CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BradG]

I think warbird aircraft need to be retired and I'd include ex military aircraft in private hands in that as well. I know CASA has been pretty strict on some aircraft, the MiG-17 that was brought into the country and restored to airworthy was denied by CASA as the bloke who owned it had no paperwork for it. There's a couple of blokes floating around with MiG-21UM's thinking they will restore them to airworthy, one chap got very upset with me when I asked him about the aircraft logbooks. The aircraft was an Egyptian airforce trainer, god knows what's been done to it and weather you could trust any log books that came with the machine. I'll be very surprised if CASA let him fly it and even more so if they allow him to take paying passengers.

Anyways, as one of dad's friends pointed out, the ever dwindling supply of high octane fuel is what will really kill flying warbirds. They've been trying to run Mustangs in the states on lower octane fuel, with pretty poor results.

[Cap'n Wannabe]

You know about pilot experience, Brad? Flying's flying for the most part. Sure, some aircraft have their idiosyncrasies, but the all work exactly the same. How often *should* a pilot fly a particular aircraft to keep you happy? Once a day? A week? A month? You know, I took a 12 year break from flying. When I got back into the cockpit again, I was good to go in 1 hour. And I wasn't particularly experienced at the time.

Why did the F4U come a cropper? Certainly not the pilot's fault there...things are gonna break occasionally on aircraft - just ask TOR about his favourite, the A380...
And the Mallard? There's a lot more to that accident than simply pilot error. A lot more. In fact, in the vast majority of crashes where pilot error is a factor, it's generally the last hole in the swiss cheese to line up..

The more hours people have, the better. Lack of experience is dangerous. The F4U was pilot error, he forgot to put the wheels down.

Flying is flying is it? Hmm, well why don't you see if you can get yourself in the seat of a Mustang or Spitfire out here. I wonder if their owners will look at your logbook and say "ah, flying is flying" and let you take their warbird up.

Where'd you hear that crap about the F4U? The gear *failed* to come down...the pilot didn't forget to put it down. Big difference.

And the way you carry on, I'd have thought you'd be smart enough to realise that naturally you need to be endorsed on type before anybody would let you fly a warbird (among other aircraft types..). Clearly, I was mistaken. My bad.
My comment, however, still stands. Flying *is* flying. Pull back to go up. Push forward to go down. Everything else falls under specialist training.

[oz rb fan]

oh Brad.......so store them all away?.....if it wasnt for the warbird movement alot of these planes and even types wouldn't exist....failures like what happened to the seavixen even happen to new planes(and the pilot did his job PERFECTLY)...the Corsair i think you will find was also a failure that why he put her down on the grass strip.
your right we have lost roughly a mustang a year..........but look closely some if not most are returning to the sky...you can easily built a P51,Spitfire or even a P40 from scratch....as well as the really rare stuff,4 of the 5 flying Zero's are brand new,same with the FW190's and ME262s flying(though Paul Allens will be original).
if it wasnt for the warbird movement would you have the Russian warbirds we all enjoy both in flight or on the ground....the Tyabb you point out is a 2004 model.....not a rebuild but BRAND new.

and when they are all finally grounded.....what then.......just take the mosr common fighter.........according to the Mustang mustang web site there are currently 175 airworthy mustangs,with another 40 under restoration...are there enough museum to take all of those.......or scrap the excess? add to that around 50 or so Spitfires a dozen or so hurricanes and 30 + P40's and you have a problem....the owners will want their hard earned and spent money back......but most museums dont have that kind of money,so go back to the 50'd and 60's where they were left to rot around airstrips around the world?

Museums have their place,but so to do flying warbirds and while we can they should be flownespecially if like the 4 fighters i named above there are multiple airframes around,if there is only one in a museum it should be but as we are seeing at the moment there types that literally can be built from scratch(look at how much REAL 1939 metal in in the Mk1 spitfire that was recovered from Calais..the pics of the recovery are out there)

as for the Mig 21's.....we have already had one fly here and the one i think your talking about was flying in the US when the guy bought it,so it has some known history.

[tor lives]

Museums have their place, but so to do flying warbirds.

And in this one statement Paul has perfectly summed up the entire discussion.
TOR

[Cap'n Wannabe]

Museums have their place, but so to do flying warbirds.

And in this one statement Paul has perfectly summed up the entire discussion.
TOR

True dat....but don't ever forget we don't need no steenkin' VLATs..

[tor lives]

Museums have their place, but so to do flying warbirds.

And in this one statement Paul has perfectly summed up the entire discussion.
TOR

True dat....but don't ever forget we don't need no steenkin' VLATs..

So what happens if the VLAT happens to be a a Warbird
TOR

[Cap'n Wannabe]

And in this one statement Paul has perfectly summed up the entire discussion.
TOR

True dat....but don't ever forget we don't need no steenkin' VLATs..

So what happens if the VLAT happens to be a a Warbird
TOR

Then it's grounded and put into a museum.

[BradG]

*sigh*, two more Spitfires damaged.

[Adam the Akrodude]

*sigh*, two more Spitfires damaged.

Guess they'll both be rebuilt due to the enormous value of these machines huh.

[Cap'n Wannabe]

Yeah, and then they'll be put into a museum....