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PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 12:17 pm 
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menards wrote:
We are starting to see some operators ground airworthy planes now due to operation costs. I believe this trend will continue. As society becomes more "green" and gasoline power bans are expanded (we are already seeing town ordinances banning gas lawnmowers, state laws banning sale of new gas powered cars) general aviation will become a new public enemy #1. 100LL fuels will become non existant, youll see more grounded planes. Static examples will survive in well funded museums, some private collectors may try to tuck a mustang away in their garage... but future generations will only see scrap metal value.


The first time that I read this exact post was around 1988, I think, on a usenet newsgroup or something, on my dial-up connection.

August


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 2:16 pm 
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k5083 wrote:
menards wrote:
We are starting to see some operators ground airworthy planes now due to operation costs. I believe this trend will continue. As society becomes more "green" and gasoline power bans are expanded (we are already seeing town ordinances banning gas lawnmowers, state laws banning sale of new gas powered cars) general aviation will become a new public enemy #1. 100LL fuels will become non existant, youll see more grounded planes. Static examples will survive in well funded museums, some private collectors may try to tuck a mustang away in their garage... but future generations will only see scrap metal value.


The first time that I read this exact post was around 1988, I think, on a usenet newsgroup or something, on my dial-up connection.

August
Is there a reverse auction site where I can place my bid now for an airworthy WW2 fighter for $100K? That's about what they were in my teenage years.


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 6:36 pm 
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No more gas?!! No problem. Mustangs will still fly ….

Just sound a little different.

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 7:10 pm 
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Go to a high end car auction and you'll see what my Mom referred to as, "having more money than sense" for paying well beyond the market value just because you think it's cool. Heck, I saw where a poorly restored M37 3/4 ton truck went for almost $100K at an auction and when asked, the winning bidder said he just thought was a cool thing to add to the car carrier full of high end cars he'd gotten at the auction.
In other words, it's worth what someone is willing to pay. I can easily imagine a Mustang going for eight figures before I'm done...

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 9:28 pm 
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With all due respect...
Your generalization of auto buyers is a bit broad in my opinion.
I have covered Scottsdale auctions for five years for the magazine I write for. I have also covered dozens of smaller events where money certainly was an object.
Yes, there are some idiots out there.
But 99% of the buyers are not buying to show off...or because of the free booze at the VIP bidders bar.

We see silly prices at car, memorabilia and high end art auctions.

No doubt we'll see some silly prices for warbirds, but allow me to point out:
-most airplanes are not sold at auction
-Airplanes are not cars...in other words, not everyone can fly or operate them. While someone might want to be the "big man at the airport" with all the neat toys, their isn't the opportunity to show off your treasures the way there is like a car in your garage. Can't drive an airplane to the country club or show it to friends in the garage while they are over for a BBQ, (okay maybe you can do that if you live at a fly-in community).

All in all, my take on the warbird community is one of rational buyers, people who have money, but who likely made that money by being smart. They didn't get wealthy by throwing money away.

Just because there are some idiots and show-offs out there doesn't mean they are the majority or that the odd silly sale will substantially alter the sales of warbirds worldwide.

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:16 pm 
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I would like to bring up another point that came to mind. I will harken back to the XP-82 as a reference point. I think this aircraft last flew in 2019. Will be 3 years come this summer. Now I know as a person who owns a classic car that just like us humans they need driven, or in the case of a warbird flown from time to time. So how long can a warbird sit without running the engines as a ground run before rubber hoses etc. start to dry up and need replaced, or things did work don't work?
One would think that this would cause a warbird to drop in value at least temporarily because of much needed mechanical attention. Then the owner might be inclined to try to recoup what has been put back into the aircraft in the selling price. Perhaps Im way off base, but want to see what you folks might have to say. Im finding the comments informative and interesting. Thanks.


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 24, 2022 11:12 pm 
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menards wrote:
Dan Jones wrote:
k5083 wrote:
T
The only thing that will drive down the price of Spitfires and other warbirds is if they simply become less attractive across the board. Like, for example, if their operations are more heavily restricted by regulation, or if people just lose interest in these planes and their history.

August


I have a suspicion that with this current generation you're going to see warbird prices peak and then eventually start to slide off. I think once we're gone (I'm in my fifties) that the interest in them is going to die off, perhaps even rapidly, and eventually, in the end, many of today's prized airplanes will wind up in the smelter.


We are starting to see some operators ground airworthy planes now due to operation costs. I believe this trend will continue. As society becomes more "green" and gasoline power bans are expanded (we are already seeing town ordinances banning gas lawnmowers, state laws banning sale of new gas powered cars) general aviation will become a new public enemy #1. 100LL fuels will become non existant, youll see more grounded planes. Static examples will survive in well funded museums, some private collectors may try to tuck a mustang away in their garage... but future generations will only see scrap metal value.

The huge shame is there is no place to talk about the why of all this. And is part of why it will continue.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:23 am 
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phil65 wrote:
Being from Massachusetts I love the Collings Foundation, and even flew on Witchcraft. If they were making out OK, why was their maintenance so spotty ?

Phil


I think it was 2014, we did an oil change on Betty Jane and found a few slivers of metal the size of small finger nail clipping in the screen. A couple phone calls and less than 30 minutes, a freshly overhauled Merlin was being dispatched from Michigan. No questions asked, just get it changed. That was...how we operated. What happened after 2016 I can't speak for. The Foundation was always in the hunt for airframes but that was sponsor driven.

Jim

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:03 pm 
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Ed Likes wrote:
So how long can a warbird sit without running the engines as a ground run before rubber hoses etc. start to dry up and need replaced, or things did work don't work?
One would think that this would cause a warbird to drop in value at least temporarily because of much needed mechanical attention.


In general, hoses age and are replaced periodically whether you fly or not. Exposing them to thermal cycles probably accelerates this aging, but the time change accounts for the worst case.

All aircraft are subject to an annual inspection or a progressive maintenance plan. For an annual inspection, the same things are looked at whether the airplane last flew yesterday or 20 years ago. Things like hydraulic seals may live longer if operated regularly, but you have to balance that against engine and tire wear for example. The big things that might keep something like the P-82 from flying more regularly are flight insurance cost, maintenance cost (adjusting the valves on two Merlins for example), qualified pilot availability (also related to insurance) and fuel cost.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 26, 2022 10:23 am 
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k5083 wrote:
menards wrote:
We are starting to see some operators ground airworthy planes now due to operation costs. I believe this trend will continue. As society becomes more "green" and gasoline power bans are expanded (we are already seeing town ordinances banning gas lawnmowers, state laws banning sale of new gas powered cars) general aviation will become a new public enemy #1. 100LL fuels will become non existant, youll see more grounded planes. Static examples will survive in well funded museums, some private collectors may try to tuck a mustang away in their garage... but future generations will only see scrap metal value.


The first time that I read this exact post was around 1988, I think, on a usenet newsgroup or something, on my dial-up connection.

August


Impossibe. Al Gore didnt invent the internet until the early 90s. Also, if you remember that time, there were big celebrations around the 50-years anniversery of important events as they hapened (Pearl Harbor, D Day, Hiroshima etc) in the early 90s. More types were being restored to flight worthy status than were being parked. The opposite is true now. There are less airshows, less vintage planes flying, less GA aircraft flying. Enjoy it while it lasts.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 26, 2022 10:59 am 
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menards wrote:
Also, if you remember that time, there were big celebrations around the 50-years anniversery of important events as they hapened (Pearl Harbor, D Day, Hiroshima etc) in the early 90s. More types were being restored to flight worthy status than were being parked. The opposite is true now. There are less airshows, less vintage planes flying, less GA aircraft flying. Enjoy it while it lasts.


I think that the uber-wealthy collector has taken over the market, which includes the creation of new museums. Fewer high-end warbirds are owned by individuals, from a percentage standpoint. Just my observation anyhow. Lots of new-build parts to restore Mustangs, Spitfires, P-40s, Mosquitos, etc. are available. I think their numbers are growing! All the easy restorations (mostly in need of refurbishment or IRAN and paint jobs) have been done for the most part, the more difficult ones take time.

I think there are also way more vintage aircraft and lower complexity/cost warbirds flying now too. I have an SNJ in that category (N48119) that flew for the first time as a civil aircraft in late 2020.

Sure would be good to actually see some statistics rather than speculation though.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:31 pm 
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menards wrote:
k5083 wrote:
menards wrote:
We are starting to see some operators ground airworthy planes now due to operation costs. I believe this trend will continue. As society becomes more "green" and gasoline power bans are expanded (we are already seeing town ordinances banning gas lawnmowers, state laws banning sale of new gas powered cars) general aviation will become a new public enemy #1. 100LL fuels will become non existant, youll see more grounded planes. Static examples will survive in well funded museums, some private collectors may try to tuck a mustang away in their garage... but future generations will only see scrap metal value.


The first time that I read this exact post was around 1988, I think, on a usenet newsgroup or something, on my dial-up connection.

August


Impossibe. Al Gore didnt invent the internet until the early 90s. Also, if you remember that time, there were big celebrations around the 50-years anniversery of important events as they hapened (Pearl Harbor, D Day, Hiroshima etc) in the early 90s. More types were being restored to flight worthy status than were being parked. The opposite is true now. There are less airshows, less vintage planes flying, less GA aircraft flying. Enjoy it while it lasts.


I do remember those times and, with all respect, I think you get almost every fact wrong in the above post. Some of it is subjective, but my understanding of the statistics is that there are more operational WWII types and more vintage types flying now, or at least immediately pre-COVID, than at any prior time. There is also not less GA aircraft flying. The Bureau of Aviation Statistics says that there were 211,045 GA active aircraft in 1980, with 96,222 of them classified as "personal." In 1990, those totals were 196,800 overall, 112,600 personal. In 2019, it was 210,981 overall, 141,767 personal. So there are about the same number of GA aircraft active now than in the 80s-90s, and substantially more personal GA aircraft. With the advent of Light Sport and the rise of new GA producers like Cirrus and Diamond, this is not surprising. As far as commemorations, are you forgetting the VJ+70 events in 2015 including the spectacular DC flyover, which I watched, the likes of which nothing ever matched in the 80s-90s? And the VJ+75 one would have been even bigger if the pandemic curtain had not come down. A lot of other big events were planned as well.

BDK is right that there has been a shift in the nature of warbird ownership, especially at the high end, that was already well on its way by the late 80s. Ownership of the high-end warbirds has become more concentrated in fewer, more wealthy hands (just like the ownership of all of the nice stuff in America), and some of these large collections are more private than they were in the past. You may be seeing fewer warbirds at airshows; that's a natural consequence of one guy owning 25 warbirds, and only being able or inclined to bring 1 or 2 of them if any, versus if 25 different guys owned them, and several might be interested in going to a show. For similar reasons, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the average active warbird is flying fewer hours now. If you have a collection of 25 warbirds and aren't paying a staff of pilots to fly them, realistically you're likely to keep 3 or 4 active and annualled any given year. You aren't going to put the hours on all 25 of them that 25 different owners would.

August


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 26, 2022 3:17 pm 
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k5083 wrote:
I do remember those times and, with all respect, I think you get almost every fact wrong in the above post. Some of it is subjective, but my understanding of the statistics is that there are more operational WWII types and more vintage types flying now, or at least immediately pre-COVID, than at any prior time. There is also not less GA aircraft flying. The Bureau of Aviation Statistics says that there were 211,045 GA active aircraft in 1980, with 96,222 of them classified as "personal." In 1990, those totals were 196,800 overall, 112,600 personal. In 2019, it was 210,981 overall, 141,767 personal. So there are about the same number of GA aircraft active now than in the 80s-90s, and substantially more personal GA aircraft. With the advent of Light Sport and the rise of new GA producers like Cirrus and Diamond, this is not surprising. As far as commemorations, are you forgetting the VJ+70 events in 2015 including the spectacular DC flyover, which I watched, the likes of which nothing ever matched in the 80s-90s? And the VJ+75 one would have been even bigger if the pandemic curtain had not come down. A lot of other big events were planned as well.


Keep in mind, I said "less GA aircraft FLYING". You then quote Bureau of Aviation stats that say there are "more active" GA Aircraft over 1980-2019. Of course there is. They havent stopped making new planes. every year new planes produced are added to the registry. All that means is that more new planes are being added to the registry than the old ones are being crashed, parted out, junked or otherwise deregistered. That doesnt mean that Joe Schmoe who is the registered owner of a plane actually goes out and flies it. Since you like stats, I got one for you. from 2010 to 2020, there was a 30k reduction in certified Private Pilots in the US. less pilots = less flying. Yes there were +75 events planned. Some were "big" yes, but nothing like the shows from '89-'95

k5083 wrote:
BDK is right that there has been a shift in the nature of warbird ownership, especially at the high end, that was already well on its way by the late 80s. Ownership of the high-end warbirds has become more concentrated in fewer, more wealthy hands (just like the ownership of all of the nice stuff in America), and some of these large collections are more private than they were in the past. You may be seeing fewer warbirds at airshows; that's a natural consequence of one guy owning 25 warbirds, and only being able or inclined to bring 1 or 2 of them if any, versus if 25 different guys owned them, and several might be interested in going to a show. For similar reasons, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the average active warbird is flying fewer hours now. If you have a collection of 25 warbirds and aren't paying a staff of pilots to fly them, realistically you're likely to keep 3 or 4 active and annualled any given year. You aren't going to put the hours on all 25 of them that 25 different owners would.

August


so warbirds are flying less hours today than they were 20, 30 years ago? Isnt that what I said originally?


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:56 am 
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It was clear what you meant, but if you now want to mean something different, total "personal" general aviation flight hours were about 8.9m in 1980, peaked at over 11m in the 2000s, and were about 7.9m in 2019. Not a big decrease compared with 1980 levels. It had been trending modestly upward for the past few years prior to 2019, and seems sensitive to economic cycles. The data do not support your narrative, in my opinion. It is true that avgas consumption nowadays is about half what it was then, but that's mostly because of the transition to turbos by commercial operators. In the US, the fuel has not become significantly harder to get or even much more expensive in inflation adjusted dollars, which is a main reason why new-tech GA engines using Jet A have trouble succeeding, as explained here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k1TQGK3mZI. Warbirds are flying fewer average hours, but not for the "death of GA/avgas" reasons predicted since the 1980s that have yet to come true. The more likely explanation is ownership concentration and the transition of the aircraft from fun historical sport planes to high-value investment assets.

August


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