marine air wrote:
It's a lopsided trade but not as lopsided as it first appears. The National Museums are in the business of displaying "History" particularly U.S. combat history. This one doesn't have that. Second, a P-47N fuselage, no wings etc. sold a couple of years ago for $150K . There are other bits and pieces for Sea Furies, Mustang 3, etc. FW-190, etc. in the $400k range. While this airplane looks cosmetically great, did it fly to the museum? There was a rash of P-47 accidents in the late seventies and eighties related to engine or fuel starvation problems. This one could have lots of issues.
Most of the P-47 projects have to have new wing spars and extremely expensive turbocharger systems that are missing. So, I've yet to see a cheap P-47 restoration, they are a very complicated aircraft with very few parts laying around.
To me, I would value the Tuskegee Stearman at $250k to $500k.
Yes, it did fly to the museum. It had an accident in the late 70s, was repaired at Chino, and flown to Dayton. I have a pic of it that I took in 1983 in the resto hangar, I guess in the same condition it was ferried to the museum, wearing a paint scheme that I have not seen in other photos. It looked good. Of course it will have issues after 40 years of inactivity, but I have no reason to think it won't be as easy to restore as several of the other fighters that we have seen returned to flight lately after 3-5 decades on the ground.
If Collings wants to make it another Oshkosh winner then yeah, big dollars will have to be invested, even if it's a basically sound airframe.
From the looks of it, this trade may be a win-win. The Stearman, with its Tuskegee provenance (even if it's a bit sketchy) is of higher value to a historical museum concerned with important historical narratives, and the jug is of higher value to a private operator as a potential flyer. Both parties may legitimately feel they got the better end of the trade, based on their own valuations of the aircraft.
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