pre-war I wonder why there wasn't a boom post-war, what with so many more skilled metalworkers familiar with aluminium.