Warbird Information Exchange

Not bad things and certainly not cheap shots. But the comment is true the B-17s at Eglin and Barksdale were flown to their respective museums. The engines were runnable, I know that the Eglin aircraft was put on display and the engines were run post display. Apparently the museum staff was told not to do it again. Try to turn those engines today.

That is decay, whether you like it or not.

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

The Wildcat at Pearl was/is airworthy. While I see nothing wrong with using non-airworthy items on static restorations (otherwise those components are just so much scrap, right?) I'd hate to see an airworthy airplane forced to give up it's components when there's always an outside chance it might find it's way back out of the museum again and possibly be returned to flight status.

Rick you are using worst case examples. I am talking about aircraft restored to a beautiful standard, put on static display indoors, and then someone refers to them as rotting. That is not the case. THe aircraft in question are on display in air parks, and to a much different standard than a museum that houses a collection indoors. Barksdale AFB Museum is trying to raise funds to build a building to house and restore it's collection. Check out their website and make a donation. That will help get another B-17 restored. But you aren't going to walk into a National Museum say, I want those engines for 909, and walk out with them, and hang blown engines in it's place. Restoration guys, restoration, not just hang it up there, make it look good, and forget about it. If you are going to do a restoration do it the best you can. Why on earth would you fault a museum for it's quality of restorations? Also the two aircraft you bring up were flown to the museums in 1975 and 1978. The warbird movement was much different then.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

You are mixing apples and oranges. I never said that the aircraft at NMUSAF or NMNA proper are rotting. Someone else did.

But you have to admit, any way you cut it, the other aircraft are victims of NMUSAF policy.

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

What does the NMUSAF even have to do with any of this? Are you saying that as soon as those B-17's landed in 1978 that they should have been "Hey who wants some engines? Just give us the bad ones. Starting those engines from time to time would save them sure, but you are talking a span of 30 years.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

One fallacy that I am seeing from some contributors to this thread is the idea that it is okay to have non-airworthy parts, or not exactly the right parts, or missing parts on a static airframe because the average museum goer, or even the knowledgeable museum goer, will not know the difference.

This misunderstands, or at least incompletely understands, the purpose of museum preservation. It is not just to make a display of artifacts for John Q. Public today. Partly that, yes. But the additional and more important purpose is to preserve a physical record of something as nearly as possible the way it exactly was for future generations that might otherwise have no equally good record.

Therefore, the question when swapping parts on a static museum aircraft is not just whether it will be evident to today's schoolchildren. Anybody who limits the inquiry to that question should not be allowed to have anything to do with a museum. The real question is, will a historian or archaeologist 1,000 years from now be misled or confused by the changing out of this part? Might he be led to the wrong conclusion about what type of brakes were used on Wildcats in 1942, which sub-variant of engines were installed in B-17s in 1944, or how coolant got around the engine when some of the hoses are missing? If you feel that old airplanes are really historical artifacts worth preserving, you swap out or remove parts only with great reluctance and with full documentation. And you realize that if you have a static airplane containing an airworthy part that could be exchanged for a non-airworthy part in a flying warbird, exchanging them is not a win-win. It is a loss for the historical integrity of the static airframe (actually for both airframes, although it hardly matters for most airworthy warbirds, which long ago ceased to be museum-quality artifacts anyway) and with no countervailing gain from a historical perspective.

August

Holy crap, did we just agree on something?

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

Well said August - very well said!

Zack Baughman

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Volunteer Coordinator/Curator - Military Aviation Museum - Virginia Beach, VA
"America's Flying Museum"
http://www.militaryaviationmuseum.org

An airworthy a/c if not maintained properly (and in my opinion flown regularly) will detiorate over time to the point of being unairworthy. That in my opinion is rottting away.
NASM had a B-17 and B-25 both donated and delivered to them. . What condition are they in today. For a National museum that's shameful. The PB4Y was flown to Pensacola. What condition is it in today? The same for Shoo Shoo Baby. If she isn't rotting she'll certainly not airworthy anymore and that's a shame. E vergreen spent millions on the airworthy restorations of the P-38, ME-109 ect and now the Zero. My experience say the Zero won't fly much if at all.

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Don't touch my junk!!

Why am I reminded of religious and political arguments? No one has all the answers or is beyond criticism on the fly/not fly topic. Turning a blind eye to the shortcomings of your own camp and exaggerating the failure of the other camp doesn't help.

Was my previous post difficult or something?

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/p ... 2&start=23

And 'airworthy' is not the best or proper state for a museum aircraft to be in. See my earlier post.

Museum aircraft should be restored to a different standard; retaining originality.

Rick, some museum aircraft aren't in the care they should be, as you say. (Compare that if you want to point fingers with the numerous aircraft that we no longer have at all due to a fatal crash; a double loss, and human lives are not replaceable.) We can play tit for tat endlessly. In both the museum and flying scenario we should concentrate on answering legitimate questions, and in both raised standards over the years have been beneficial and also achieved mutual benefits.

Most museums do their job to their mandate generally well. As to chucking stones, while I'm an advocate of flying collections as well as static, most flying collections depend on a single rich benefactor. When he quits or makes a hole, it's game over. Few (the Shuttleworth Collection being one, Planes of Fame another) can demonstrate a half century of preservation and demonstration. Even in those cases there may be a loss rate, due to accident trade, or other reasons. Most current flying collections may have a plan that extends for a decade, and most regard a century of preservation as outside reality; long-term preservation being a museum's job is and one reason why we need both.

What is going to be the situation with your aircraft in 50 years?

Regards,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

August comment on logbooks for a static airplane brings up a good question. Didn't some private museum keep there aircraft up to airworthy standards and sit static (i.e. Champlin Fighters, Airzoo) ? What public and private museum are still maintained like this ?

If an airplane is still maintained with documented logbooks to an unairworthy standard, (i.e. wood pistons, wrong engine dash number or Hamilton Standard prop in stead of a Curtis Electric) what is wrong with a Museum presenting it's aircraft like this to get it on display, as long as they are not being deceptive and document it for the publics and historic knowledge? This way the correct parts can be replaced when they becomes available in an unairworthy state or remade to an airworthy state?

I know that you can and sometimes have to compromise the history of an airworthy aircraft in the form of T.O.'s servicebulitons and A.D. Many have been compromised for pilot convenience and in the name of reliability. The good thing about the airworthy modified aircraft is they should be well documented!

Steve

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"Any excuse is good enough if you're willing to use it!"

James, I would venture that more aircraft have been damaged or destroyed in since 2000 than have been destroyed as flyers. This list doesn't even take into consideration the losses at Weeks Museum, Le Bourget, San Diego, etc...

Examples;

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

What!!? many more aircraft have been damaged flying? Multiply that list by several times. And most of the aircraft listed have already been repaired, or are in the process of being repaired.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

Right, this is the problem with retiring airworthy aircraft to be museum displays. An aircraft can be a fine airworthy warbird but still be a poor candidate for static preservation because of the extent to which its integrity has been compromised. Documentation can help with this, but even documented mods can only go so far before you are left with a very compromised artifact. I would venture that most of the Champlin aircraft (now mostly in Seattle) and the Airzoo aircraft are in this category as well as many others.

Another reason why documentation is not the sole answer is that documentation tends to be less durable than the artifact and is often lost. For that reason NASM documents mods to its aircraft right on the part in question wherever possible, or hangs a tag explaining the mod on there. It is also to guard against losses of documentation that NASM will intentionally replace a missing cylinder with a wooden one instead of machining a "more accurate" one out of metal -- they want it to be obvious to researchers in the future that that part is not original.

August

I thought about pulling this into a new thread, but decided against it.

Hi Rick,
I think we are both big enough and old enough to know that you can construct that argument to prove whatever view you want. Hey, pay me, and as a journalist, I can do either for you. Pointless.

The point is not 'proving' someone else 'hasn't done it properly', but how well one's own house is in order, and living up to the appropriate objectives.

Museum aircraft aren't failed fliers any more than fliers are perverted artifacts; short term (decade) objectives with flying aircraft are fine, and I'd support your work as valuable in it's own sphere as the job of say the Smithsonian or London's Science Museum.

What is good is that more people are moving towards recognising both threads as having merit; that properly managed flying is as important as proper conservation and preservation.

There's some important ideas being discussed in the thread, and clearly some difficult concepts. Interesting stuff, as a result.

Regards,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com