Warbird Information Exchange

The F2G "74" Racer thread got me thinking...

I'd wager that since the 1970's, more aircraft have been irretrievably lost to museum or hanger fires, than have crashed and been a total, non-recoverable loss.

Any takers?

Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

Counting just the 2 museums in France and San Diego no contest.

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Don't touch my junk!!

Yep...

Le Bourget 1989; San Diego 1978 (and that one was arson); CWH 1993 (only someone's long-ago need for a paintshop--and the consequent cinderblock wall--kept the priceless Lancaster from being consumed); Yankee Air Museum 2004; Shafter CA, late 80s (Fury and Mustang); Louisville KY ca.02 (P-40K)...even the RAF Museum, not quite completed at the time, was invaded by arsonists, who fortunately succeeded only in torching a Tiger Moth inside...how much worse could that have been with the one-of-a-kind survivors gathered at Hendon even at that early stage!

'Nuff said...

S.

Any time some one says "No contest" or "'Nuff said", it always means there is really a contest and more to be said...

First of all, in your post you said "aircraft". All aircraft? Did you really mean historic aircraft of some kind? Warbirds? Big iron or trainers, too?

What is a "total, non-recoverable loss?" Not a single part is usable? In that case, the CWH Hurricane would not count because a few small pieces of it were salvaged and incorporated into the replica now on display. With so many wiggle words, your question cannot really be answered.

But under any consistent definitions of your terms that are not designed to bias things in favor of museum/hangar fires, it is very much a contest. We remember the big cataclysmic fires because they are big deals and there are so few of them. It is harder to remember all the crashes that occur every single year. If they don't involve the better known personalities or the most famous hardware we may not hear about them at all. I think it is really quite likely that more (a) historic aircraft and (b) ex-military aircraft built between 1935 and 1950 have been substantially destroyed (my own wiggle word) in crashes than in hangar/museum fires since 1970.

August

Actually, I'm convinced that when you add up all the crashes of the past 25 years or so, they total many times the losses in fires, sadly.

I think you are almost certainly right Mike.

August

Sea Fury fires in Rockford in the late '80's. Gary Norton's hangar fire. YAF's fire.

Hey guys I menat no harm by what I said about crashes in fires in the other thread. Any time a warbird and pilot\crew are lost it is a tragedy. I din't mean to start a fight or anything. I just kind of assumed that crashes would be more responsible than fires. Remeber that the Willow run fire destroyed their home, and it was a great tragedy, but I believe only an F-105, Lockeed, Bronco, aTigermoth (?), and part of a Waco Glider were inside. That is that is only 4 aircaft in my book as the Glider was not complete.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

I toured those hangers a week before the fire, when I heard about the fire while at OSH I was shocked. The Weeks Sea Fury was looking good and the spares holding lost in that one...

I guess I'm interested in total loss of Historic aircraft, not just warbirds. I don't have the figures on the total losses in many of these fires, but I'm talking about LeBouget, CWH, San Diego, and events like the Texas and California Hanger fires. Total loss to me would be some salvagable parts but not enough for a rebuild of the original.

I also should have added Hurricanes, Tornados and other natural disasters that have wreaked havoc on "safe" museums.
The New England Air Museum suffered a loss of appox. 20 aircraft that were only good for parts and many others were heavily damaged in the tornado of 1979.

My point is, when you lose 20 or 30 aircraft at a clip, that's several years worth of crashes rolled into one event. I remember seeing the Lockheed F-5 at Pima in 1980 and a few years later hearing it was gone in the LeBorget fire.

Anybody have any actual figures for these types of losses over the years?
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

I did a rough estimate of the 'heavy metal' warbirds that I know to have been lost in crashes in the past 25 - 30 years, and stopped counting at 50+. And I'm sure I missed a whole bunch.

Then there are all the T-6s, other trainers, older vintage aircraft.........

Many, many more than in fires and natural disasters, when you add them all up.

How many of those fires destroyed flying aircraft vs static and was the fire in a hanger, museum/hanger or
museum of only static aircraft? ie.Yankee Air Museum.

Did the fact that the aircraft had fuel in it or maintenance being preformed for flight have anything to do with the fires?


Steve

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"Any excuse is good enough if you're willing to use it!"

So, a few thoughts here.

If you are going to compare apples to apples, then either some of the fires are less significant than one might think or else you have to let a lot more crashes in on the other side. For example, consider just ex-combat warbird types. Le Bourget represents by far the biggest destruction of those. I don't know what San Diego's holdings were of heavy metal warbirds in that sense, but it wasn't dozens. Beyond those, it's hard to think of any event where more than 3 were destroyed.

If you say that every historic aircraft counts, like every Beech 18 or Stinson Voyager or Piper J-3 that has been lost in a hangar or museum fire, then on the other side of the scale you would have to let in a huge number of flying accidents (most of which we never hear of) that would easily swamp any tally of historic aircraft destroyed in museum/hangar fires.

Should we count storm damage like what happened to Weeks or NEAM, or even Pensacola or Mobile? Generally not if complete destruction is our standard. Very few aircraft were destroyed beyond repair in those incidents. Even most of the aircraft that were written off at NEAM would have been rebuilt if they were more rare and valuable (as some of them would be today). The worst of them were damaged to about the same extent as, say, the Tuskegee P-51B. It is a judgment call whether you consider that destroyed or not. But again, if you did, then there are a lot of additional flying accidents that you would have to let in on the other side, many of whose supposed identities are still with us and flying.

Steve is right to point out that not all indoor environments are created equal. There has never been a major fire at a recently built facility with modern fire safety features that houses only static aircraft. The fires at static display museums have occurred in older, unsafe buildings, usually dating back to WW2. An environment where airworthy aircraft are kept and maintained is probably the most hazardous, especially if it is in an older building.

It should be evident that an exhaustive tally of warbirds or other historic aircraft that have been destroyed either in ground incidents or air accidents has never been compiled, at least publicly, because it is not in the interest of those involved with the aircraft (and who have the most knowledge and interest in the subject) to publicize that information.

August

Weren't some of these fliers at the time of storm damage and or kept outside? i.e. the Weeks B-17

Steve

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"Any excuse is good enough if you're willing to use it!"

There was Gary Norton's very nice P-51 reduced to a slag of molten metal by a hangar fire at the old (and missed) Henley Aerodrome in Athol, Idaho in the late 70s/early 80s. The aerodrome was intended as a Old Rhinebeck sort of place....with a weekend airshow, plane rides and Norton's collection of WWI replicas. Now it's an amusement park. I think the runway is still there for the flying folks who built homes on the strip.

To add to the ground-based carnage...remember the freak tornado that destroyed the Bradley Air Museum in 78/79?
A lot of postwar planes were lost and their Boeing 299Z has only recently been restored.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.