Highest percentage of survivors

How about the lowest percentage of survivors in flying condition?
The B24 ranks fairly high on that list I’m sure (1 or 2 out of 18300)

Not quite…

Originally posted by Mike J
2 Boomerangs only are currently airworthy, Matt Denning’s and Lynette Zuccoli’s examples

Mike

Further to this, I can’t agree with you that only two are currently airworthy.

According to Warbirds Directory (2002), there were the following Boomers airworthy or very close to it:

A46-54 (VH-MHB) owned by Greg Batts, which was due to take its first flight in 2002

A46-117 (VH-ZOC), also due to fly in 2002

A46-122 (VH-MHR), Matt Denning

A46-139 (N32CS), “Phooey”, to which I referred in my earlier memo.

A46-206 (VH-MHY, thence VH-BOM) Guido Zuccoli.

In addition, the following complete aircraft is on static display:

A46-30.

I have to admit that Phooey is actually a composite, comprising major parts from A46-139 and a T-6, so I guess it can hardly be called a survivor, but if the others are currently airworthy, that makes four., with a fifth on static display. Not too shabby for an aircraft that only numbered 250 in total, was obsolete and unwanted by the RAAF after 200 had been built, and was quickly put out to pasture as soon as the Pacific war ended.

As I said in a much earlier post, thank heavens for Australian farmers who bought the Boomers to cut up for tubing and bolts, then put the remains out the back paddock where they never rusted away….

Regards

Wombat

I am wondering how many replica Fokker Triplanes there have been and how this compares with the 320 that were originally built.

MH

I can recall three Boomers which have flown in recent times. Apart from Matt Dennings and the Zuccoli machine, there was one which I think was restored in the States in the early 90’s called “Phooey” – was this Zuccoli’s machine or a separate craft and is it still airworthy if it was a separate craft?

Wombat:confused:

The Sea Fury is not a bad contender in this competition…

Warbirdalley says 860 built, with probably 30 or so flying today in the Great Britain, Australia and the US

The Sikorsky R-4 hoverfly will have a high percent of survivors I’d guess, though no fliers 🙁
Cheers

One of those is with Planes of Fame at Chino.

Can’t recall from another thread if the other two Zeros used in Pearl Harbor were the real McCoy or new-build aircraft.

The CAF aircraft is being rebuilt again, but as it was flying before, would it still count?

Some 20.000 Fw190 were built and there are non flyworthy afaik.
And about 10.000 A6M were built, are there any flyworthy? Warbird Alley says 2 – where are they?

Hmmm, excellent response so far, but the point has been missed a bit with some posts.

I was referring to total production of a particular type, ( ie, ALL Spitfires for example, not model variants , such as Mk IX etc.), and airworthy survivors, not total survivors.

Somebody has mentioned the aircraft I had in mind, the Boomerang. Total production 250, airworthy survivors, approximately 4, with more to come. (not sure of the actual airworthy count, could be more.) 4 out of 250 would be 1.6% As I said, could be some surprises.

Hope that clears it up a bit, so what else do we have?

Regards

Wombat

If you count indivdual models, the P-63F has to be near the top of the list. With only 2 built, one flies with the CAF, and the other is currently a project plane up for sale.

The work over this statistic was already done for transport a/c. From Survivors 2002 by Roy Blewett, Gatwick Aviation Soc Pub.
This book covers airliners and transports, but taking the W.W.II metal included, 1,309 DC-3 family puts it at No.1 in volume – but as a proportion they drop out due to the production run with only a 12% survivor rating.

Some of the other stats which are of interest to us (obviously the figures are subject to amendment, and are 2001, but the broad picture is correct enough);
Type: No. built; No surviving; percent; No. flying.
Catalina: 3281; 96; 3%; 20
Commando: 3180; 82; 3%; 17
DC-3 family: 11337; 1309; 12%; 418
Grumman Albatross:400; 148; 38%; 35
Junkers Ju52: ca5,000; 42; less than 1%; 7 active
Lockheed 10:149; 15; 10%; 5
Twin Pioneer: 87; 13; 15%; 3

Grumman and Lockheed win, with good utility light transports built in small numbers but still useful. I imagine that if the Axis had won the war the Ju52 – DC-3 position would be roughly reversed!

Cheers

How about the Tiger Moth?

In survival terms the B-23 does very well. Only 38 were built and they were out of front-line action by the start of WWII so they wer mostly used as executive transports which meant they didn’t get scrapped. Then many carried on as transports post-war leaving about 16(?) or nearly 50% surviving today. Although I don’t think any are airworthy today, there were quite a few flying well into the ’70s

Irish Air Corps – Spitfire Type 509

Where would the IAC Spitfire Tr. IXs fit into this?

Five of the six still alive and kicking. If you knock off the Indian, Egyptian & Dutch supply, it is still a high percentage.

Who is going to be brave enough to say a Spitfire trainer is not a Warbird?

Mark

Just checked a copy of Air Britains DC-3 Update 2 and it concludes that there were 1436 airframes in existence as of 1993, down from an estimated 1500 seven years previously. It does say that there might be around 1100 airworthy or potentially suitable for flight on the assumption that engines were available, etc – but then long thought dead airframes appear and others crash or get scrapped so the situation is quite fluid.

Flood.

Originally posted by Eric Mc
I thought the original thread was looking at “flying” survivors rather than ALL survivors.

Well spotted, so lets start all over again………;)

I would think though that the B-25 must have a pretty high ‘airworthy’ to nos. built ratio……..:confused:

I thought the original thread was looking at “flying” survivors rather than ALL survivors.

The “35,000” figure I’ve seen for 109s includes all descendant variants.

It’s a fun question. The opposite is easy.

Most under-represented W.W.II warbird in terms of Nos built to fliers has to be the Il-2 Stormovik – none flying and sharing the palm with the 109 as to most built.

I’ll have a check in Survivors for some of the stats if I get a chance.

Yeah, that one! 😀

Here’s two not on the survivors lists 🙁