Vital Spark wrote:
Hellcat wrote:
Does this approach seem overly risky? What would be the advantage of flying it to Europe as opposed to shipping? ....
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.
Well I'm no expert, but just a few things come to mind ... very expensive airplane, very intricate to operate, risk high, no matter what weather conditions, many hours over a very unforgiving ocean, lets see, what else ... very rare, single pilot, on and on. I'd still like someone to come up with a calculation of how long over the ocean. And yes you can take into account what may happen if you disassemble and ship, but in my simple mind I would assume shipping is a better bet than flying ... And yes it's an airplane that is made to fly .... so what's your point?, airplanes don't fly too well sitting on the bottom of the ocean. The owner can do what he wants, but if I owned it .... I'd ship it, that simple. GG had a chance, didn't happen, (TWICE) P-38's are not 30 year old 747's, big difference ....