| Thanks for that info Barry, another insight into the history of the SE5a. I’d assumed that the patches must be for some sort of inspection because of their regularity; of course the Shuttleworth example is subject to modern day peacetime airworthiness regulations, a lot more rigorous than WW1 requirements!
The point I was trying to make was that patches on fabric-covered airframes are / were very common and don’t in fact “spoil” the covering. Of course I don’t know how many or where any patches may have been at any given time on SE5a E5808, but then again nor does anyone else so they can’t say it’s wrong. |