Rob MearsIt’s up to the owners. Who are you to dictate how they spend their money?
Hmmm, I can only imagine if one of the big movie houses decided to buy up every available Bf-109 in private hands, only to destroy all of them for the climactic end of their latest blockbuster hit. How foolish would we be to pose a suggestion that these planes’ inherent value might actually NOT be directly relevant to the amount of disposable capital one has to throw away on such things?
Maybe for the movie they could cast Paul Allen as a vengeful God who is free to do with the world as he pleases while the rest of the world’s civil servants and custodians of art and culture fall prey to the clensing fire of the almighty dollar. 😀
(*no honest offense to Mr. Allen of course! Just posing a hypothetical to prove a point.)
There is a threshold where common sense should (hopefully) trump the potential for the Whako Jackos of the world to lay waste to historic treasures. I for one am ALL for seeing as many warbirds fly as possible, but as the original post pointed out, there are a certain few unique aviation touchstones around the world that should remain earmarked for static preservation. A hundred years from now when all warbird operations have ceased, how many untampered-with artifacts will remain for 20th Century study?
FWIW, I can think of no warbirds flying today that I would wish to see grounded for these purposes. The one aircraft that has recently opened my eyes to this is the profoundly unique combat vet P-47 recently pulled from the Austrian lake. Soon it will be largely scrapped so that a newly constructed version of itself can be returned to the skies. Ironically, this is probably being done because of how unique this particular airframe’s history is!
It’s less about “dictating” things to people and more about the subtle redirection of peer influence that perpetually drives the warbird market. If I finally found a good deal on a Wildcat restoration, I wouldn’t want some stranger bringing up its Wake Island combat history and chastising me about restoring it to fly either. That said, I would probably have enough common sense to take advantage of the facts and look into the possibility of swapping it to a museum that already has a much better (yet less historically relevant) example on display, etc.
Money is a very good thing in the warbird world. Staunchly defending people with no common sense just because they happen to be rich is not, IMO.
Rob MearsExcellent! I’m thrilled just knowing that Jim still flies the thing. 😎
Rob MearsWould it be an option to check out some history groups in the area? They are pretty common in Germany, but because their research only deals with a small area, their actual work/knowledge hardly ever travels.
It’s possible. Because of the potential value of the planes (historical or otherwise), I find it hard to believe they could have escaped the awareness of the locals, or surely some museum affiliates that might populate the local area. If the photos reached all the way to the US, then they surely must have reached some other parties in Germany or Europe in general. The partial airframes in the photos were stored in a barn-like structure or warehouse rather than in an open hangar, etc. There were six of them. I’m hoping to make contact with someone who might remember some talk, or who might also have been privy to the photo evidence at the time.
Rob MearsThese planes are niether in Leipzig or Brandis, but in yet another nearby town that I was asked not to mention directly. Photos of these planes were shared with an extremely reliable source (a Stateside collector of multiple rare axis warbirds) about two decades ago, though at the time this particular gentleman was not overly interested in making a deal. Not long thereafter, he found his wits and made a return call in regard to the planes in the photos but was told at that time that the politics and nature of the offering had changed and that the planes should now remain in Germany. Since then, they have fallen completely off the radar and this investor has lost contact with the whereabouts of the planes, as well as his German contact. Because of the nature of the matter, the guy is hoping to relocate the planes (or what may remain of them) without disturbing the waters too much. There’s a sizable finders fee in it for anyone who may have a positive lead to the stuff.
Rob MearsAnother update at the WIX…
Rob MearsI’m all for keeping as many warbirds airworthy as possible, but this is prime museum material IMO. Anyone who would wish to see it effectively used as a pattern for the next “new-production” Thunderbolt must have zero sense of historical relevance and worth. If it was yet another Stateside training aircraft with no combat history, recovered under the same circumstances, I’d be all for seeing it (properly) restored and flown. As it is, this appears to be an extremely unique one-of-a-kind combat vet, and its innate value surpasses that of the average ‘fly-by queen’ by a long shot IMO.
I’d love to see a dozen P-47’s flying formation just like the next guy, but the value of witnessing nine Thunderbolts flying rather than eight does not equal the inherent historical value of this particular plane. Where else in the world can you go to see any intact P-47 preserved in this state of originality? Nowhere.
Rob MearsHere’s an illustrated update:
Rob MearsThe XF4U-4 Corsair at the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, Connecticut still retains its original paint from its testing days in the mid-1940’s.
Rob MearsYes he did. It ends up the ex-Silberman -4 was not as “built to spec” as was popularly thought. On the Corsair, all of the aft fuselage skins are all fashioned with some degree of a compound curve to them. Each has to be worked and manipulated to form the flowing, slightly rounded shape of the rear fuselage. The aft fuselage on the ex-Silberman restoration was basically build from standard aluminum sheet layed out and cut to fit. The current restoration specialist in charge of these planes jokingly likened the cross section of the rear fuselage to that of a “stop sign” (which in the US are octagonal). It’s nowhere near factory spec.
The revolutionary main spar rebuild also ended up being a not so spectacular piece of workmanship. Though apparently signed off by the FAA, two different restoration specialists in the US who’ve been intimate with the plane since it left Florida say its completely non-airworthy (or at least nothing they would fly).
As such, this project plane will be harvested of parts to support the restoration of the ex-Pardue, and ex-CFM F4U-4 Corsairs, then what remains is scheduled to be donated to the Vought Heritage Museum to serve as the basis of a static display aircraft.
Rob MearsAnything from the old days showing the Corsair on display from 1968-71? Might make an interesting study versus a recent photo of the same plane’s reintroduction into NZ airspace. 🙂
Rob MearsIt looks like maybe some small bomb racks outboard of the landing gear as well.
Rob MearsI couldn’t find any losses on the US Navy roster from the Ardmore area. I did however find the following loss record in the RNZAF loss records. Of all the identifued losses, this is the only loss I came across that mentioned Ardmore at all. There were a couple of crashes at Rukuhia as well.
BuNo.50567 – NZ5564 – 14Jun45 – Crashed at Ardmore airstrip.
Rob MearsJust as in the case of the GeeBee racer, there is just as much passion for historic aircraft design amongst the aviation community as there is for historic aircraft themselves. In the end, lovers of aviation simply want to see the plane fly, whether it was the first particular aircraft to shoot down an enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain, or an identical two-million dollar data plate restoration. A huge sect of people would almost rather see the latter aircraft fly rather than see the irreplacable historic aircraft put in jeopardy for the amusement of air show crowds. If not for the word of the craftsman, few if any would be able to tell the difference between the two.
In the end, if the plane is a faithful reproduction of a certain type of aircraft, I’ll be just as content counting its rivets or flying it as I would the real thing. The very nature of maintaining an airworthy warbird will practically necessitate the undoing of every historic item on the plane over time anyway. That’s one of the points of contention that makes this topic so woefully unresolvable. Can we name one historic warbird flying today that retains the same guts (i.e. electrical, pneumatic, hydraulic systems, control cables, engine) that it carried during the war? Any chance that same plane has had its skins or rivets replaced to some degree in order to satisfy a CAA or FAA sign off? Every one of the airworthy birds is subject to ongoing alteration as the years tick by, and each year the expectation of being able to walk up, sit in the same cockpit, and touch the same controls as some famous ace becomes less & less of a reality.
Rob MearsIt would take a massive set of brass ones to fly that Dauntless! 😀 That one belongs in a museum.
Rob MearsLooks like this was in fact the case.
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