Legality of owning ex-military intercontinental aircraft.

Some southerners seem to have trouble grasping this fine point, but the
Yankees won the war.

Maybe. The Yankees got Newark. We got Miami Beach.

You decide

Hey, there's nothing wrong with Newark a few thermonuclear devices wouldn't
cure.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Pirate John wrote in reply to:
Some southerners seem to have trouble grasping this fine point, but the
Yankees won the war.

The following
Maybe. The Yankees got Newark. We got Miami Beach.

Big deal, the beer trucks in both places have tailgunners.

Rick

"mah" wrote in message ...
Bill Silvey wrote:

I'm not trying to be smarmy, but as far as the USAF is concerned, what
about
(as yet unrecovered) B52 wreckage hither and yon across the globe (SE
asia,
the one that went down near Diego Garcia during DS1 etc.)? I'm guessing
"still ours" is their mindset?


If you follow the Navy's actions on aircraft recovered from water site,
they consider the aircraft on the record for eternity. Could be the Ai
Force would consider their crash sites in a similar way.

MAH

The navy doesn't care where the crash site is. Water, land or ice, they
still own it, and always will.

Red

"PirateJohn" wrote in message

Some southerners seem to have trouble grasping this fine point, but
the Yankees won the war.

Maybe. The Yankees got Newark. We got Miami Beach.

You decide

Check the population sometime. Lots of retired Yankees down there as an
occupation force. :-)

--�
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
special about bravery." -- Andy Rooney (attributed)

I wasn't aware of the nuance in the wording - it has to be
incapable of flight ? Or just incapable of delivering ordnance (and
therefore not a nuclear weapons system anymore) ?

Hmm, I'm not really sure of the wording either, but my guess is "incapable of
delivering nuclear weapons". The reason I say this is because the B-1B still
flys (obviously) and has been rendered unable of delivering nuclear weapons yet
it is still inspected under START II. I guess you could do this with a flyable
BUFF, but #1.) I think you'de find much more difficult than the Bone and #2.)
It'll still be inspectable just like the Bones are.

i.e the world's first KB-52 is a no-go ?

Heresy!


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

I'm not trying to be smarmy, but as far as the USAF is concerned, what about
(as yet unrecovered) B52 wreckage hither and yon across the globe (SE asia,
the one that went down near Diego Garcia during DS1 etc.)?

Well, now we're takling two uniquely different circumstances. One is USAF
donated equipment (which is always owned and loaned out by the Air Force Museum
which is a directorate of AF/HO (Headquarters Air Force Historian). The ones
that went down during LB II (and one a month before) were owned by SAC at the
time of loss and the ones that went down in Laos and Thailand(I believe at
least four?? Ed?) I would imagine would still be considered US property. As far
as the ones that went down north of 20- Latitude, I think the Articles of War
say which ever of the combatants owns the territory, owns the wreckage.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

Hey, I'm sure the B-52B crews would say the same about the current BUFFs



Excellent point, they probably would.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

Ah. So no one could, say, dive off of that B1 wreck in the "shallows" near
DG and recover something and keep it, then.

But by the same token, the USAF couldn't go to the Russians and say "Give us
back our F111-C cockpit."

That is my understanding of the law. More interesting question would be, if
that Bone had made it to Afghanistan and been lost there to enemy fire, but
after the fall of the Taliban, who owns it?

Technically it would have gone down in a friendly combatant country, to hostile
fire.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

But by the same token, the USAF couldn't go to the Russians and say "Give
us
back our F111-C cockpit."


?? IIRC, the Aussies lost a Canberra or two in Vietnam, but haven't lost a
F111C anywhere where the Russkis could get it. And we let them retrieve the
ones that crashed in NZ.

I believe he's refering to the one (or was it two??, or as high as three??)
USAF F-111C lost over NVN during the 1971-72 time frame.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

"BUFDRVR" wrote in message
...
But by the same token, the USAF couldn't go to the Russians and say
"Give
us
back our F111-C cockpit."

?? IIRC, the Aussies lost a Canberra or two in Vietnam, but haven't lost
a
F111C anywhere where the Russkis could get it. And we let them retrieve
the ones that crashed in NZ.

I believe he's refering to the one (or was it two??, or as high as
three??)
USAF F-111C lost over NVN during the 1971-72 time frame.

According to http://f-111.net/JoeBaugher.htm , those were F-111As. Is this
article incorrect?

"Six 428th TFS F-111As were allocated to the Combat Lancer program, and
departed Nellis AFB for Thailand on March 15, 1968. By the end of that
month, 55 night missions had been flown against targets in North Vietnam,
but two aircraft had been lost. Replacement aircraft had left Nellis, but
the loss of a third F-111A on April 22 halted F-111A combat operations.
However, the aircraft remained poised for combat, but they saw little action
before their return to the USA in November.
....
The F-111A returned to Southeast Asia in September of 1972. They entered
combat not long after yet another crash and yet another grounding. Two
F-111A squadrons (the 429th and 430th) left Nellis AFB for Thailand. They
participated in the Linebacker II aerial offensive against North Vietnam.
They flew bombing missions against targets in North Vietnam and Laos in the
midst of the monsoon season. They flew without electronic countermeasures
escort aircraft or KC-135 tankers. On November 8, 1972, they flew 20 strikes
over North Vietnam in weather that grounded other aircraft.
Four F-111As could deliver the bomb loads of 20 F-4s. Shortly after
returning to SEA, an F-111A experienced double engine rollback after
encountering heavy rain. There were continual problems with the
terrain-following radar and the attack radar. Malfunctions of the internal
navigation and weapons release system also cropped up on a regular basis.
Nevertheless, the 429th and 430th TFS flew some 4000 combat missions with
excellent success rates in hitting targets even when visibility was near
zero. Only six aircraft were lost in action.
....
On October 24, 1963, the government of Australia agreed to purchase 24
F-111As. The Australian version was to be designated F-111C. ...
The first F-111C was delivered on September 6, 1968. However, the problems
with the F-111A's wing carry-through box slipped delivery of the remaining
23 F-111Cs to late 1969. To make matters worse, the whole F-111 fleet had to
be grounded pending verification of their overall structural integrity. The
remaining F-111Cs awaiting delivery to Australia were stored at Fort Worth
until the structural integrity of the F-111 could be confirmed. In April of
1970, a joint agreement between General Dynamics and Australia deferred the
RAAF's acceptance of the F-111C pending the verification of their structural
integrity. The RAAF was to lease F-4E Phantoms as an interim aircraft while
new wing carry-through boxes were installed on all F-111Cs before being
delivered to the RAAF. This refurbishment program began on April 1, 1972.
In 1973 the F-111C was finally ready for delivery to the RAAF. "

--
Errol Cavit
to email, my middle initial is G
"Whatu ngarongaro he tangata, toitu he whenua."
"Man passes away, but the land endures for ever."
Maori Saying, recorded by Elsdon Best, anthropologist c.1900