Why were almost all of them scrapped?

On Fri, 18 Nov 2005 09:34:46 -0500, Chuck Harris
wrote:

wrote:
Didn't ANYBODY after WW2 have the love of airplanes and the foresight
to buy at least one military airplane, especially since they were so
cheap? What were they thinking?! Did they not see the value of these
planes for future generations? Why didn't some civilians simply buy a
B-17 for $700 and park it in their yard? Land is cheap in rural areas.
These airplanes are so precious to me. I have loved the glory of ww2
fighters and bombers since the earliest childhood.

Another question: if someone had the money, would it be possible to use
blueprints to build perfect reproductions of airplanes like the B-17
and P-40?

Back in the 70's I had a chance to purchase 5 P-51s down in Texas. for
something like $4,000 or $5,000 each. They even had gas in them. I
had a good paying job, and this would have been about a years wages.
course I had enough skill to fly a Piper Colt and about a half hour in
a tail dragger.

At the behest of the US airplane manufacturers, most were scrapped
to avoid flooding the US market with cheap planes... something that surely
would have forced many manufacturers out of business.

"Boat loads" of new airplanes still in crates on the lend lease
program were pushed overboard into the ocean. Being these were planes
like the F4U Corsair they would have had little impact on the the us
manufacturers as there were few with the ability to fly them and fewer
still who could have afforded to maintain and fly one.


But they weren't all scrapped. Tens of thousands were bought by civilian's
for various reasons. Some became water bombers used by the forest service,
some became shelters and hunting cabins, some were bought by enthusiastic
collecters, and parked in fields until the mice and birds destroyed all
but the hulks, some are flying on poles acting as canapies for gas pumps,
some are posed to look like they crashed into buildings... and some are
in the skies thanks to the efforts of some of the most generous restorers
in the world.

Mustangs have been built almost entirely from scratch, you can buy new
manufactured replica parts for just about any part in the plane. There

And they give new meaning to "expensive parts":-))

is a group that is manufacturing replica German fighters too. Money

If you are referring to the ME262 they are only doing 5 last I heard.
That project has moved around a bit, but I think they have at least 2
flying now.

http://www.rogerhalstead.com/me262.htm Is a photo of the original
loaned to the project to use as a model for the construction of the
new aircraft. It was on static display in front of the Willow Grove
Naval Air Station a ways north of Philadelphia. The photo was shot in
the Fall of 1984 as were the ones of the Orion P-3s.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


talks, but remember, the effort required to tool up the US manufacturers
to make these planes in the first place was greater in scope than the
NASA moon launches.

It only takes about 10 minutes of research to find this out. I thought
you said WWII planes meant a lot to you?

-Chuck