WIX Archives

Re: Aircraft parts

Posted by Rob Mears on Tue Jan 06, 2004 11:46:46 PM

In reply top Aircraft parts posted by Rob Rohr on Tue Jan 06, 2004 08:52:30 PM

It's actually an excellent idea, but you'd have to go through some serious negotiations with the museums. Unlike alot of other smaller parts, these Corsairs would have to actually be pulled from their displays and relocated somewhere nearby so they could be broken completely down into their major components. You'd probably have to have the replacement (composite?) spars ready to go at that time, and they would have to be a guaranteed fit before getting knee deep in disassembled Corsair bits.

The museums would probably require some fairly serious incentive to get involved in the swap. Like I stated before, Gary Kohs tried to work out a no-risk deal with Selfridge Military Air Museum to help restore their FG-1D and they flat said no! On the other hand, a large majority of the planes on display at military museums across the country are little more than scavenged shells precisely because they have been trading and selling parts to warbird owners since the movement started 30 years ago.

I'd be real interested to see what the various museums might have to say about this kind of a trade deal. What someone really needs to do is to find some other types of airframes that these museums desire and work a trade deal that would see the the museum receive their desired plane, plus a mock up of the warbird that person is getting in return. That way the perception would be that the museum is gaining a new airframe without loosing another in the exchange.

Maybe we could simply talk that woman that just won the $63M lottery into investing 1/60th of her winnings toward the creation of new F4U mainspar tooling :) I'd be on the phone today making it happen if it had been me!

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