Lets talk a bit about 50's & 60's warbirds

262crew · **Joined:** Thu Nov 15, 2007 7:24 pm **Posts:** 877

http://www.migfuryfighters.com/

262crew · **Joined:** Thu Nov 15, 2007 7:24 pm **Posts:** 877

wixlova · **Joined:** Wed May 14, 2008 5:16 am **Posts:** 59

What is the title of that russian song on the fury video? Its so classy and nice .. wish i could find it on you tube

EDowning · **Posted:** Sun Jun 08, 2008 2:08 am

Warbird1 wrote:

Quote:

but there is a reason that the Korean conflict is called, "The Forgotten War". I doubt that even 2% of the general population even knows that we had a war in Korea, much less when it happened

There was a time when I would have agreed with you, but....I have had so many people come up to me with the Skyraider and thank me "for remembering Korea and Vietnam". You know it's somewhat of a numbers game, most of the airshow spectators are post WWII now. I have seen a much greater interest from airshow organizers in the last couple of years.

Don't under estimate the complexity of the Spad, it is more complex than the early jets in a lot of ways. I am of course talking the real early jets. When you get into the era of the Crusader and the like, there is no comparison.

Although I have reached a point where I could aquire a Mustang or another WWII fighter, I doubt that I will, I kind of like being responsible for representing the other era in warbirds. But who knows, if I found the right JUG I could really be tempted.

As long as I have the Spad I don't have to worry about my carbon footprint getting too puny, I used almost 7000 gals of gas and 300 gals of oil last year on it alone. If I really wanted to get serious I should keep it and add an F-86. Then we could really make a dent in the fossil fuel puddle. :twisted:

EDowning · **Posted:** Sun Jun 08, 2008 2:24 am

I mentioned the complexity of the F8 in my previous post. This one would be another good example of the later complexity of early jets.

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/p ... hp?t=22384

Cripes A Mighty · **Posted:** Sun Jun 08, 2008 2:33 am

I think I would like to see a couple of F-105s in the air. Besides that maybe a Banshee or a Thunderjet

warbird1 · **Joined:** Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:25 pm **Posts:** 2760

EDowning wrote:

Warbird1 wrote:

Quote:

but there is a reason that the Korean conflict is called, "The Forgotten War". I doubt that even 2% of the general population even knows that we had a war in Korea, much less when it happened

There was a time when I would have agreed with you, but....I have had so many people come up to me with the Skyraider and thank me "for remembering Korea and Vietnam". You know it's somewhat of a numbers game, most of the airshow spectators are post WWII now. I have seen a much greater interest from airshow organizers in the last couple of years.

That's great! I hope our Korean and Viet Nam veterans get remembered for their sacrifices also. I hope that things turn around for them. In about 10 years there will no more W.W. II vets left, and the next era to go will be the Korean vets. I hope it doesn't take that long for the general public to recognize and honor them.

T33driver · **Posted:** Sun Jun 08, 2008 8:44 am

warbird1 wrote:

mazdaP5 wrote:

F-86's and Mig-15's are great, but where are all of the naval Warbirds from the Korean war era? Sea Fury's and Corsairs are most common, but I'd love to see some Panthers, Banshees, even Phantom I's.

Unfortunately, those early jets have a LOT of strikes against them, including:

1) Ancient jet technology, with less than reliable engines, prone to flameouts, compressor stalls, etc.

2) Huge gas guzzling jet engines, which eat up much more gas than their piston bretheren.

3) Rarity of the planes make restoration very difficult if not impossible due to the availability of parts.

4) Ancient ejection seat technology, which makes flying the older jets more risky than modern counterparts, i.e. - L-29's, L-39's, etc.

5) Lack of performance in regards to speed, range, and overall reliability in regards to more modern jets, i.e. - T-33's, F-86's, L-29's, L-39's, etc.

6) Not as much notoriety or "glory" as their piston engined counterparts such as the Corsair, Bearcat, Fury, etc.

7) Much more finicky and harder to maintain than their piston engined counterparts, due to having more complex systems.

8. Not as much demand by airshows and event organizers than the popular piston engined Korean era birds. This translates into no or lesser money for appearance fees to keep the jets maintained.

As much as I would like to see some more early era jets, unless you are a Paul Allen type, it just wouldn't be feasible or practical to maintain one in flying condition, IMO. This is especially true in light of the current av gas crisis.

Your statements about early jets needing more maintenance and less reliability are a gross overgeneralization and depends on which aircraft you're talking about. Early jets like Mig 15/17s and T-33s are wonderfully simple and RELIABLE (not finicky) aircraft to operate and maintain--much more so than a P-51 or Sea Fury. Plenty of spare parts around for those. T-33 can fly 1000 nautical miles plus on a tank of fuel, while the L-39/L-29 birds are more short-legged. An F-86 is more maintenance intensive being all hydraulic and more complex but not any more than WWII fighters. Obviously when you get into century series fighters and into 1960s era, complexity and cost goes through the roof on those jets. The WWII fighters are and will continue to be the Rembrandts of warbirds and a bigger draw at shows. Careful to paint with such a broad brush.

CAPFlyer · **Posted:** Sun Jun 08, 2008 8:58 am

Paul, you got to it before me.

While the L-29/39 are maintenance joys, the MiG-15/17/19 aren't much worse and when flown right aren't any more fuel hungry than the L-29 (which shares the same basic engine that the three fighters use). As well, the engines are quite reliable - when not abused. The problem that occurred with a lot of these engines and which gave them a bad rep was that they were being run hard as a necessity of their purpose of pushing fighters and military aircraft into combat. In the civilian world, they are cared for and last much longer with many fewer problems as they're not stressed nearly as much as they were in their operational lives.

As for parts, while it may be difficult to get some parts for all of these airplanes (Paul would certainly know more about US types than I for general availability), there are plenty of parts left in the former Eastern Bloc for the Soviet types not least because of parts commonality between types leading to some parts still being produced for aircraft till flying operationally for air forces around the world. The engines for the L-29/MiG-15/17 are still made because there are still L-29s in operational service. Many of the parts for the mid-life MiGs (19, 21, 23) are available as they were only recently retired and those who retired them know the value of these parts to the civilian market and haven't smelted them all or are using the parts on other aircraft that used the same part.

Fuel becomes the overriding factor. Yes, they tend to use more fuel per hour than a piston, but at the same time there is an offset in lower maintenance cost per hour than a piston and the fact you can typically get further in an hour than a piston, so your cost per mile is fairly similar. The issue is simply that there aren't that many out there in the civilian world (yet), and as such, the process for getting them into the air is much longer as you can't just copy what someone else has already done (a common thing to do in the experimental community) to get the airworthiness certificate & maintenance plan approved, and the people at the FAA responsible for this won't be as familiar with the airframe and the existing programs to be able to hasten the process.

warbird1 · **Joined:** Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:25 pm **Posts:** 2760

T33driver wrote:

warbird1 wrote:

mazdaP5 wrote:

F-86's and Mig-15's are great, but where are all of the naval Warbirds from the Korean war era? Sea Fury's and Corsairs are most common, but I'd love to see some Panthers, Banshees, even Phantom I's.

Unfortunately, those early jets have a LOT of strikes against them, including:

1) Ancient jet technology, with less than reliable engines, prone to flameouts, compressor stalls, etc.

2) Huge gas guzzling jet engines, which eat up much more gas than their piston bretheren.

3) Rarity of the planes make restoration very difficult if not impossible due to the availability of parts.

4) Ancient ejection seat technology, which makes flying the older jets more risky than modern counterparts, i.e. - L-29's, L-39's, etc.

5) Lack of performance in regards to speed, range, and overall reliability in regards to more modern jets, i.e. - T-33's, F-86's, L-29's, L-39's, etc.

6) Not as much notoriety or "glory" as their piston engined counterparts such as the Corsair, Bearcat, Fury, etc.

7) Much more finicky and harder to maintain than their piston engined counterparts, due to having more complex systems.

8. Not as much demand by airshows and event organizers than the popular piston engined Korean era birds. This translates into no or lesser money for appearance fees to keep the jets maintained.

As much as I would like to see some more early era jets, unless you are a Paul Allen type, it just wouldn't be feasible or practical to maintain one in flying condition, IMO. This is especially true in light of the current av gas crisis.

Your statements about early jets needing more maintenance and less reliability is a gross overgeneralization and depends on which aircraft you're talking about. Early jets like Mig 15/17s and T-33s are wonderfully simple and RELIABLE (not finicky) aircraft to operate and maintain--much more so than a P-51 or Sea Fury. Plenty of spare parts around for those. T-33 can fly 1000 nautical miles plus on a tank of fuel, while the L-39/L-29 birds are more short-legged. An F-86 is more maintenance intensive being all hydraulic and more complex but not any more than WWII fighters. Obviously when you get into century series fighters and into 1960s era, complexity and cost goes through the roof on those jets. The WWII fighters are and will continue to be the Rembrandts of warbirds and a bigger draw at shows. Careful to paint with such a broad brush.

CAPFlyer wrote:

Paul, you got to it before me.

While the L-29/39 are maintenance joys, the MiG-15/17/19 aren't much worse and when flown right aren't any more fuel hungry than the L-29 (which shares the same basic engine that the three fighters use). As well, the engines are quite reliable - when not abused. The problem that occurred with a lot of these engines and which gave them a bad rep was that they were being run hard as a necessity of their purpose of pushing fighters and military aircraft into combat. In the civilian world, they are cared for and last much longer with many fewer problems as they're not stressed nearly as much as they were in their operational lives.

As for parts, while it may be difficult to get some parts for all of these airplanes (Paul would certainly know more about US types than I for general availability), there are plenty of parts left in the former Eastern Bloc for the Soviet types not least because of parts commonality between types leading to some parts still being produced for aircraft till flying operationally for air forces around the world. The engines for the L-29/MiG-15/17 are still made because there are still L-29s in operational service. Many of the parts for the mid-life MiGs (19, 21, 23) are available as they were only recently retired and those who retired them know the value of these parts to the civilian market and haven't smelted them all or are using the parts on other aircraft that used the same part.

Fuel becomes the overriding factor. Yes, they tend to use more fuel per hour than a piston, but at the same time there is an offset in lower maintenance cost per hour than a piston and the fact you can typically get further in an hour than a piston, so your cost per mile is fairly similar. The issue is simply that there aren't that many out there in the civilian world (yet), and as such, the process for getting them into the air is much longer as you can't just copy what someone else has already done (a common thing to do in the experimental community) to get the airworthiness certificate & maintenance plan approved, and the people at the FAA responsible for this won't be as familiar with the airframe and the existing programs to be able to hasten the process.

Hahaha, you guys are not reading the entire post.

I was specifically referring to the early naval jets, i.e. - Panthers, Banshees, Phantom1, Cutlass, etc. Are the Mig-15/17, L-29/-39, T-33 considered early naval jets? I don't think so.

T33driver wrote:

Careful to paint with such a broad brush.

HHHmmmm. Maybe somebody should heed their own advice!

BTW, I agree completely with what Paul and CapFlyer said. No disputes here.

Look guys, I'm not trying to start a dispute or be adverserial, but reading the ENTIRE post and knowing exactly what someone is talking about might be wise before you jump on them.

No hard feelings.

jwc50 · **Posted:** Thu Jun 12, 2008 12:40 pm

When you talk vintage military jet fighter/trainer aircraft from the 50s and 60s you are talking about my favorite warbird subject. I think I agree with what has been said concerning certain warbirds may not be quite as problematic as others. The large numbers of Canadian built Sabres and T-33s probably set them apart to some degree from a lot of other vintage U.S. jets built in the 50s.

In addition to Sabres and T-33s, among my favorite flying warbirds from that era are the FJ-4B Fury, F-100 Super Sabre and F-104 Starfighter.

I would love to see an F9F Panther and an F-9 Cougar back in the air. Some vintage aircraft are HIGHLY unlikely to be seen in the air again (such as the F7U Cutlass which was a real problem keeping in the air during its service days in the 50s). Concerning MiGs, I would really like to see a flying example of the MiG-19 join the MiG-15s and MiG-17s flying in the U.S.

The other thing I would mention is that the vintage jets of the 50s and 60s are not representive only of the Korean War and Vietnam War eras, but also of the long Cold War period. Perhaps the most colorful examples of vintage U.S. military aircraft from the 50s and 60s are the Cold War types that were in service in the mid-50s to early 60s time period when you saw a lot of orange day-glo, bright red and other colors.

kenlyco · **Joined:** Sat Dec 08, 2007 11:05 pm **Posts:** 656

I know you would have to have B.Gates money for fuel but there's somthing about the mig 25,its just plain scary looking

Obergrafeter · **Posted:** Thu Jun 12, 2008 1:55 pm

Maybe its in the wrong Forum (go ahead and move it Scott if you want) but we will be doing a Viet Nam era Fly-in at Fredericksburg Texas weekend of Sept 5 for all that are not in Reno. Birddogs, O-2s, Skyraider, B-26, T-28s scheduled so far, with a flight to LBJ ranch on Sat. for fun and to see where many of the news conferences from that era originated. Looking for more Era aircraft, but don't think we can handle the Jets except helicopters.

Misterg97 · **Posted:** Thu Jun 12, 2008 2:16 pm

Just a quick note .... my avatar shown here is a scan of an actual patch that I took off my uniform when I returned stateside ... I now have it hanging from my blazer pocket in a holder as I volunteer in the area covering both the Korean and Vietnam sections of the museum ... some may be amazed at the times I am asked .... What was Korea? ... or ... "When were we in Korea? ... as well as some other questions ...

Regarding warbirds, as mentioned here earlier, I had 7 months at an outpost ... bomb & gunnery range for F-86's .... at times the Marines came in at night with a flight of 5 .. one being the lamplighter who dropped flares via parachute to light up our big rock for bombing ... what a sight to behold ...

I enjoyed reading all the positings regarding this subject ... and glad to hear so many of you are interested ...

Thanks, Jerry

Warbird Information Exchange

Lets talk a bit about 50's & 60's warbirds

Who is online