In article , Charles Talleyrand
wrote:
Basically, could someone with a lot of money build themselves
an old airforce out of what's available, or has everything been
scrapped?
The airframes of combat aircraft that are sent to storage are
"de-mil'ed" prior to being allowed into civilian hands. It is
getting more and more rare for former combat planes to be released
given that people have tried to put them back into active flying
condition. Non-combat aircraft are still regularly sold to the
public. Common uses are as cargo transport and firefighting.
Some folks have built flying fighter jets from spare parts.
In these cases, they did not use US military airframes. Rather,
they either got a hold of spare parts, tooling spares from the
manufacture that were to be scrapped, or parts from jets sold
to foriegn countries. The most famous of these is the F-104
that set the low level speed record that was built by Darryl
Greenamyer.
The problem with allowing combat aircraft into private hands
began when an unqualified pilot attempted to fly a privately
owned F-86 Saber Jet out of the Fresno airport. He botched
the take-off, and crashed into an ice cream stand killing
a number of children who were standing in line for ice cream
on a hot California afternoon. Not good. Not good at all.
While one should question why an ice cream stand was built
at the end of a shared military/commercial runway, dead kids
does not make good publicity.
Even with all the now strict rules, funny stuff does still
happen. Case in point is the F-18 Hornet that showed up on
E-bay last year. It was a former Blue Angels aircraft that
had not been demiled. In fact, with some standard maintenance
work, it could have been put back into the air. I don't know
if the full story was ever revealed on how that airplane ended
up in private hands. The most likely speculation that I heard
is that someone had a airplane that the National Museum Of
Naval Aviation wanted badly enough, and they traded the Hornet
in near working condition to get their museum piece.
-john-
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John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
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