Warbird Information Exchange

One or two examples of something that was built in the thousands or one example of something that only had couple of examples built? Like maybe a Brewster Buffalo versus an XB-70. Perhaps they are equal.

A caveat on this topic: You can't equate "rare" with "valuable". For example, the Brewster Buffalo was an also-ran in the WWII fighter ranks. It's an a/c very few would care about now. In today's vernacular, it's a "loser", and people won't line up and pay to see a loser. The XB-70 was ahead of its time, a cool state-of-the-art technology demonstrator. People will line up to see that. It's ALWAYS a popularity contest. If you have the last or only known example of its type, it is definitely rare, but percentage-wise, a last-of-3 is less rare than a last-of-3000. Probably (in most cases) it has less appeal as well (the previous example notwithstanding). The "gee-whiz" factor (XB-70) is very important. Another factor is historical significance. Add value if the a/c participated in a noteworthy event (i.e., shooting down Yamamoto), or was flown by an iconic figure (high-ranking ace, famous person, etc.).

Spitfires and Mustangs are iconic because, in the eyes of many, they are "winners". Early on, many were saved for that reason. Other, less-popular a/c were scrapped instead. By any measure, virtually all WWII-era aircraft are now rare, but the monetary value of the individual types are widely disparate, mainly due to ther popularity, or lack thereof. Armed planes (fighters & bombers) are at the top of the heap. Lack of success in battle = lack of value now. Always compare apples to apples. It's very hard to draw a comparison between an F2A and an XB-70.

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"There's nothing new under the sun. It's only new to you."

"Deserve's got nothing to do with it."

Just using your two examples, they built only two XB-70s, and only one exists (IIRC). They built hudreds or thousands of Buffalos, of which only a couple exist, BUT another one could be rediscovered tomorrow. And three more next week. And, if someone wanted to put enough money and energy into the project, a "new" Brewster Buffalo could be built from scratch. I don't think anyone on Earth has enough money to scratchbuild another flying B-70. All that is is all that will ever be.

So, IMHO, between these two, "Rarest:" XB-70.

As asked, it's a simple question of semantics. If rareness is absolute, "one left" is as rare as it gets, assuming rare is defined so as to exclude the non-existent. Rareness can also be defined relative to the number built, but that leads to some absurd conclusions, e.g., T-6s would be much rarer than, say, Travel Air Mystery Ships. There are probably other ways rareness could be defined, if it were worth your time, which I would hope it isn't.

Do feel free to compare apples to oranges. It is the only interesting way to think.

August

I'd bet that if a flyable Brewster Buffalo were to show up at Oshkosh, it would be the hit of the warbirds!

I think the two examples used in the opening of this discussion could easily be turned around. The Brewster F2A was initially an advanced state of the art fighter aircraft. In 1938 it had a controllable pitch 3 blade propeller when Spitfires and Hurricanes were being delivered with fixed pitch wooden two blade propellers. The Brewster had acres of plexi-glass, was fast with an excellent climb rate and better than average armament. The B-70 on the other hand was designed to an obsolete standard. No high flying bomber was going to survive very long in the age of guided surface to air missiles. No matter its' performance and advanced design the SAM made it obsolete. Both aircraft were superlative, the Brewster the first US Navy monoplane fighter and the Valkyrie the fastest bomber ever built. Of the two the Brewster was at least not a dead end. In its way it proved several standards of design for future US Navy fighter aircraft even if not built by Brewster. As well the Brewster did have phenomenal success in Finland and ended the war with the highest kill ratio of any WW2 fighter, something on the order of 26 to 1. I say from an historical point of view the Brewster had more effect on the design and development of fighter aircraft and contributed greatly to the continuing independence of Finland, the Valkyrie has never been equaled because it has never paid to do so. So with one genuine example of each surviving the Brewster is clearly the most desirable and rare.

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

Americans fought and died in combat flying the Brewster Buffalo, in defense of Midway Island at one of the most significant naval battles in all of human history. And then there is the record in Finland as well. In comparison, the XB-70 is an asterisk, just one of many interesting and odd military experimentals that can be seen in museums around the country. The XB-70 may have more "wow" factor to the uninitiated, but Aerophiles know which one is more significant. Given that there is only one intact specimen left of each, the Buffalo is the far rarer and more important. Those of us who know the history would stand before the Buffalo in reverence; the XB-70 is not the same thing.

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Kevin McCartney

"Desirability" and "historical significance" are NOT "rarity," which was what the original question was. They are other factors that can be discussed and argued, but neither has anything to do with "rarity."

Now, mathematically, the Brewster is much rarer than the B-70. Fifty percent of all B-70s ever built still exist (!). Dunno Buffalo production figures but the survival rate's gotta be, what, one out of a thousand or something? So mathematically, the Brewster is "rarer."

Is this how you think? Or is it just a guess to what you think people view airplanes nowadays? I can tell you there are many people that would like to see a Brewster Buffalo. Also there is no such thing as a loser of an airplane. Japan dominated the Pacific in the beginning of the war. No other aircraft in history if put in place of the P-40s, Wildcats, P-39's, and Brewster would not have made any difference. Japan and Germany both had the upper had when the U.S. entered the war. We had many poorly trained pilots that were thrown in the fight fresh out of flight school and had to learn the hard way. I really never look at the planes as the faults. Just saying...I wish people would have an interest in all the airplanes. Just not the popular ones that are "winners".

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The F2A is rarer than the XB-70 only if you buy into the "percentage" theory of rarity. There is no reason to favor that over the just-as-mathematical reasoning of "survivors = 1".

It has already been pointed out three times in this thread that the percentage view gets you to some absurd results (e.g. T-6s more rare than XB-70s).

If you think that the total ever built has some relevance to rarity today, you have to develop a more sophisticated calculation that takes into account the fact that the most important element of rarity is how few currently exist.

Just because I'm bored, here's a possible such calculation. Rarity index = [percentage left] x [square root of number built].

Here are some examples of the rarity index (lower numbers mean more rare, so I guess it is really a commonness index).

XB-70. 2 built, 1 left, RI=70.7
F2A. 509 built, 1 left, RI=4.4
Il-2m3 (approximate). 30,000 built, 10 left, RI=5.8
T-6/SNJ/Harvard (approximate). 15,000 built, 500 left, RI=408.

I don't love this calculation, some of the results aren't intuitive to me. It would have the F2A still being rarer than the XB-70 even if there were 15 surviving Buffalos, which I don't think is right. A one-off plane like the Ryan NYP or Rutan Voyager that happens to survive would get a score of 100, not especially rare, also not right. But hey, I'm in the absolute-number-of-survivors camp anyway.

Take it, leave it, tinker with it, it's just a game.

August

A lot of this thread has been about which type would be "more special", not "rarer". "More special" is obviously just a matter of opinion.

August

Here's another rarity index calculation. (After this I'm quitting.) This is: 1 / ([number left] / [square root of number built]). Higher numbers are now more rare.

XB-70: RI=1.4
F2A: RI=22.5
Il-2m3: RI=17
T-6: RI=0.2
Ryan NYP: RI=1

A nice thing about this index is that still-surviving one-off types score a 1.0, which kind of benchmarks the other values. However, I think it still shows the F2A as too much more rare than the XB-70. The importance of the number built can be adjusted by changing the root being used. For example, if we use the cube root rather than the square root:

XB-70: RI=1.3
F2A: RI=7.9
Il-2m3: RI=3.1
T-6: RI=0.05
Ryan NYP: RI=1

Better, I think. Maybe even switching to a fourth root would be better. Perhaps I should put this out to the Wix community: How many surviving Buffalos (509 built) would it take for you to consider the Buffalo less rare than the XB-70 (2 built, 1 survivor)? The cube root version of the calcuation implies that it would take about 6 surviving Buffalos to consider Buffalos less rare than XB-70s, which is getting close, but I think maybe using a fourth root (which would require 4 surviving Buffalos) or a fifth root (3 Buffalos) would even better suit our intuitive sense of rarity.

I still think the simple number of survivors is the best definition of rarity, but these calculations do something to quantify the degree of "specialness" associated with being one of the few survivors from an initially large population. Maybe I'll start adding rarity indexes to the planes covered in my web site, if I refine it a bit more.

August

You can state all the facts all you want, but at the end of the day, the a/c that performs, wins. Never mind its place in history, it's a "winner". The XB-70 set many speed records: WINNER! Most people don't even have any knowledge that there WAS a Russo-Finnish War, and it's too late to teach them about it now. On top of being a "loser", the F2A doesn't have any aesthetic appeal, either. It's a butt-ugly design from a mismanaged company. They have nothing to get excited about. There won't be a stampede toward it at Oshkosh, unless there's a P-51D parked behind it! It's a plane no one cares about, not then, and certainly not now. People vote with their feet.

Of twenty F2A-3's defending the island during the Battle of Midway, , the U.S.M.C lost thirteen pilots and aircraft, in its only combat with U.S. forces.
They did manage to account for three Vals, a Zero, and a Kate.

Spitfires and Hurricanes had constant-speed metal props in time for the Battle of Britain (again, winners), 1 1/2 yrs before Pearl Harbor.

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"There's nothing new under the sun. It's only new to you."

"Deserve's got nothing to do with it."

The airplane is only part of the equation for success. Many of the F2A-3 pilots of VMF-221 at Midway were green pilots with little training. Remember also the pilot contributes success or failure in combat. The airplane helps but you can take a decidedly flop of an airplane with a well skilled pilot and take on any airplane. It has been proven time and time again.

Also of small detail is that some of the VMF-221 pilots would have preferred to have gone into combat with the F2A-2 rather then the F2A-3. The -3 was heavier and slower and did not turn as well as the -2. A Buffalo could actually out turn any of the Japanese planes!

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Tomahawk said



I think if a Buffalo were to unexpectedly fly into Oshkosh there would be the biggest stampede anyone has ever seen in the direction of that aircraft, and no one would be looking right or left at P-51s as they ran by. Oshkosh people know their airplanes and there are whole parking lots full of P-51s there every year. The Buffalo is the rarest American fighter of WWII, with zero surviving examples that saw American service.

Who says butt-ugly has much to do with appeal. Even someone who did not know its history would take a look at the landing gear and barrel-shape and think "this is something special". There are lots of ugly aircraft that would attract an instant crowd (think "Stuka").

The Buffs at Midway were all flown by heros who attacked a force many times their number, while most of the Wildcats involved in the battle flew over empty ocean and many of them then landed in the water (geez, talk about mismanaged!). The only aircraft that I can think might have more appeal would be an original AVG P-40.

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Kevin McCartney