Getting to fly WW2 aircraft

Well, if I become rich (ha, ha) I’ll get an A-26 and you can all have a go.

I did run into a pilot in his mid-twenties that was beginning his airline career about the same time as I was. We were comparing flight time and background and it turns out that he had 100 hours of B-24 time. His dad or someone got him into the right seat of the B-24 during flights between different events. Pretty cool albeit immensely rare to see a young pilot being mentored as he was.

Re: Getting to fly WW2 aircraft

Originally posted by Whiskey Delta
I was wondering what qualifications most pilots of the flying warbird collections in the UK are and how they got the job.

Here in the US the organizations are a bunch of “Good Old Boy” clubs which means if you ain’t a good ol’ boy you ain’t getting in no matter what your qualifications are. For example, the Lone Star Flight museum that has an impressive collection of everything from a T-34 Mentor to a B-17 and Corsair. If you’re lucky enough to wiggle your way into the organization as a pilot you’ll find yourself as a pilot of the T-34 for years before you’ll get the opportunity to fly anything else.

Not that flying a T-34 would be anything to complain about the problem the historic aviation community is running into is that since an organization will have 3 pilots that are checked out in the B-17 and not another soul is allowed to touch the controls when those pilots die there is no one to replace them. I also hate to say it but I feel (and I’m not the only one from others I’ve talked to) this is why some airplanes have crashed. The few that pilot these historic airplanes are lucky to put 50 hours in their logbook each year and nearly all of those are flying straight and level to and from shows, not praticing emergencies. If they encounter an abnormal situation it’s likely they’ll have trouble as they have to try and knock the cobwebs off their emergency procedures. The CASA 111 accident comes to mind.

As much as they enjoy sharing these fine aircraft with the public, they are completely sheltered in sharing them with the aviation community. It would make more sense to operate a mentoring program that trains your replacement or at least shares the knowledge with as many as possible. From those that I’ve talked to the CAF (Commemorative Air Force now) is the worst of the bunch. In fact I ran into a group in Colorado that broke away from the CAF because they got sick of dealing with the militaristic good ol’ boy mentality.

I think there is a good chance that a lot of organizations are going to back themselves into a corner as they start to lose pilots due to health or death. Sure their B-25 might fly but the only guys who flew it are gone and the cost of finding and training a new crew from scratch is cost preventative.

Please tell me the situation is better overseas.

The way I see this is that such organisations are not doing anyone any favours and should really think ahead and start training some younger pilots to fly these machines safely

That is the way it should be for both the private owner as well as those organizations that operate them. These groups don’t fall under any regulation that actually requires them to maintain any sort of proficency. You could go do your 3 touch and goes in a Piper Cub and be qualified in the eyes of the FAA to fly a P-51 or P-47.

One issue that seperates the private owner from an organizational owner is the private owners are under more scrutiny of the insurance folks. They have to do more to prove their reliability to fly such equipment and maintain proficiency or pay a hefty premium. No pilot operating as a part of an organization seems too concerned about their insurance premium as it’s not coming out of his pocket.

As these tight knit groups become tighter and tighter and smaller and smaller the chances of historic aviation surviving for future generations becomes tough.

Stoopid, innit??

Mind you, Connie Edwards has had MH415 sat in a hangar for the best part of maybe 30 years – she was airworthy when he bought her (after the Battle of Britain movie), he flew her for a few years, then decided to hangar her – she’s never left the ground since!

And the guy that had MJ772 (forget his name now) had her in his museum for years without flying her 🙁

I think Historic Flying do this so that there are less accidents – the owners (Ed Russell, for instance) are trained up by Charlie Brown to the highest possible standards before even TOUCHING their Spitfire!

That’s the way it should be.

umm..am I missing something, owning an airworthy spitfire and NOT flying it !! What’s the point ?

Perhaps not quite the same thing (or maybe it is)…

Historic Flying Ltd offer a full training package with the Spitfires they restore and sell – I think it is their intention that an owner should also FLY his/her Spitfire.

There are a lot of “Old boys” in Holland too. In Spain the situation is better. As a “stranger” I was intigrated in the “scene” without any problems. Something I can forget in my own country (and if they read this my chanches are dropping even faster). BW Roger