This is the place where the majority of the warbird (aircraft that have survived military service) discussions will take place. Specialized forums may be added in the new future
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Re: Cheapest jet warbird?

Sat Feb 23, 2013 10:11 pm

I was thinking Iskra, L-29, and the provest perhaps...

Chunks

Re: Cheapest jet warbird?

Wed Feb 27, 2013 3:03 pm

Buying a Jet warbird is cheap .... its the gas, insurance, maintenance etc that would scare the heck out of me.

Re: Cheapest jet warbird?

Wed Feb 27, 2013 6:24 pm

Vulture wrote:Buying a Jet warbird is cheap .... its the gas, insurance, maintenance etc that would scare the heck out of me.


A friend restored a Yale and flew it frequently. Then he got a hankering for a jet and traded the Yale for an Iskra. I bet he didn't fly the Iskra a dozen times in the 3-4-5 years he owned it. For whatever reason, the fuel cost (and this was 10 years ago) and the field length requirements hadn't raised a red flag when he was buying the thing, but they really put a hurt on him when he became a jet owner.

Re: Cheapest jet warbird?

Thu Feb 28, 2013 12:06 am

A friend of mine sold his Fouga for $40K a few years back. It was in excellent condition with good times remaining. I think he flew the Fouga more than the Duke that replaced it... The Fouga just wasn't much of a family plane.

Re: Cheapest jet warbird?

Thu Feb 28, 2013 7:30 am

Curretly in Trade-A-Plane, there is a L-29, appearently airworthy, for $30,000.
Cheaper than a new Honda.

http://www.trade-a-plane.com/detail/air ... 26081.html

Re: Cheapest jet warbird?

Thu Feb 28, 2013 6:23 pm

Right now the cheapest jet warbird is the F-313. :lol: pop2

Re: Cheapest jet warbird?

Thu Feb 28, 2013 10:39 pm

The first civilian jet warbirds in the U.S. were out before there were "warbirds." In Nashville, Tennessee, Jesse Stallings rebuilt a T-33 from a pole to use for an instrument trainer for his airline, Capital Airways. As the story goes, the T-33 burned more fuel per hour down low than his DC-8's! That was in the late 1960's. An F-86 or two were restored, probably at Chino or Mojave. After the ice cream shop incident, there weren't any F-86's around for a while flying for fun.
Air Progress had an article about two Vampires being flown out at Mojave by two eccentric rich guys that would buy kerosene by trailer truck load and go dogfighting. This was around 1976. Later you could count the jet warbirds on your fingers. A couple of T-33's, one Temco TT-1 Pinto, an F-84F, and later an F9F Panther.
Also going back to about 1970, with the Vampires, there were also two or three Gloster Meteors as seen on episodes of "Wonderwoman" 6 Million Dollar Man" etc. The Meteors are actually a WW II design.
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