Warbird Information Exchange

Anyone know the status of the Red Bull P-38 lately? Will it spend anytime flying in the US before, what I would assume, would be to disassemble and ship to Europe? And just how and where (airframe locations) would you disassemble this aircraft? And lets hope whom ever is charged the task of disassembly will not hack it to pieces. Last question, would the owner possibly choose to have it flown to Europe? Unlikely in my mind.

Mark

Yes, the owner is likely to fly it to europe. It ssems to be the choice of a few new owners these days

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Live to fly, Fly to live.....

Does this approach seem overly risky? What would be the advantage of flying it to Europe as opposed to shipping? .... Expense?, time? and what would you think would be the most time flying over water?

Shipping is fine unless he sends it DHL Documents Hopelessly Lost, those guys can't find their A**es with radar let along your package

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Why would it be overly risky. It's a practically brand new aircraft, from the standpoint of having every system thoroughly overhauled, rebuilt, or newly manufactured; It will be flown by a pilot with great experience and with the best possible navigational aids and only in optimal conditions. These aircraft were designed to be flown long distances under hostile conditions, a transatlantic flight should be well with-in it's capabilities. It's a flying machine...It should fly to where it is going.

The advantage would be, that it gets there quickly, in one piece, and has plenty of opportunity along the way to be seen and promote the product that it now endorses.

Over water flight for en extended amount of time in a twin engined 60 year old airplane. No thanks.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

Is there anything left in this plane that is 60 years old? It's effectively a brand new plane....yes, the technology is 60 years old, but there is nothing wrong with that.

I actually agree on that one. Too darn risky even for me. haha Look what happened to GG last year...they were lucky they made it back safely.

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Shop the Airplane Bunker At
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They were lucky they made it back safely ? Nathan maybe you should do a little research on how things transpired. They had the most knowledgable and skilled crew available. The pilot is certainly the most experienced P-38 pilot currently flying and they had not one but two chase aircraft. Yeah they had a problem but it was handled correctly and without incident. No, they didn't finish the flight as originally planned, but they did manage to cover the whole of the continental US + before they had the problem. Maybe if they'd have started on the east coast they would have landed in England. The Mustang certainly continued on and got where she was supposed to be going.

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

If that were my airplane, I would be more concerned about shipping damage on some freight hauler than the risk of flying her across. It's a twin engined airplane for a reason--redundancy. There are thirty-something year old 747s thrashing across the top of the globe every day in far worse condition than either of these P-38s will ever be, and no one thinks twice about it.

If you want to know what can happen when an aircraft gets shipped, look at the MI-24D sitting on the north end of the Lancaster Airport. Look quick because it's getting a cosmetic restoration, but suffice it to say, bad things happen when a titanium rotor hub and a highway overpass meet at 60MPH...

Red Bull can do whatever they desire. If I had maybe $7,000,000 invested in a beautiful rare masterpiece I would ship it. Machinery breaks. The Atlantic is a big place. Comparing any 1930 technology recip engine to a jet is like comparing apples and oranges. Modern transport category A/C are built to vastly different standards than a WWII fighter.

I have flown the North Atlantic many times in a recip powered aircraft, but I had four engines plus two jets. I would not want to fly a P-38 over open water on one engine. It might make it or it might not.

As I used to say of my Brig. Gen. boss when he was passing out the orders, "nothing is impossible for the man that does not have to do it himself."

For those that think that shipping via ship is without risk it is estimated that 10,000 shipping containers are lost at sea each year.

rwdfresno is right about the number of containers lost, but it represents a small percentage of the total moved. ( The firm I work for will move approx 6 million 40 foots this year ).

After spending 28 years in the container shipping industry, I think that any restored P-38 long distance move will be by air.

The wings / tail booms just won't fit staight inside a standard 40 foot shipping container. Which means a lot of extra planning and a BIG increase in shipping costs. Unless that is, the shipping line has people who want to defray some of the costs. We used to do this in the past, to ship over things for Flying Legends at Duxford from Chino.

I use the past tense because our firm was taken over 2 years ago and that activity is consigned to history.

You also have to make a risk assessment of taking apart a fully serviceable airframe and reassembling it at the "other" end. With some types this is starightforward, but with some ( P-38 / P-47 / Zero ) it really is not so simple because the bits won't fit into the box.

If the P-38 were mine I think I would disassemble it and try and hitch a ride for it in a C-5 / C-17, but I suspect these airplanes are way too busy hauling essential military freight.

Flying it across the Atlantic just might be the only way to do it.

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Blue Skies .....

Peter

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