Warbird Information Exchange

If he looks anything like his avatar, he's even the wrong species.

Mudge the selective

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Land of the free because of the brave

A thought here from a slightly different perspective..... The jets flying today are going to be the antique warbirds of the current generation. When the war was over, there was a huge rush to delete anything that reminded people of the war and it's cost. If it weren't for a bunch of visionaries that had the desire and the money and the space, virtually everything from that period and on would have been lost. It's happening again with the remanents from the Cold War/Vietnam/Desert Shield era, as you see the military disposing of millions of things and forcing the absolute destruction of them, wether they have any civilian use or desire for the preservation of them.

It's so unfortunate that as generations pass, the world view, for the most part, get to be shorter and shorter. At some point down the line, there are going to be people that are agast at the shortsightedness of the current generation and the failure to perserve some ot the great items from today.

I'd love to see virtually anything from Japan flying, A DO-335, B-32, PBM and the Seamaster too.

I love all Aircraft, period. I lean more towards warbirds but Beechs and Cessenas are ok with me as well. Ugly birds, sleek birds, I don't care. I grew up loving (on the fighter side) the P-47, P-38, the Hurricane and the P-51.On the bomber side, the B-17, the Lancaster and B-24. On the Jet side,the B-52, F-4 and the Navys Vigilante.

Got to work around F-4s when I first got into the USAF and then crewed on B-52Gs in SAC. Later I crewed the Herky Bird (She is my baby and will allways be). Now retired and working with 3 jets, 1 huey and a Stoof. Like 'em all.

I want to see Stukas, Sturmavicks, Maurders, Havocs, Typhoons and B-29s and Mosquitos. Love to see a Stirling and Halifax flying around as well. If I go to a show and Jets are flying, I'm good with that. Phantoms, Buffs, Herks, or Tomcats, hey if the folks with the greenbacks can put 'em up in the air, I'll come see 'em. If someone gets a Stuka flying, I'm there as well.

Herkeng

PS
What happened to all the birds that were in Sarejevo at the museum there? Prior to the war the museum had quite a few warbirds. My time in Bosnia was spent doing ERO's so I could never quite make it over to see the stuff.

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“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.” - P.J. O’Rourke

The military needs to keep a couple F-14s flying for air shows (I've only seen it fly once ) just like they need to keep 2-3 of a lot of their aircraft.

Imagine:
F-14s
A-7s
F-105s
F-106s

Think if they had started that eariler and could of had a B-58 and others! They wouldn't even have to take them to air shows. Just have them at the Air Force and Navy Museums and fly them once each season or something like that.

I totally agree with you Cvairwerks, and I think that will definitely happen. However there are three MAJOR factors which tend to inhibit anyone from preserving jets. They are:

1) The U.S. millitary in particular, is extremely reluctant to release any kind of either supersonic or tactical jet from it's ranks after retirement. They won't even release T-38's, undemilled, which carry no weapons or bombs. Because of this, it is VERY hard to get surplus aircraft with a clear title that is not on loan from the Air Force Museum.

2) Jets are much more complex and require very specialized training to operate and maintain. Because of this, they are extremely expensive to fly. They are much more so in ratio to what an average person makes, compared to what the average person made following W.W.II, who could go out and buy a P-51 for $ 200. This tends to weed out a lot of people because of the huge commitment it takes.

3) Jets are money pits which do nothing but convert $100 bills out the back end into hydrocarbons. With an energy crisis looming, and the price of AV gas, or Jet A hugely expensive, it takes a millionaire to even attempt to think about maintaing any kind of surplus U.S. jet.

These factors, alone, will tend to dampen many people's enthusiasm to preserve the current jets, which are tomorrow's warbirds. Yes, there will be an occassional static jet here and there, but there won't be the huge numbers of surplus military aircraft out flying in the civilian sector like what happened after W.W. II.

Warbird1: You're preaching to the choir here....been involved in procurement, production, test, operations and disposal of military aircraft and parts for more than 20 years now with one of the biggest military contractors in the world. My lament was really aimed at the services not setting aside a quantity of airframes and operations spares so that there are some available for museums and future display needs. We've lost so much history due to indifference, incompetence and stupidity as well as MBA idiocy.

In a way, the Brits have it right in allowing various trusts to own amd have limited operational capability of various ex-military aircraft, and it's with at least limited blessing of their services.

Should the US services ever warm up to this idea, AND the greedy type lawyers that will sue if they think they can get a buck, stay out of the process, we might be able to see a lot more of the older stuff on the circuits one day.

Oh, I didn't know you were in that field, CVairwerks. Sorry to insult your intelligence! Yes, I agree with you 100%! The Brits do SOME things very well!