The aircraft was probably built up from the remains of a Firefly fuselage which was extant from the firewall just ahead of the cockpit and upto the tail. The team constructed an engine cowling, spinner, propeller, cooling vents, Oil cooler air intakes on both sides of the engine cowling, a complete undercarraige and tail empennage.
While a reasonable job has been done on the main fuselage, the engine cowlings came out the worst - looking like something grafted out of a DHC-1 Chipmunk, the cowlings along with the Spinner and Propeller look out of place and completely distracts from the Firefly look. Many a visitor has emailed us asking if it was a 'Replica' and were flabbergasted when we told them it was an original aircraft!
The Undercarraige of the aircraft is another distracting feature. Though we have no clue as to from which parts it was fabricated, the main undercarraige looks like it is a strutted unit from Biplanes of yore. The tail wheel is too big for the aircraft and looks like it is a wheel barrow spare. It would probably have been better if the Navy had displayed the aircraft on jacks and completely removed all traces of the current u/c set up.
Others have commented that a Harvard's tail might have been used to construct the tail empennage.
