Warbird Information Exchange

I spoke with a local mechanic that works on a B-25 which travels to a fair amount of air shows a year and he estimated maintenance hours vs flight time is about 400 to 1. (400 hrs of maintenance for every hour of flight time). This was an average calculated over a year.

I remember hearing from another B-25 owner that they would spend 6 months out of the year just working on it as well.

Is this pretty typical ?

I know with 'Miss Mitchell' ("my" local B-25) it usually comes out of maintenance as early as around late March or April, and is operated quite routinely up until around October, before it is parked for annual/maintenance (so typically, at least a solid 5 months in the hangar). For around here, though, there of course aren't that many "good" flying days during that period of time anyway (November-March), and that amount of time with the aircraft stationary in the hangar has allowed for a lot of other non-maintenance type work to take place on the aircraft over the years too (to continue to make it more and more stock/original to how the original 'Miss Mitchell' looked inside and out during WWII). Of course work on keeping the aircraft in flying shape continues throughout the year, while the aircraft is on tour/show stops, etc.

Question about the math. You say 400 to 1 maintenance hours to flight hours. Using a real world scenario, if the b-25 is going to make a one hour flight demo on Saturday, and a team of ten spends 40 hours Monday through Friday getting the plane ready for that demo flight... then ten times 40 is 400 hours for one hour of flight time... spread this out over the whole year? Yes I think those figures sound reasonable.

Taigh Ramey had a comment on this very issue in the Air & Space article The Beech Boys

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Running Tondelayo on tour didn't really require that much...other than gas, oil, and chasing pushrod tube leaks. I never added up the hours per year when I was out but I would estimate we flew it between 300-350 hours a year. Brakes, Tires, and an occasional cylinder change were the only big jobs. Considering we move to a new town every 2 1/2 to 3 days for 10 months a year + ride flights...that's not bad.

Jim

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I don't the B-25s and B-17s on ride tours don't travel with 10 man full time maintenance teams.
If we take the 400 to 1 ratio at face value, one day of rides...say 3 hours of 1/3 hour rides, would require those ten guys to spend more hours on the job than there are in a week.

Even if you count the annual inspection I don't know if you could reach 400 to one.

I don't doubt the complexity and cost of flying them, but that figure sounds too high to be practical.

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I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

Jim, is that to say you've retired from the tour (sorry if my own travel has caused me to miss a previous posting)? If so, thank you so much for the reports you issued in the past, they were most interesting, elucidating, and just plain fun to read! Cheers to you sir in any event...

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Kurt Maurer
League City, Texas

PIC, Ford 6600 pulling Rhino batwing up and down the runway

The 400:1 ratio only applies to Cessna 421s and Beech Dukes.

I would think a flyable B-25 (at like 100 hours per year) would be more like 30:1 including winter maintenance.

The quote from me above was for a retired guy living on a fixed income. The ops and maintenance cost for a B-25 was way more than he could afford.

The 400 to 1 ratio sounds way high to me unless you are including restoration effort or are starting with a really rough aircraft. Pretty much all vintage aircraft are similar in that if you start with something pretty decent then your upkeep is relatively low. If you start with a pig then you will be chasing your tail for a long time just trying to keep up.

Choose wisely!

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I was also curious how much service an A-26 requires compared to a B-25.

Is there any specific reason A-26's sell for a third of the price of a B-25 goes for and far fewer are airworthy compared to a B-25 ?

Doolittle Raid, Catch 22, ............

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Matt Gunsch, A&P, IA, Warbird maint and restorations
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Invaders served in WWII, KOREA & VIETNAM.

Didn't they also drop the most tonnage in WWII per sortie for light/medium bombers ? I may be wrong.

A few reasons:

1) As mentioned previously, probably the biggest reason is due to the Doolittle Raid. That is one of the most famous missions of W.W.II and everybody on the planet associates the B-25 with the Raid. The A/B-26 did not have any "infamous" missions of such notoriety.

2) The A/B-26 has R-2800's vs the R-2600's of the B-25. As such, the A/B-26 has slightly higher fuel consumption. The B-25 burns about 120 gal/hr at cruise, while the A/B-26 burns about 150 gal/hr at cruise. Flying the A/B-26 is basically the same cost as flying 2 W.W.II fighters with R-2800's - i.e., 2 x P-47's, 2 x Hellcats, 2 x Corsairs, etc.

3) Most flying A/B-26's can only carry 4 to 5 passengers whereas most B-25's can carry 6 to 7 passengers. The interior space on a B-25 is much more roomy and one can carry a lot of "bulk" or voluminous cargo and/or passengers.

Already, one can see the economics of the Invader vs. the Mitchell. An A/B-26 is 20% more expensive for fuel costs alone and carries about 30% less passengers. The economics are much more favorable for the B-25. Added to this, your average airshow attendee doesn't really know anything about the A/B-26 and hence is not going to be very motivated to shell out $400 to $500 for a ride in one. Nearly everybody knows what a B-25 is because of either the Doolittle Raid or Catch 22, and is more willing to buy a flight in one.

As far as I know, there are only about 4 or 5 A/B-26's flying that give passenger rides, while there are at least 3 to 4 times that many for the B-25. This alone should tell you something about the profit margins of operating these 2 aircraft.

A more profitable and famous warbird equals more desirability. More desirability equals higher acquisition costs. Economics 101.

Just out of curiosity, who gives rides in A-26 ?

Thanks,
Phil

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A man's got to know his limitations.

The CAF and Cavanaugh are the two who immediately come to mind. There may be one or two others, but I can't remember for sure. I know there are a couple of groups trying to add A-26's to their ride program.