Flyable Vintage aircraft on display in Seattle

[AntEater]

The two 109s of the Messerschmitt foundation are BASED on Buchon's but are hardly conversions. "D-FMBB", at least in its first shape, was nothing more than a Buchon with a DB 605 slapped onto it, true, but especially the Red 7 is basically a newly build 109G-4 with a few parts taken from a spanish Buchon. Black 2 (the one at ILA) is a mixture of CASA, czech build Avia S-199 and original parts.
Luckily both are repairable and Black 2 was even only slightly damaged.
But regarding these supposedly "original" 109Es were all recovered from the Murmansk area in the 1990s, you can't safely fly a tundra recovery plane without exchanging every structural component there is. I wouldnt trust my life on a main wing spar that was:
- most likely damaged in combat
- subjected to a crash landing in rough terrain
- left there for 60 years in a climate with extreme seasonal temperature changes
- salvaged by shady russian "businessmeny" in the Yeltsin era

So these "original" 109s contain less original parts than most museum exhibits and should by all means considered replicas. The only genuine WW2 build 109 to fly was "Black 6" in Britain, which is now a museum piece, all others are more or less newly rebuild, as are most warbirds still flying today.
But of course these recovery birds all have very interesting histories, since they're from JG 5 and were mostly hand-down planes from other units, often with 2-3 years service.
Serveral other such "restorations" are still underway in the US, Canada, Germany and Russia.