GregP
Major
About the "reasonability" of flying WWII birds, I can add this.
I have been working the anual airshow at the Planes of Fame for 10 years now. We usually fly some 80 - 100 sorties per day for 3 days of our airshow. That 's 240 - 300 sorties par day for 100 yeas, or 2400 - 300 sorties. For ewach of numbers, let's call it 2,500 sorties, of which perhaps 2,300 were warbirds. The planes that attend include our won and various private and other "group-ownerd" WWII birds. "Group-owned" includes things like Collings Foundation, CAF, and other museums.
In that 10 years I have seen two or three non-starts due to flat tires, one non-start due failure of a hydraulic valve and a Corsair couldn't get one wing to come down once he had the engine started and running. Turned out to be a hydraulic valve. It was fixed and flew twice more that same day, later. I saw one aborted takeoff due to a rough engine (safety abort), and one DC-3 lost an engine on crosswind after the arishow, during show departure (it was not during the show). He flew around and landed without incident on one engine. We had one Grumman F3F backfire when throttled back on final and blew out a gasket (R-1820) and dropped a lot of oil while taxiing in. It took a week to fix, but the sum total of the trashed parts was a gasket. We had one P-40 get stuck in mid-prop-pitch and it turned out the brushes on the Curtiss-Electric prop were worn out. We supplied new brushes and mechanics.
Basically, that amounts to about 8 events, 2 or which were tires, and one was a hydraulic. The rest, while still incidents, were handled just fine on emergency procedures. When the prop failed, it failed in place and remained flyable in mid-pitch. When the gasket blew, the pilot simply continued the landing and monitored oil pressure. He shut down when it dropped and had no real damage other than a well-oiled belly and a gasket to replace. The rest were not flyability-related.
Every single airshow has featured warbird aerobatics including loops, rolls, aerobatic military and warbirds fromation shows, and high-performance warbird demonstrations, as swll as the occasional Renor acer demo , complete with high-speed passes.
That compares pretty well with other private flying. It doesn't look so good compared with commercial airlines, but they get commercial maintenance and commercial parts replacement. Net result was no danger to anyone and no planes even scratched. I didn't count dead batteries becasue we have battery carts at the airshow and just wheel them over and start someone up when required. We also had to shut down one airshow for 20 -30 minutes when some idiot in a private plane violated the airspace in AND the aerobatic box the middle of a warbird aerobatic demo to land. He was arrested and the aerobatic act finished after the interruption. As far as bad things, we had one bird strike to a B-17 wing that put a hole in the leading edge between the cockpit and inboard engine. It finished the airshow flight, was cleaned up (defeathered), repaired, and flew out a couple of days later, missing a few flights in the show, but not ever in any danger. It was a big bird!
Nothing in that series of events was due to aircraft age or was significantly dangerous. There were NO safty violations by warbirds. The Friday practice show is to ensure the warbird acts that will do aerobatics meet the show safety standard that include no rolls on down-lines unless preceeded by an up-line first, no low-altitude horizontal rolls at all, and no other low-altitude rolls unless started on an up-line of at least 25°. The dedicated acerobatic palnes, like Sean Tucker or Kirby Chambliss, etc. can do whatever low-altitude things they normally do and their performances, but not the warbirds. You can fly them low, but not while rolling them.
My entire point is that WWII warbirds, when properly maintained and flown, are reliable and present no age-related issues. That's why they do inspections. When and if cracks are found, the plane is repaired or grounded until airworthy, assuming it EVER is. I recall when The "Back Six" Messerschmitt Bf 109 in the UK had an engine failure and was statically repaired and grounded. I'm glad we don't subscribe to that avenue of thought. If it happened here, we'd likely restore it and fly it again, but only when safe to do so.
Not safe? Don't fly it! Not current? Go GET current, or as current as you can, and THEN fly it. When I say, "as current as you can," what I mean is this. There is no trainer for a Bf 109. So, if you're going to fly one, go get time in a high-horsepower, conventional gear plane with a reputation for being difficult to handle, and talk with current Bf 109 pilots as a refresher.
Want to fly a P-51? 200 hours in T-6 is great preparpation. Then get signed off by people who do P-51 signoffs.
So, I'm NOT advocating go buy one and fly it. But flying one that is certified as airworthy, when you are current and trained to fly it, is not a dangerous or unreasonable thing to do ... from the standpoint of reasonable risk. If it's inherently THAT dangerous, how can you justify having an Air Force? Or medevac helicopters? Or any flying? Also, airshow aerobatics are not dangerous unless flown by people not trained and practiced in doing aerobatics, and in a defined performance, that has been practiced many time and also in front of the air boss, the day before the show. No "last-second," spur-of-the-moment warbird arobatic additions! If you DO that and even if you get away with it, you'll not fly our show again, and other people will find out about it.
I have been working the anual airshow at the Planes of Fame for 10 years now. We usually fly some 80 - 100 sorties per day for 3 days of our airshow. That 's 240 - 300 sorties par day for 100 yeas, or 2400 - 300 sorties. For ewach of numbers, let's call it 2,500 sorties, of which perhaps 2,300 were warbirds. The planes that attend include our won and various private and other "group-ownerd" WWII birds. "Group-owned" includes things like Collings Foundation, CAF, and other museums.
In that 10 years I have seen two or three non-starts due to flat tires, one non-start due failure of a hydraulic valve and a Corsair couldn't get one wing to come down once he had the engine started and running. Turned out to be a hydraulic valve. It was fixed and flew twice more that same day, later. I saw one aborted takeoff due to a rough engine (safety abort), and one DC-3 lost an engine on crosswind after the arishow, during show departure (it was not during the show). He flew around and landed without incident on one engine. We had one Grumman F3F backfire when throttled back on final and blew out a gasket (R-1820) and dropped a lot of oil while taxiing in. It took a week to fix, but the sum total of the trashed parts was a gasket. We had one P-40 get stuck in mid-prop-pitch and it turned out the brushes on the Curtiss-Electric prop were worn out. We supplied new brushes and mechanics.
Basically, that amounts to about 8 events, 2 or which were tires, and one was a hydraulic. The rest, while still incidents, were handled just fine on emergency procedures. When the prop failed, it failed in place and remained flyable in mid-pitch. When the gasket blew, the pilot simply continued the landing and monitored oil pressure. He shut down when it dropped and had no real damage other than a well-oiled belly and a gasket to replace. The rest were not flyability-related.
Every single airshow has featured warbird aerobatics including loops, rolls, aerobatic military and warbirds fromation shows, and high-performance warbird demonstrations, as swll as the occasional Renor acer demo , complete with high-speed passes.
That compares pretty well with other private flying. It doesn't look so good compared with commercial airlines, but they get commercial maintenance and commercial parts replacement. Net result was no danger to anyone and no planes even scratched. I didn't count dead batteries becasue we have battery carts at the airshow and just wheel them over and start someone up when required. We also had to shut down one airshow for 20 -30 minutes when some idiot in a private plane violated the airspace in AND the aerobatic box the middle of a warbird aerobatic demo to land. He was arrested and the aerobatic act finished after the interruption. As far as bad things, we had one bird strike to a B-17 wing that put a hole in the leading edge between the cockpit and inboard engine. It finished the airshow flight, was cleaned up (defeathered), repaired, and flew out a couple of days later, missing a few flights in the show, but not ever in any danger. It was a big bird!
Nothing in that series of events was due to aircraft age or was significantly dangerous. There were NO safty violations by warbirds. The Friday practice show is to ensure the warbird acts that will do aerobatics meet the show safety standard that include no rolls on down-lines unless preceeded by an up-line first, no low-altitude horizontal rolls at all, and no other low-altitude rolls unless started on an up-line of at least 25°. The dedicated acerobatic palnes, like Sean Tucker or Kirby Chambliss, etc. can do whatever low-altitude things they normally do and their performances, but not the warbirds. You can fly them low, but not while rolling them.
My entire point is that WWII warbirds, when properly maintained and flown, are reliable and present no age-related issues. That's why they do inspections. When and if cracks are found, the plane is repaired or grounded until airworthy, assuming it EVER is. I recall when The "Back Six" Messerschmitt Bf 109 in the UK had an engine failure and was statically repaired and grounded. I'm glad we don't subscribe to that avenue of thought. If it happened here, we'd likely restore it and fly it again, but only when safe to do so.
Not safe? Don't fly it! Not current? Go GET current, or as current as you can, and THEN fly it. When I say, "as current as you can," what I mean is this. There is no trainer for a Bf 109. So, if you're going to fly one, go get time in a high-horsepower, conventional gear plane with a reputation for being difficult to handle, and talk with current Bf 109 pilots as a refresher.
Want to fly a P-51? 200 hours in T-6 is great preparpation. Then get signed off by people who do P-51 signoffs.
So, I'm NOT advocating go buy one and fly it. But flying one that is certified as airworthy, when you are current and trained to fly it, is not a dangerous or unreasonable thing to do ... from the standpoint of reasonable risk. If it's inherently THAT dangerous, how can you justify having an Air Force? Or medevac helicopters? Or any flying? Also, airshow aerobatics are not dangerous unless flown by people not trained and practiced in doing aerobatics, and in a defined performance, that has been practiced many time and also in front of the air boss, the day before the show. No "last-second," spur-of-the-moment warbird arobatic additions! If you DO that and even if you get away with it, you'll not fly our show again, and other people will find out about it.
