Bob Lutz, former president of Chrysler has a Chinese built MiG that he flies for fun, as I recall. If you want to know where these guys get the planes, look on eBay! I’ve seen several military jets, both US and foreign for sale there. None come cheap, I might add. According to a program I saw on the Discovery Channel back in '93, it was possible to buy top of the line MiG’s on the black market in Russia for $70! Don’t know if its true or not, but it’d be real tempting to buy one and fly her home.
IS an ejection seat “safety equipment” if you don’t have the training and carefulness to use it right? They do have explosives and rocket engines in them, after all, and people have been killed by monkeying with them. A kid who was foolishly allowed to sit in a fighter cockpit at an airshow in Pennsylvania in the 80’s died accidentally punching out, for instance. Agreed that simply banning them instead of requiring proper training and maintenance is too ham-handed an approach, but the FAA has too-limited field inspection and enforcement capability as it is. Banning them outright may actually save more lives.
True, but who in Washington wants to have to explain why they were willing to allow taxpayer-funded military technology to be sold to terrorists, druglords, and (that new bugbear) “rogue nations”? Logic and reason don’t have much to do with it.
Or perhaps that was to protect people with more money and ego than training or sense from killing themselves in airplanes that they couldn’t possibly have hours or training in, or find people who did to take care of it for them.
It would still be a lot cheaper, though - there is a much larger supply, exchange rates are better, and sellers are desperate.
Being trainers, they’ve taken a lot of beatings at the hands of student pilots. If you bought one, wouldn’t you have to worry about how many hard landings it had taken and how much fatigue life was really left in the airframe?
Agreed, but one has to be cautious about calling any aircraft “perfectly good”.
Yes, it is a piece of safety equipment. Most pilots tend to be very serious about flying. If you have the desire (and the money) to own an aircraft equipped with an ejection seat, you probably are going to find the training. As far as inspection goes, a lot of people use parachutes that have to be inspected and repacked from time to time. I think the FAA has plenty of resources to handle ejection seats. Furthermore, more people have been saved by ejection seats than have been killed by them. In my opinion, they would not be used very much even if a crash is a foregone conclusion. If someone spends a couple million dollars on a jet, he’s likely going to do everything he can to “save the airplane” because is’t his money and not the taxpayers’.
Most “dangerous” technology has export restrictions on it, so I don’t think we need to worry about “rogue nations”. They’re likely to go for the cheaper east-bloc equipment anyway. If I were a terrorist, I would not use an aircraft that would attract attention. I’d use a Cessna or a Piper. But then, airborne attacks by terrorists would probably not be as effective as a truck full of explosives.
A lot of pilots are killed by their egos every year. I maintain that a person who owns a jet is more likely to get advanced training and to maintain his aircraft better than someone who goes out and buys a Bonanza (aka “Doctor Killer”).
Aircraft are subject to periodic inspections. Do you think a Cessna 152 or 172 doesn’t take abuse? T-34s were prohibited from aerobatic maneuvers after wing spars failed in a couple of them. (Remember, these are 50-year-old aircraft.) I don’t know if the restriction has been lifted, but with proper repairs/maintenance there should be no problem. There are thousands of aircraft flying that have suffered fatigue and have been fixed. There are thousands of Cessnas and Pipers that have been abused by ham-fisted students, and they are still airworthy. Fatigue and abuse are not restricted to ex-military aircraft.
Also, look at all of the SNJ/T-6s that are flying around. Those were trainers that took a lot of abuse in their lives, and they are still flying.
Assuming I had the means to own, say, a TA-4J, you can bet that I would get the training and recurrent training to operate it safely. But I’d sure like to have an ejection seat just in case something catastrophic happens. I’d get the training, I’d learn to skydive, and I’d lose my hefty investment in the aircraft to save my life. I’d much rather have my legs and arms broken on ejection than I’d like to be ground to a pulp under tons of aluminum and steel.
Well, I’m firmly against blanket restrictions on aircraft ownership, but at the same time I have to admit that the accident rate in former military jets is apallingly high. In my opinion, the only thing that has allowed them to keep flying is that none of the crashes have been spectacularly public. But as soon as a private F-104 goes down in a city, or a big celeb like John Travolta or Cliff Robertson dies in an accident (Travolta flies a De-Havilland Vampire, and Robertson has a number of aircraft, including a Spitfire), then there will be a renewed clamor for more restrictions.
Sam Stone: Back in the early 1970s a civilian-owned jet (an F-86, IIRC) crashed into a Farrel’s Ice Cream Parlour with some loss of life. My sister never did go to Farrell’s again because she was afraid a jet might crash into it. (My sister is weird sometimes.)
The most recent ex-military crash I’ve heard of that damaged property on the ground took place several years ago at Santa Monica Airport. A P-51 lost power on takeoff and crashed into a house. Of course there were calls to close the airport. IMO if you’re afraid of an airplane crashing into your house, you should not buy a house at the end of a runway.
If any of you guys run into an exmilitary plane owner let me know.
I’m buying a used aircraft carrier from Navy surplus for an import business in the Gulf of Mexico and I need air support.