Too rare

There’s a parallel here with historic racing cars, many of which are driven just as hard today – and crashed just as often – as the were in the past. Yet they still get rebuilt and race again.

With certain exceptions the ‘hull’ value of a genuinely historic aeroplane is usually more than the cost of rebuilding the worst accident damage, therefore the economics will usually mean that no matter how badly damaged it is, it will usually form the basis of another restoration, sometime.

OK, there are some smoking holes in the ground that will not be salvageable, just as there have been sadly some smoking static ‘museum’ aircraft, or even as recent hurricanes have demonstrated, those that are blown away, or even have had their hangars fall on them.

What has killed more aeroplanes than anything else is neglect and disinterest. Occaisionally its still happening (Do I need to remind you of the Blackpool Vulcan?)

The one thing that this forum proves, is that there are plenty of interested and motivated people out there. Let’s say thankyou to all those who are behind keeping our heritage intact, whether flying or not!

If it’s in a museum we’ve lost it anyway.

Moggy

Correct. Just being in a museum doesn’t make them safe. How many large static aircraft have been scrapped out of museums in the last few years? I know of a couple. The sight of the Victor and Shackelton at Duxford always makes me a bit sad, they look like heaps of junk that have no attention given to them at all. Compare them to XH558 which is being looked after with a view to fly (please don’t start the it will/wont argument!).

Finger trouble

Sorry Moggy,
I meant of the aircraft currently flying, I can’t think of any one that should be grounded to make it ‘safe’.

G for George (speaking as an Aussie) stays in the Australian War Memorial, and Sugar in Hendon, by all means. But we’ve also got the CWH Lanc (and watching a bunch of Canadian Air Cadets go ‘wow’ when they saw it fly was an eye opener). I suspect that even PA474 is sometimes taken for granted (by some) in contrast. And a mention must go to the ex- French, Australian and very British NX611 ‘Just Jane’ doing another unique commemorative ‘job’.

There’s a lot of aircraft I can see no point it trying to fly – to spotlight just one collection, the E28/39, de Havilland Moth ‘Jason’ the original Alcock and Brown Vimy, the S-6 (though I’d love to see the first and the last on that list fly, I can’t see the rebuild and technology issues, as you point out above, being worthwhile).
Cheers!

I cannot think of a single aircraft where that particular airframe (not type) is too precious to risk.

Somehow I feel that to rebuild S-Sugar to flying condition would be unacceptable. We’d lose too much of the airframe and it would be putting a survivor in too much danger.

What think you?

Moggy

Hah, Moggy, I’d like to see you get that (correct point) across to some museum professionals.

Fact remains that there are, and will be museums with static aircraft, preserved. There are, and will be people who fly ‘old’ aircraft. We need, and profit from both.

Moggy (for instance) may dislike one, and like the other, but for history we need preserved original (and that means unflown) artifacts for future generations.

Regarding museum losses. The RAF Museum was broken into by an arsonist before it opened to the public. He (or she) set fire to a Tiger Moth, which was a total loss. Luckily the other aircraft attacked were less easy to light.

David, you’ve made some good points. However I’d argue that the general funding comprimises of ‘static’ museums, casusing staffing and equipment shortages outweighs the lesser risk on ‘non-active’ buildings and hangars – and many museums have workshops on site. Whatever the matter of degree, all museums are at some risk. Private collections often have better security than government institutions.

I cannot think of a single aircraft where that particular airframe (not type) is too precious to risk. The only aircraft I can think of as being so rare are the Old Warden machines and they set a standard for safe operation I cannot fault. That is, of course, in both aspects my opinion. The Comet Racer was a major rebuild and is hardly risking the ‘original’ aircraft in my view. My most precious photos of it (and memory, I looked too, Moggy 😉 )are of it flying with the Comet airliner.

Taking the Westland Lysander as an example, the RAF Museum’s machine was a static preservation effort. The Langley aircraft was rebuilt for Expo 86, wrecked by an accident on the road and rebuilt. However, the Canadian Aviation Museum, Belgian, CWH, NASM and Weeks examples are all complete and under active care or display because they were all built to fly. The French have lost at least two static Lysanders – one just ‘vanished’ ( A presentation SD spydropper) and another was totally destroyed in the hangar fire.

It is, of course a polarised argument. Aren’t we lucky no-one can solve it?

Cheers

However i do believe that if possible one of every type should be preserved this way for the future.

Don’t forget that the ‘preservation’ specialists agree that preservation is a myth.

There is no possible way top prevent a metal aircraft reducing itself to a pile of dust over time. All they can do is delay the process somewhat.

Moggy

This just highlights the fact we’ll never agree here.

I can’t see the point of a non-celebrity Marauder mouldering in a museum when it could be flying.

If it augers in we lose it. If it’s in a museum we’ve lost it anyway.

Moggy

I agree Moggy, The whole idea of Aircraft sitting gathering dust in some building somewhere does not so much appeal to me, However i do believe that if possible one of every type should be preserved this way for the future.

As has been touched on here a fire in a Collection will destroy more Airframes than any accident and this is worth remembering, Fires happen at times no matter what you do to prevent them.
Yes if it is a original and last of its type maybe its should not be flown, But all the same if we are not the owner of this Aircraft then it has NOTHING to do with us what the owner does.

The reality of the Warbird movement is they promote a lot of history for people who would not go and see a Aircraft gathering dust somewhere, I myself when i was 8 was truelly captivated by Ray Hanna in MH434 at Biggin Hill, If Ray had not been flying that day i probably would not be intrested as much as i am in the Warbird movement, How many other people have similar stories?, Im guessing Plenty.
The fact that we have Warbirds flying now is a great tool for teaching History and for getting people intrested in Aviation, They are needed and also help the museums and collections to exist, I do not see how you can have one without the other, Flying Warbirds promote museums, And musuems help keep Warbirds flying.

This just highlights the fact we’ll never agree here.

I can’t see the point of a non-celebrity Marauder mouldering in a museum when it could be flying.

If it augers in we lose it. If it’s in a museum we’ve lost it anyway.

Moggy

After Red 7’s demise, is some of our valuable warbirds becomming too few to fly at airshows? Let’s not forget that with the tragic lost of the Firefly, we also lost CAF CASA/HEINKEL HE-111, and while I do wan’t all flying warbirds to perform in front of the public, I think that some of our warbirds are too rare and precious to be flown on a regular basis. Any lost of an warbird especailly when crewmembers are injured or killed deeply saddens me, and would also sadden the warbird community if we lost one of these precious commodities. I just want your opinion on this matter. 🙁

That’s just the recent history. Looking back, the CAF also lost the ultra rare B-26 Marauder and A-20 Havoc. Wisely the Lone Star Museum has never flown their A-20 and Kermit Weeks has ceased flying his Marauder. When it’s getting down to just a few examples amounting to the fingers on one hand (specifically the Marauder) it’s time to not fly them.

John

Snapper – Some of the people paying the salvagers have been the following:

Canadian Halifax group

Norwegian JU52’s

Norwegian FW Condor

Norwegian JU88

Norwegian He111

RAAF Boston and Havoc

I cannot imagine one of the warbrd operators salvaging a Halifax. Great whilst the warbird operators are in salvaging the ‘warbirds’ – filling the gaps in our aviation history have very much been the worlwide museums.

Mark – I inspected some of ALGT a few years ago at the start of her rebuild. Certainly
she will use a large percentage of the wreckage. However it’s a matter of personal opinion if you consider her to be a rebuild of the remains or a new Spitfire containing
original parts. The ‘fuzzy’ area is when you clinically inspect items with a view to them flying but at the same time viewing imperfections from either her build of indeed ‘hangar rash’ gained during her life. There is the compromise that either means
you retain slight flaws for the sake of originality or decide to use new material which will maximise her nominal life.
I think realistically people know which are the facsimilies and which are the ‘full strength’ article. Some of the RAF gate guards are interesting from that point of view.
Effectively most suffered from decades of exposure and parts removal but had a clear
and documented service life. Therefore rebuilds to fly undoubtedly in some cases consumed large amounts of new metal but there was a continuation of their lives.
Comparing those to some of the creations for the years ahead will be interesting.
Certainly they will be no less of a Spitfire but it’s personnal opinion if you like the new breed of Spitfire.

Spitfire melt down

It seems that both the CWH and the Musee de l’Air Spitfires lost to fires were total melt downs of the aluminium leaving just badly distorted steel components.

On the other hand bad crashes, for example the Rolls Royce Mk XIV, when totally dissected actually yield a substantial and surprising number of parts and structure, albeit some with repair, that will actually ‘go again’.

Quote from David Burke:- “However I am firmly in the camp of wanting to see
the genuine article and not some watered down facsimile.”

I would ask the question – supposing you couldn’t tell the difference and does this mean that a ‘full strength’ facsimile would be acceptable to you?

Could it be that actually what we all see is a coat of external or internal paint?

Mark

Mark V – The museum losses are usually not rebuilt because to rebuild would just replace the original machine with something that looked like it but wasn’t an historic
artifact. The flyers tend to be rebuilt because there in a financial motive. However
how much of an original machine needs to exist to be rebuilt remains a matter on conjecture. Interestingly I await the day that the Confederate Spitfire IX ‘lost’ at
Hamilton miraculously reappears.
Basically museums preserve – flyers rebuild in some cases from nothing.

So if the San Diego Aerospace museum was not reopened to the public, what is this?
http://www.aerospacemuseum.org/

It referred to the fact that the original building did not re-open.

On your points Mark V- it’s interesting to use your definition of a ‘total loss’ because very few historic aircraft are ‘lost’ as such these days.

Thats why I wrote it. Most of the total losses have been in museum fires. Flying accidents do not consistently result in such a 100% loss.

A couple of points : The Le Bourget fire was in a storage building which wasn’t open to the public . Hence the fire precautions wern’t exactly what they could have been.
The Canadian Warplane Heritage fire is interesting because whilst a museum – the aircraft are airworthy or being worked on to that aim. That introduces risks which don’t necessarily occur in a ‘sterile’ museum enviroment . Needless to say a new museum building was constructed but it’s difficult to quantify if the risks were greater
because the aircraft were in maintainance than completely fuel and oil free aircraft.
On your points Mark V- it’s interesting to use your definition of a ‘total loss’ because very few historic aircraft are ‘lost’ as such these days. Certainly thankfully very few Spitfires have been lost in museum fires in recent memory. However if we contrast that with airworthy Spitfire losses in which we can say that 60% plus of the original structure has been destroyed or needed to be replaced for airworthy rebuild
well the figures don’t look that great in terms of the airworthy machines.
As for rebuilding to flying status allowing the non airworthy parts to fuel other projects. Well it’s very much a matter of whether your rebuilding an aircraft as an artifact of an era or as a machine to do a purpose. If it only matters that it works
well we might as well build everything from scratch and just incorporate a few original
nick nacks to give it provenance. However I am firmly in the camp of wanting to see
the genuine article and not some watered down facsimile.

Basically you either want to see the ‘Mona Lisa’ in person or your happy to see a photocopy !

So if the San Diego Aerospace museum was not reopened to the public, what is this?
http://www.aerospacemuseum.org/

“Just out of interest, which aircraft do you currently have custody of and throw hard earned cash at?”

Don’t know what difference it should make to the debate but I am neither an owner or custodian of any aircraft!

Why I feel qualified to contribute to this debate is that I “throw hard earned cash at” a number of classic and rare motorcycles.

I do, however, get all of my riding enjoyment out of the more popular machines I “own”.

The VERY rare ones I keep well-maintained and displayed, yet as true to their “as-built” condition, rather than risking exposing them to some “sorry I didn’t see you mate” type in a Volvo.

I therefore feel, very passionately, that these rare machines are NOT mine to own, but that I am merely helping a particular marque of machine to be around for a longer time than it might if I don’t do my small part in its preservation.

Skipper

Interesting point of view, I think when my machine reaches the end of its expensive rebuild I’ll keep her flying rather than moulding away in a hangar though.

February 22, 1978: Arson at the San Diego Aerospace Museum and the Internatinal Aerospace Hall of Fame, San Diego, California, USA. Loss of the building and entire collection, including 40 planes and library. Arsonists were two youths seen running away. Loss estimated at US$ 16 million. No detectors, no sprinklers. Not reopened to the public.

Arguably the most historic aircraft ARE ‘safe’ in museums and not flying.

Alcock & Brown’s Vimy
Spirit of St Louis
‘Jason’
The Wright Flyer
Prototype Mosquito
E28/39
Enola Gay
etc…