Warbird Information Exchange

Wondering, if in today's economy, are there more people interested in purchasing warbirds than there are warbirds for sale? Are there enough P-51's and like type fighters available for sale that if someone had an interest and offered a reasonable fair market price (if there is one) for a mustang, would there always be several for sale. I'm not suggesting this in a way that "everything is for sale" as in if some fool offered someone 10 million bucks. I'm talking a fair, reasonable offer, would there be a supply for the demand? In other words, is there a possible waiting list of people interested in purchasing a currently flyable P-51 or like type?

Mark the waiting lister

Seems like a number are undergoing restoration now, from either older restorations or from little bits. That suggests that the demand is still there. With the price of Mustangs now, only the very wealthy can afford them, so a little thing like a recession may only be a problem on paper and not change a lot of buying habits. At worst it forces the decision, "Do I buy the yacht or the Mustang?"

Just my opinion from the outside looking in of course. I am not yet fabulously wealthy!

If there was a new production, like the 51 Factory is suppose to do, or what Flug Werk has begun, I believe that we'd see a drop of price. Though this means that the company would have to produce a reasonable amount.

At one point I remember hearing that Flug Werk was going to be producing more than 30 FW-190s, but then I see on there website that they've finished the line for the Butcher Bird already, moving to the P-51 line. So what’s going on then? Is the art of making a brand new one, too great to ask for the specialized team you’d have to create for this art/project?

Of course this is also making sure that the small public who'd be paying for these new fighters sees it only as an extension of the number of total flying. Though of course, there'd be original examples still going for $2.0, $2.5. What really matters in this situation is the price of the new product.

To get this type of product out to the level below the "insanely wealthy" and "well off", Id say a brand new Mustang, probably with an original Merlin, should sell for $500,000. But it seems that ship has sailed since the 70's. Or could it have?

"When you have an influx on a set total number of something, its hoped for the average price to come down. Whether were talking about 300,000 egg beaters, or 20 new P-51."

Get Em’ Flying,
Keep Em’ Flying.
Make new ones so we always,
Keep Em’ Flying.

Christopher

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Keep Em' Flying,
Christopher Soltis
Dedicated to the preservation and education of The Sikorsky Memorial Airport

CASC Blog Page: http://ctair-space.blogspot.com/
Warbird Wear: https://www.redbubble.com/people/warbirdwear/shop

Chicks Dig Warbirds.......right?

i'm sure everybody has seen the publication "trade a plane"... i commented on an old thread a few years ago that i noticed a growing trend in the lack of warbirds for sale in the magazine, & long before our economy went belly up. now it probably only exacerbates the situation.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

It depends, on if a warbird owner gets laid off. If they do, then you'll see some good bargains starting to appear.

I think the warbird sales are just as high as they have ever been, or close to it, just a lot more of them are sold in private without being "listed" for sale in a public manner. Of the significant warbirds that have changed hands in the past 12 months, how many did you know about before the buyer was announced, and the paperwork finalized? There seems to be several dozen people in the country that are building larger collections, and when someone wants to sell an aircraft, they go to that group first. It is only when they get no interest from that group that the plane shows up on a warbird dealer site or publication. Quite a few of the aircraft that have shown up on those sites and publications in the past year have been "for sale" for people within the industry for several months.

As for the $500,000 merlin powered Mustang will never happen unless there is a flood of Merlin overhaul shops that come into the market. With the price of the Merlin being between $150,000 and $250,000 and the time to get an overhauled engine of 6 months or more, there is not going to be a flood of "new" aircraft on the market any time soon at any price.

Even if someone were to begin mass producing Mustangs the price is not going to come down. As time goes on the supply of NOS parts is dwindling. I had a discussion about this with Elmer W a few years back.

He felt the number one limiting factor about building new Mustangs was the landing gear. While the number of Merlins available and the cost was a concern, the cost to manufacture new gear castings and components would be very high. They were also having to manufacture new engine mounts as many of the originals are starting to suffer from i-g corrosion. He was also looking for a source to make new nose coolant tanks as they were having to cut open the old ones to repair baffles and re-weld them.

Those were just a few of the items we talked about. I'm sure that some of our WIX'ers in the know could elaborate more about what is starting to cost more and more to replace or refurbish on the Mustangs. I doubt the price of the aircraft will ever be cheaper than they are right now.

Les

I didn't think most of them were employees!

August

"At one point I remember hearing that Flug Werk was going to be producing more than 30 FW-190s, but then I see on there website that they've finished the line for the Butcher Bird already, moving to the P-51 line. So what’s going on then? Is the art of making a brand new one, too great to ask for the specialized team you’d have to create for this art/project?''

One thing to remember about Flug Werk is under German law if you build more than three of anything you become an actual factory and the aircraft have to be fully certificated by the German FAA (EASA?). That is why they built most of the 190s as kits. Thier Mustang line will have to meet the same standard. Will that make a difference in the attraction of Flug Werk Mustangs? How many customers will spend say close to a million for the kit and close to another million and a couple of years to see it flying when with a little diligence they might be able to pick up a restored original for 2 mill?

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

One thing about Trade a Plane ads is that a few years ago there was some kind of tax advantage if you had certain assets for sale during the year and didn't sell them. Lots of people used to take advantage of that and keep aircraft "for sale" in TaP for years without actually selling. Not sure that this is still the case and if it isn't probably helps explains the decrease in Warbird Ads. Also the Warbird sale community is pretty small and a few players (i.e. Courtesy Aircraft) pretty well dominate as brokers.

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

I completely agree. Theoretically most of the guys that own the heavy iron warbirds can take as much vacation as they want and still get paid, but don't since they're hard-driving success oriented types still very engaged in their enterprises. That's a broad generalization but I think it's pretty accurate. The market for Mustangs, Corsairs, Spitfires et al doesn't care about the economy for the most part. Prices on lower end warbirds seems to have softened: T-28s, T-6s, etc.

they're "hard-driving success oriented" types still very engaged in their enterprises.

Paul, I'm one of those guys too, so where's my warbird? Oop's! sorry I re-read your post. thought you said "hard-partying, heavy drinking types" ..