Warbird Information Exchange

From last Saturday's Desert Sun:

http://www.mydesert.com/article/2010053 ... -dismissed

Good to know that the parties have resolved their differences and cleared the way for the Pond airplanes to continue to be maintained, with a view to eventually being flown again. However, if the museum is only a few annual $250K payments into the $10M price to buy the aircraft, many of us had better lay off the donuts if we want to live to see this great collection airborne again.

August

Wow. Good news, August. But let be make sure my math is correct. First, that entire lot of aircraft for a cool $10 million? I'll bet some other folks might be interested in buying that collection for that price (if I correctly understand what is in the collection that belongs to Pond.) Second, 250k annually towards 10m? Doesn't that mean that the aircraft won't fly for 40 years??? I would sure think that the annual maintenance required to keep a fleet of 60+year old aircraft in flyable condition over a 40 year period, with the ultimate aim of sprucing them up and flying them around when they are 100+ years old might be daunting to say the least. Not to mention a bit costly. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I would sure want to work something in there, if I was the director of the museum, so that as we made progress on the 10m we were able to progressively return portions of the collection to flight. Unless I really never wanted to fly them again.

kevin

_________________
FOUND the elusive DT-built B-24! Woo-hoo!!!

The article says the Pond aircraft -- listed in the box in the upper right corner of the article web page -- were "appraised" at $16M. The article mentions "donation" which could be a way of characterizing the discount that the museum is getting.

My arithmetic on the time period is the same as yours; hence my comment about laying off the donuts.

I have no knowledge of the purchase/donation agreement. If I were the museum I certainly would want it structured the way you describe, but I just don't know how it was done.

August

If I read that article correctly... someone with deep pockets could *fund* the museum debt & have everything flying PDQ....



.... eyes the lottery tickets... what's tomorrow nights jackpot?

_________________
Those who possess real knowledge are rare.

Those who can set that knowledge into motion in the physical world are rarer still.

The few who possess real knowledge and can set it into motion of their own hands are the rarest of all.