Warbird Information Exchange

I was just wondering what would be the largest active warbird collection that's regularly accessible to the public, through shows or events?

Obviously chapter organisations like the CAF are huge, but for the purpose of the discussion lets look to organisations that put on more than one show of their own per year - also avoiding getting tangled with the big annual event lists.

Just a bit of fun, what are your bids?

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James K

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

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

P. Allens FHC with god knows how many aircraft, are you including only fliers JDK? If so then probably Kermit

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Thanks!

Both important collections, indeed. However if you peer around the PR, neither are into large double figures with actual, current, regularly flown aircraft. Of Kermit's magnificent collection, how many have actually flown in the last 12 months? FHC is a lovely hangarful, and more promised, but not even everything in the hangar flies.

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James K

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

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

How about Jerry Yagen's collection? I believe most of them are flyers.

SN

How about the Collings Foundation ? The Wings of Freedom Tour aircraft are open to the public, somewhere, every day, for 9 months of the year. The Viet Nam portion of the collection is out regularly, is open for flight training, and soon, experience flights. The Huey has done portions of the tour, individual events, and has done 131 ride flights since January. Each flight represents 5-7 folks who've directly experienced what a Huey is all about. Collectively, that's a lot of flown hours and availability to the public .

The Foundation also hosts four weekend events a year at the Foundation Headquarters in Stow, Massachusetts. Father's Day weekend is one of them.

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

Vintage Wings of Canada's collection keeps growing weekly it seems, I believe all aircraft are fliers other than the few that are in restoration. I would bet it is the biggest organization in Canada.

Cheers Dave C

Shuttleworth ...?

Planes of Fame should be a contender. From reviewing their site I estimate that they have about 20 fighter, bomber, trainer, liaison, or transport aircraft based at Chino that I would deem active (not to be confused with what their web site quotes as flying).

Vintage Wings I think is around 12 warbirds flying, plus maybe 6 civil classics. Canadian Warplane Heritage has very close to the same number of warbirds, depending how many of their trainers are flying at the moment.

Cavanaugh, FHC, Yagen, Fighter Collection, Kermit all also come in in the 10-15 range I think. Perhaps a few more each for Yagen and Kermit as they can each "pad" their numbers with several trainers and L-birds.

August

The key is the word "active". I'd say there's three categories with these collections:
Static, maintained flyable, and flown. My guess would be that Paul Allen and Jerry Yagen are tops with the "flown" numbers, Kermit probably wins with "maintained flyable", but that's just a guess.

Jerry's aircraft are pretty regularly flown unless down for maintenance;
P-51D, Spit, Hurricane, TBM, Skyraider, B-25, FG-1D, P-40, Dragon Rapide, Storch (just being completed), FM-2 (just being completed), Catalina, SNJ-2, SNJ-5, YAK-3? (down after accident now, should be back soon).

Jerry has a number of aircraft "in the pipeline" that will boost his flying collection: P-39, Mosquito, Hispano-109, FlugWerk-190, and I think the Mig.

I wouldn't be surprised if he acquired a P-47 soon, but that's just my opinion.

Anyway, I'm thankful to all of these collectors. I love Kermit's place, just wish he'd hire some pilots and get some of his gorgeous aircraft to shows. The bubble-top Spit, the Atlantic FM-2, "Cripes"...haven't seen them fly in a long time.

Rich

PS - I was just commenting on the more "personal" collections. Organizations such as POF, CWH, VWC, and CAF obviously operate 'fleets' too, but are different in my mind.

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Rich Kolasa
www.crystalgraphix.com

I'd go with Planes of Fame

I'd go with POF too. They have their annual airshow plus their monthly events as well.

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The more I learn about aircraft, the more I realize I still have to learn.

CAA issues aside.. TFC has to rank up there.

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Those who possess real knowledge are rare.

Those who can set that knowledge into motion in the physical world are rarer still.

The few who possess real knowledge and can set it into motion of their own hands are the rarest of all.

Think about Mid Atlantic Air Museum www.maam.org they will have the only flyable P-61 as soon as its restored.

And it's MANY years away, unfortunately.

Rich

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Rich Kolasa
www.crystalgraphix.com

Cavanaugh Flight Museum has to be up there. As far as I know the CFM flies the following aircraft: A-26, TBM, FM-2, AT-6(s), N2S, PT-19, C-47, T-28(s), AD-5, HU-16, CV-2, OV-1, OH-13, and when out of maintenance, FG-1D, P-40, and P-51. Thats 16+. Pretty Good!

CAF takes the cake though in terms of numbers

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Taylor Stevenson