WIX Archives
Re: To recover or not
Posted by bdk on Mon Feb 02, 2004 06:03:05 PM
In reply top To recover or not posted by Cees Broere on Mon Feb 02, 2004 02:26:38 PM
Not many individuals could afford to raise, restore, AND maintain an airworthy 4-engined bomber. Maybe they could afford to raise the aircraft, but not the other two parts of the equation.
A 109 is much more affordable both in recovery and restoration, and fighters have a special appeal of being fast and sexy rather than slow and lumbering.
If you were to discover and raise an aircraft at your own expense, then you would sell to the highest bidder. This only makes sense. You are speculating (in a financial sense) that if you invest time and money in the recovery someone will pay you something more than your cost. You deserve to be paid a profit for the financial and labor risks you have incurred.
Few of these aircraft are ever discovered by the person that will end up restoring and flying them. Did David Price walk around the bush in Russia for years looking for a 109 project? He needed someone to discover the aircraft that knew it had value, someone with the expertise to recover and sell the wreck, and someone with the skills to restore it. If there was no outside profit to be made, it would have been melted for the value of the aluminum.
This is what pisses me off about the PNG situation. Some people are so afraid that someone else might profit from a relic, they would rather see it turn into aluminum oxide powder so that nobody can enjoy it or learn from it. These same people would take the relic in a minute if they had the means and thought they could get away with it. Quite selfish of them I think. But I digress...
An airplane at the bottom of a lake (or ocean) is not worth much to a collector unless they can survey it first, but then you give up the location if you can't afford to do a complete survey yourself. On the other hand, a collector would not pay you much for a location unless they were sure that there was something worth recovering.
There was a guy in Alaska that posted a few years ago claiming to know the location of a bunch of P-39's and a P-82. He had some eyewitness reports of aircraft in various lakes. He wanted someone to pay him to go out and find them. Of course none of the risk was his. He would be paid up front and if nothing was found it would be too bad for the investor. He actually expected someone like Kermit Weeks to pony up the money for that adventure!
There will never be a surplus of 109's. Is there a surplus of Mustangs or Spitfires? Lots more of those around.
When governments get involved, recoveries and restorations are performed quite readily that would never be done commercially because there would be no profit in it. You have access to the military sometimes to recover and transport the aircraft. That expense goes to the taxpayer and is indirect to the actual recovery organization (public museum).
There are those out there that would save something just for the love of it, but few of them have the means to see it through.
Just my opinion here. I'm curious what others think.
: What would be the reason why an aircraft wreck would be re
: covered. Is that it's rarity, it's historical importance o
: r the amount of money that can be earned. In some cases th
: e historical aspect would be more imporant such as the Hal
: ifax recoveries from Norway, a possible Stirling from any
: fresh water lake, but I'm sure that if a complete Lancater
: was found intact at the bottom of a fresh water lake, the
: re would be no interest to recover it in one piece and res
: tore it. But if a German type was located it would be rais
: ed almost immediately?
:
: Does this mean that aircraft are only being recovered for
: money and will there be in a few years time a surplus of s
: ay 109's and will everything come to a standstill?