Reasons a live fire on a warbird can't be done

[Ed Likes]

I see that in April of 2017 in New Zealand that there is going to be a P-40 with real ammo do a live fire for the airshow crowd. All 6-50's will be fired. Just once I would love to witness such a thing.
So my question is this here in the United States as far as I know that has never happend. Though Ron Fagen did fire the 6'50's on Twilight Tear with the aircraft tied down. How much government red tape would have to be hurdled for such a thing to take place at some airshow here? As always thoughts and comments will be much apprecaited, and thanks in advance.

[fiftycal]

in the US you just need a check from the ATF and pay a $200 tax per gun, as long as the guns are original, (firearm receivers built after may 19 1986 are ineligible, the idea is to "wear down" and run out old machine guns)

many people just build a new receiver and put the old s/n on it and destroy the old one.

unlike other firearms they are registered and tracked by the ATF and can only be transferred by someone with an FFL.

it is not illegal to mount a firearm to an aircraft in the US but for display at an airshow you would have to negotiate with the FAA and probably would not be able to use any secure airports with rpt.

[Brenden S]

Ed the P-40 in NZ fires blanks only. The guns are stored at the local police station when not in use.

[OD/NG]

A few thoughts on this:

1) The "live fire" of the P-40 is not something new. It has done it a few times before in New Zealand, but the big difference is that it is firing .50 caliber blanks.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... +live+fire

If you notice in watching some of those videos, the spent casings are ejected from the aircraft and free fall down to the ground. Something I will talk about later.

2) There have been at least 3 different attempts in recent times to fire real life (not blank) rounds from a W.W. II aircraft here in the U.S.:

a) Mike Dillon, because of his government contract work, was supposedly going to put .6 working .50 cals on a Mustang and fire them in the air in a military weapons range. He supposedly had everything o.k.'d by the government.

b) Glacier Girl, before she got sold, was going to be restored with its operable 20 mm Cannon and do a test firing on an Air Force range (Edwards, perhaps?) IIRC, Skip Holm was supposed to do the duties.

c) Reality show, "Sons of Guns" about Red Jacket Firearms, had a plan to do a show with outfitting a W.W.II aircraft with live machine guns and firing them. After the owner found out that "Twilight Tear" had already accomplished that, he abandoned the plans to do so.

None of these 3 plans above ever came to fruition, as far as I know. Even with all of this, the Collings foundation does "live .50 cal blank firing" from the waist guns on both their B-17 and B-24 only one time a year - at the annual Bomber Camp. Do a search here in this forum, there are plenty of threads about it.

3) So why hasn't anybody done it in the U.S.? Good question. It CAN be done successfully, but just requires a lot of paperwork, legal wrangling and a whole lot of money:

a) For starters, getting 6 operable .50 cal M2 machine guns is not going to be cheap. A few years back when last I checked, the going price was about 25K-30K per gun. So, right now, before anything has even started, we're already $180,000 in the hole.

b) On top of that one must clear all ATF and bureaucratic restrictions. Again, possible, but a lot of work. The guns will also have to be modified so they can only fire blanks. Real, honest to goodness, live fire (no blank) .50's will never, ever be allowed to fly on a W.W.II aircraft, UNLESS, you happen to be working on a government contract, in which case you are considered a "public aircraft". "Public aircraft" have all kinds of waivers from FAR's and ATF restrictions. Even in this case with a "public aircraft", the live firing will be accomplished in very tightly controlled circumstances, on a government firing range, with no public around. By the way, the FAA is fine with putting blank firing .50's on warbirds, as long as all the ATF restrictions have been complied with AND the warbird is registered in the Experimental category. Surprisingly, the "hold up" is NOT the FAA.

c) Finally, the FAA is not crazy about .50 caliber blank firings on flying warbirds at airshows. Remember the dropped casings from the video above? The FAA has a dim view of things dropping off aircraft during airshows because of the chance of inadvertently damaging property or killing someone. Even drop tanks on warbirds have to be modified so they can't be jettisoned in flight. Can a "live fire" with blanks be done in the U.S at an airshow? Yes, but you would have to have a very HUGE casing jettison area and a very tightly controlled "fire zone" in which to fire the blanks. I think you could probably work out a solution with the FAA to do this, but you might have to accomplish it at an isolated field, away from civilization - some place like Mojave, or somewhere with no civilization encroachment nearby.

My 2 cents!

[Stoney]

years ago Mike Dillon mounts a M-1 in the wing of a T-6 and shot it at a barrel out in the desert of AZ, not a machine gun.

[Matt Gunsch]

in the US you just need a check from the ATF and pay a $200 tax per gun, as long as the guns are original, (firearm receivers built after may 19 1986 are ineligible, the idea is to "wear down" and run out old machine guns)

many people just build a new receiver and put the old s/n on it and destroy the old one.

unlike other firearms they are registered and tracked by the ATF and can only be transferred by someone with an FFL.

it is not illegal to mount a firearm to an aircraft in the US but for display at an airshow you would have to negotiate with the FAA and probably would not be able to use any secure airports with rpt.

Where in the regs does it say it can't be done ? and where does it say you must consult the FAA ? The aircraft are DESIGNED to mount guns, and all the FAA would care about is that the weight and balance is correct. As far as ATF is concerned, if you own the guns, and don't do anything illegal with them, you can mount them where you want. Want to mount it on your jeep, have at it, have a Sherman Tank again, have at it.
There was a T-6 at Oshkosh 92 or 93 that was armed with 3 live .30 cals, so it can be done.

[Zac Yates]

I see that in April of 2017 in New Zealand that there is going to be a P-40 with real ammo do a live fire for the airshow crowd. All 6-50's will be fired. Just once I would love to witness such a thing.

I was at Warbirds Over Wanaka when they first did it. I have to confess I found the sound a bit underwhelming when it was flying, but it was nice and loud when they repeated it at the crowdline! This video's not mine but shows it pretty well: https://youtu.be/oO3gE7VA0Hs

For those with concerns about the spent shells: at that show they had a bunch of people comb the field after the display to collect all the brass. The pilot signed a bunch of the cases and they were then sold to the public! This news release from 2015 has a couple of great Gavin Conroy shots showing the brass falling: http://www.warbirdsnews.com/airshow-new ... armed.html

Where did you see this news, Ed? There's only the one airshow in NZ in April, and it's one I'm going to...and I've heard nothing about the live fire happening there.

[OD/NG]

There was a T-6 at Oshkosh 92 or 93 that was armed with 3 live .30 cals, so it can be done.

Do you have any more info on this? Who's plane was it and did it fire blanks or real bullets? Any pictures?

I hadn't heard of this before. Thx.

[John Dupre]

I don't think it is a matter of can't be done but rather won't be done due to all the reasons previously mentioned. I do remember reading in a gun magazine that someone brought an armed P-51 to a desert gun range and made a strafing pass with live ammo. The reference was pretty cryptic and didn't mention where or when exactly.

[Wilson]

I remember back when Pt. Mugu used to do live firing at their annual airshow. 20mm cannon, Zunis, Sidewinders. That stopped in the early 1980's over liability concerns. Thirty-seven years later I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that would insure your event.

Then, of course, there is the whole perception thing. While we would think it was totally cool, the rest of the country would have a melt down and demand that all these old war machines be repossessed by the government and destroyed. Your event would be known as the one that ended private ownership of warbirds in the United States.

[OD/NG]

I remember back when Pt. Mugu used to do live firing at their annual airshow. 20mm cannon, Zunis, Sidewinders. That stopped in the early 1980's over liability concerns. Thirty-seven years later I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that would insure your event.

Yes, "live" firings at military base airshows used to be somewhat common back in the 40's thru 60's. Do a search on youtube and you will find quite a bit of old home movie footage showing live firings at Nellis, Edwards and several Navy bases near the coastlines.

I'm sure liability was probably the death knell for that, and the reason we will never see it again.

[Stoney]

there was a AT-11 at OSH with twin gas guns, don't remember a T-6 with live guns

[therealJR]

What about insurance? Perhaps a substantial liability premium.

[jmkendall]

When they made the 1989 movie "Memphis Belle", all the B-17s were armed with real M2, that fired blanks. Probably the first last and only time since WW2, that a group of B-17s were fully armed. One of them had a fully operable norden bombsight and associated gear to make a real bomb run.

[Ed Likes]

I jumped to conclusions the P-40 is suppose to be firing 50 cal blanks at Warbirds over Wanaka next Easter 2018 my bad. Thanks to all for the replies on this subject very interesting.