Warbird Information Exchange

Man - how cool would this be?!!

http://courtesyaircraft.com/aircraft/f-8-crusader-aircraft-projects/

Tom P.

REDACTED

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Matt Gunsch, A&P, IA, Warbird maint and restorations
Jack, You have Debauched my sloth !!!!!!
We tried voting with the Ballot box, When do we start voting from the Ammo box, and am I allowed only one vote ?
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Being the nephew of a F-8 Driver, this would be a sweet thing to see in the sky one day.

Shay
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Semper Fortis

What do you mean one day ? One of those was flying, and flew a fair amount doing R&D and weapons testing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5Y4wZP_ohY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCa52bzGsbg

_________________
Matt Gunsch, A&P, IA, Warbird maint and restorations
Jack, You have Debauched my sloth !!!!!!
We tried voting with the Ballot box, When do we start voting from the Ammo box, and am I allowed only one vote ?
Check out the Ercoupe Discussion Group on facebook

20 years is 1/5th of a century ago. Not exactly yesterday.

As a Warbird, in vintage livery, touring the airshow circuit, it would be nice to see in the air one day.

.......preferably as a Satan's Kitten, Red Lightning or a Checkmate but that's just me. lol

Shay
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Semper Fortis

On very rare occasions back in the day, we'd get to see the French Navy F-8's display in the UK. Was a real treat to see a F-8.

Always surprised that Collings Foundation has never gone after they potentially airworthy F-8's, would make a great addition to its Vietnam flight with the F4, F-100 and A-4.

A guess: The jets are a money pit. Very expensive to fly and not nearly enough sponsorship dollars to take them to most airshows.

If that's true, adding another one would just increase the loss Collings takes on its jet fleet, with little benefit.

My guess is that the Collings foundation has no interest in these F-8 aircraft because they are single-seaters. There is virtually no way to make it a worthwhile venture unless you can sell rides in them, or get a lucrative military contract, using them for adversial support, or flight testing. The Collings foundation is not normally known for providing that kind of support for the DOD.

If you will notice, the F-4, F-100, A-4 and Me-262 are all two seaters and they are able to be potentially used to sell rides. Even when the Collings foundation was "hot and heavy" for an F-105, they were only interested in the 2 seat version. Jets, any way you slice them, are huge money pits, even for the Collings foundation. Monetarily, one high performance aircraft, like the F-4, would require the same level of monetary expenditure as nearly a squadron of P-51's, P-40's, Corsairs, etc. When people like Rod Lewis have no interest in "fast jets" and Paul Allen, who only very rarely flies his Mig-29, you know it is SUPER expensive to keep them operational to fly. I would be really surprised if the Collings foundations' jets (except the Me-262) "broke even" or paid for their own upkeep. If the Collings foundation gets their request approved from the FAA, they plan on selling rides in all of the previously mentioned jets.

As another example of how expensive Cold War and later jets are to operate, I am reminded of an example that I read about 10 years ago about the Starfighters group in Florida which operates a fleet of F-104s. One of their members gave an interview, talking about how expensive it was to bring them to airshows. He mentioned that it was something like $75,000, just in fuel costs alone, to fly an F-104 to a typical airshow in the Midwest of the U.S., one way. A return trip is another $75,000. So, round trip, we are at $150,000 and we haven't broken even yet. Add, on top of that, appearance fees, crew support, hotels, rental cars, support infrastructure (huffer, external cart, apu, etc.). So, we're probably looking at somewhere north of 200K to 250K, to support one airshow event. What airshow has the money to support that kind of operation? My guess is the only one who can support that might be a military open base that uses government tax payer funding. Unless your airshow happens to reside next to the home base of operations of said high performance jet, I don't think most airshow committees wound fund such an enormous amount of money to bring in one single aircraft.

These F-8s belong to Paul Allen.

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Brad

I wonder why he's selling them? Could even these be too expensive to operate for his taste?

probably making room for a couple TBDs

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www.warbirdbunker.com

OK, that right there is FUNNY Nathan!

Andy

I hate to agree with pretty much everything said above, BUT, yes being single seaters there is no way to share the joy. And, as my friend who owns 2 T-33s always says, purchase is just the cost of entry. . . . Still they would be beautiful to see in a Legacy flight formation!

Tom P.

Thunderbird was planning to convert the 2nd F-8 to a 2 seater, there was room behind the pilots seat after all the military radio gear was removed.

_________________
Matt Gunsch, A&P, IA, Warbird maint and restorations
Jack, You have Debauched my sloth !!!!!!
We tried voting with the Ballot box, When do we start voting from the Ammo box, and am I allowed only one vote ?
Check out the Ercoupe Discussion Group on facebook