WIX Archives
Re: Aircraft parts
Posted by Steve T on Tue Jan 06, 2004 10:04:37 PM
In reply top Aircraft parts posted by Rob Rohr on Tue Jan 06, 2004 08:52:30 PM
Rob--
Of course your best option is to find a museum willing to sell you its airworthy Corsair at a good price. It's been known to happen... :-)
More seriously (or, at least, less cheekily!)...most static museums still have very high standards for their restorations even though there is no prospect of flight; so, while this is a fine idea in theory, I doubt you'd find a museum that would seriously consider such an exchange. Swaps of whole airframes might be a different matter; or if the museum in question had ONLY the piece (Corsair spar or whetever) you're after, rather than a whole static aircraft, an exchange for something entirely different could be an option. But in a perfect world...this concept would surely result in a few more Corsairs taking wing. (Course in a perfect world there'd be lots more Corsairs, et cetera, left, and parts swapping wouldn't be an issue! I still recall the laugh I got from an article in the local paper about the sale of the local FG-1D in 1998...comparing the rarity of the Corsair with that of the Lancaster, they made the startling statement that there were possibly two thousand Corsairs extant; I emailed the editors to say among other things that if there were that many Corsairs left I'd own one!)
I do remember something like this exchange idea (on a small scale) happening in the UK a few years ago; a set of canopy latches was needed for a flying Vampire project, and ultimately a static collection donated the latches from their non-flying Vamp so that the flyer...could! I don't recall who the protagonists were but it was heartening to hear.
S.