Col. Rohr wrote:
Hey I agree,
2) Talk to the Vought guys and see what it will really take to set up a line.
Just think of all the Dust bound planes that could give up airworthy parts to put others into the air. Why does Yank Air force restore their aircraft to airworthy if they are'nt going to fly them is'nt that redundent. If your going to spend all the $$$ to make it airworthy then fly the darn thing
Hey Rob, I think Mr. Guest might have been referring to you...
What do "the Vought guys" actually have? Do they have drawings, actual hard tooling, or what? If they are a bunch of retired employees, their frame of reference is going to be building things like they are on a government contract. Not only that, but if they don't have an existing facility, YOU would be paying for their capital expeditures directly for them to obtain equipment. An existing shop would already have equipment and would not have a huge start up cost. If anyone expects this to actually happen at the Vought Aircraft facility in Dallas, forget about it! You can't afford to pay their overhead and shop rate, and I doubt Vought would want the liability of building parts for privately owned experimental non-military aircraft.
If you are referring to Yanks in Chino (as opposed to the Yankee Air Force), they are a very small museum, essentially funded by one guy. They don't have enough volunteers to keep the air in the tires let alone maintain the collection in airworthy condition (annual inspections every year, etc.). They are focusing their efforts on growth right now in their facilities and in charitable funding, and obtaining and restoring aircraft. They need to get them when the getting is good- they can always fly them later. Some of the aircraft do fly on occasion by the way...
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