I've had rather a shock this week. It has transpired that some of the reference materials I used to model the shape of the spade grip handle, lever and upper angle bracket of the Spitfire MkIX flight stick were the intellectual property of Heritage Flight Simulation. These guys have invested a huge amount of time meticulously detailing every inch of a Spitfire MkIX and their highly detailed plans and other products are available from their website.
I had a very amicable phone call with Roel Stausebach, the managing director of heritage flight simulation, and explained that the reference images were obtained in good faith from a 3rd party who was known to Roel. He was very understanding but we were both in agreement that the designs in my download that used his references should be taken down ASAP. From my own experience running a design company prior to AuthentiKit I am well aware of the importance of intellectual property, even in this digital age of sharing, so I'm somewhat embarassed to have made this naive error.
I would like to thank Roel for his goodwill and allowing time for me to make changes, so as not to leave supporters of AuthentiKit in the lurch. I've had a very busy week going back to my Fusion 360 sketches and redrawing from my own Spitfire photographs and other references I had purchased. A bit of creative licence was needed too where the references weren't very clear. I think you'll still like the result - the photo is of my new fire button.
As of now the download available on this site contains reworked references which do not draw from Heritage Flight Simulation's work. As you'll see on my download page I haven't quite finished a couple of objects but they'll be added in the next couple of days .
We've also agreed that I owe Roel a beer which I hope to make good on when I can get out to Wexford in Ireland and check out their very impressive MkIX simulator. Having built a G-Seat myself I'm particularly interested in that feature of their simulator.
Updated 07 Feb 2021 - The remaining objects have been reworked and the current version 2.5 now contains all downloads.