The P-26 belongs to the PLanes of Fame Air Museum. The president is Steve Hinton, the chief pilot is Kevin Eldridge, and John Maloney has been around the museum since his father, Ed, founded it, and has been flying warbirds for most of that time. The Boeing P-26 and the Mitsubishi A6M5 Model 52 Zero are only flown by a small group of authorized pilots. The P-38 has its own group of authorized pilot, too. Most of the rest also have a select group of pilots authorized to fly them, but more than the Zero and P-26. I've only seen two people fly the P-26 in 17 years and maybe three people fly the Zero.
All our pilots work on the airplanes they fly. We don't have anyone who just shows up and flies. No work, no fly. As a result, there are a pretty decent number of people who KNOW what they are looking for when they inspect a museum airplane to fly it since they also do the maintenance on the airplanes. I have assisted on a number of annuals in a minor way, but I'm not a warbird pilot for the museum, nor am I an A&P. I DO have a pilot's license.
I am a volunteer who sometimes gets to do some sheet metal or other work work on various projects. Right now, my partner in restoration and I are working on service bulletins for a C-47 we are trying to return to flight. It's the biggest project I've worked on since the other airplane were all fighters.
Other volunteers before us started the project and we are the current guys working on it. Nothing special, just normal AD/SB stuff. All our work gets inspected by an IA and documented on FAA form 337s. Mess up too much and you don't get to continue working on flyable airplanes. In any case, the museum is a wonderful chance to interact with historic airplanes that I otherwise would still love, but would know only from books and magazines. A significant plus is interacting with the really good people who make it a world-class place.