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Vintage, historic planes are too precious to risk them in this way (not to mention the danger for the crews). While it's nice to hear the sound of those big, old internal combustion engines still running, I would restrict their activities to taxing for the sake of preservation.
I agree with you, big time.If not for people willing to put them in flying condition and operate them most of the older aircraft would have disappeared long ago, especially those without commercial uses. B-25's were dirt cheap in the 60's, about $5K, and a friend of mine said that he knew that BT-14's pretty much all disappeared because the crop dusters took the engines and MLG off and threw the rest away; his dad had one that met that fate.
And how many Ercoupes would we have now if people had not wanted to fly them? They would not have even ended up in museums. S/N 1 would be in the ASM and that would be it.
On the other hand, this B-25 crash, the B-17 crash at Bradley, and the crash of the TBM at Cocoa Beach are the latest examples that show how incredibly stupid people can be. Operating an older aircraft (mine is 75 this year) is a challenge and a significant responsibility that you should not adopt casually. A major reason I take such care with my airplane is that I would be ashamed not to.
The need to fly such airplanes intelligently is greater not only because they are national treasures but because they are FREAKING OLD machines. You have enough things that can go wrong and inspire the ground to rise up and smite you than to risk running out of gas, running out of oil, ignoring maintenance issues and other stupid stuff like that.
How do you "enforce" such common sense? I have no idea; gravity is the ultimate enforcer.
Vintage, historic planes are too precious to risk them in this way (not to mention the danger for the crews). While it's nice to hear the sound of those big, old internal combustion engines still running, I would restrict their activities to taxing for the sake of preservation.
Get a million, restore a Spitfire and taxi around all day to your heart's content!
If they are privately owned that's the owner's call. If they are properly restored and maintained there is no danger to "the crew" and it seems by that statement your time around real warbirds is probably very limited.
Get a million, restore a Spitfire and taxi around all day to your heart's content!
On one side, I can agree with that:, if you spent a lot of money to buy and restore something, you can do whatever you like with it. On the other side, in case of exceptionally rare aircrafts, with historic significance, they should be considered a sort of cultural heritage. Something to pass on to future generations. Every man made object is doomed to fail or break at some point; when you have a one of a kind object that is destroyed (be it an aircraft, a masterpiece of art, or an ancient building) once it's gone, it's gone for everyone -not only for the owner- and the memory of it will also fade faster.
You choose what you wish to do with the one(s) you own and I'll do what I wish to do with mine.
Funny I thought first the Hurricane Andrew is a fellow of notorious character.They can be destroyed without flying them. Hurricane Andrew ruined many of the Weeks collection in Miami.