Restoration clarification
I would like to pin down the legality of building an out of production aircraft. And if there any repositories of construction information. As much as I would love to build such an aircraft, this is more for personal knowledge. In this instance the last plane was finished about 60 years ago. The Type Certificate is owned by a company that intended to restart production but as far as I know wont get to actual production for some years if at all. There are erection manuals, maintenance manuals, and a few other pertinent documents sold from oversees, obtained I think from asking/helping England to build some of their own during World War 2. As far as I can tell the documents are thorough but ultimately incomplete. Although they make a nice gift, as pages have engineers notes and supply lists written by hand. It seems a bad idea to rely on them for accuracy as plans, and I don't know the legality of that as well. I do understand the rules, and general forbidding, of trying this as they apply to building in the states but I am less certain if there is some international legal barrier or patents to consider. ITAR not being a factor. Digging through the FAA's registry has not been fruitful as a collection to draw upon for additional airframe information and I don't think Grumman still maintains such things. Northrop Grumman or whatever they go by now from what I understand is essentially an unrelated company to the old Grumman. Again, I just enjoy learning and collecting things related to the aircraft. Building one even if it were legal would be way out of my league and economics, .