She’s big, strong, capable of hosting huge pilots and making small ones feel lost. You don’t measure her efficiency by miles per gallon (which is terrible), but by smiles per flight. The Stearman is the darling of the military trainer set because she’s a terrifically good airplane that’s relatively easy to maintain (after someone else invests the time and money to restore one…a massive job). There are probably more Stearmans flying today than at any time since WWII. The reverse wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now. A person trained on a taildragger easily adapts to a nosedragger.
They were taildraggers because, with only a few notable exceptions, none of the WWII aircraft flight-school students would be flying would be tri-gear. Lots of aircraft from each category have survived to give us ways of playing the warbird game for reasonable investments.īeing taildraggers, the primary trainers of the day would be real challenges for any of today’s pilots, even advanced ones, without the appropriate training. Training during the last big one was split into three levels: Primary Training (PT), Basic Training (BT) and Advanced Training (AT). It’s a terrific flying airplane with good STOL performance, great visibility, a huge cockpit and nothing unusual about its mechanical upkeep. It’s also the most expensive, the most usable and the one with the most military history, having been a warrior in both Korea and Vietnam. The Bird Dog is possibly the ultimate L-Bird of those available to the normal man. That’s part of the fun of owning a warbug: keeping your eyes open for some of the widgets that gave the cockpit a military feel. As with all L-Birds, the L-4 was originally equipped with lots of radio gear and other military goodies that are hard, but not impossible, to find. This a J-3 Cub with more glass, hence the higher-than-normal price. So, you don’t need a medical to fly your very own warbird, and lots were built. Better yet, all except the L-2M (which is reportedly five pounds too heavy, but has spoilers) are LSA compliant. A wonderful flying 65 hp (as most WWII warbugs were), it’s the soul of docility. When the two-place, tandem Model D Taylorcraft was drafted, it was a natural for artillery spotting and general short-range reconnaissance. These prices are, therefore, approximations. The price ranges for each vary wildly based on whether it has been restored or not. Because of their size and cost, many have been rebuilt, and most make good garage restoration projects. This is especially true of the mostly wood wings: Inspect them carefully. When buying these airplanes, remember that they were essentially throwaway airplanes meant to survive a year or two in military service, so some of the construction was never expected to still be in the air 70-75 years later. Incidentally, originally, all wore “O” designations (observation), but that was dropped in favor of “L” (liaison) in 1942. The L-5 was purpose-built so is more “military” than the rest.
#WARBIRDS FOR SALE FULL#
With the exception of the Stinson L-5, the most commonly available, full production WWII L-Birds all were well-accepted in the civilian market before the war began. The liaison type of aircraft continued to be designed and were produced from before WWII until well after Vietnam, so there’s a large number of types, ages and price ranges. Vietnam, so there’s a large number of types, ages
The liaison type of aircraft continued to be designedĪnd were produced from before WWII until well after However, we’ll start at the bottom and work our way to the top, giving thumbnail pireps from our own experiences (where possible) and a best-guess price range. The single-engine warbird inventory that’s available to us civilians is so deep that it’s hard to cover it all. The true reality of the warbird universe is that you can spend as much as you want (or have). But when it comes to warbirds, it doesn’t have to be.Īlthough the term “warbird” automatically conjures up images of massive motors, machine guns and indicated airspeeds that start with “4,” the warbird world is actually so huge and diverse that there’s even room for those of us who drive to the airport in an ancient Honda rather than a new Ferrari. A not-so-tiny voice in our heads says, “Oh, man, just one flight! That’s all I want, just one go at it.” Then, of course, the other tiny voice in our head, the one that sometimes sounds suspiciously like our spouse, says, “Yeeow! Can you imagine how much it would cost to own something like that?” Reality is a cruel mistress. There are very few pilots who, when seeing a P-51 or Corsair taxi up, don’t experience some sort of adrenaline rush.
0 kommentar(er)
