Private citizens can’t buy a B2, because a B2 contains technology that is secret. In fact, you can’t even get close to a B2.
And it’s a strange thing, but you can buy lots of really, really expensive airplanes for very low prices sometimes. For instance, you can find Learjets for $50,000. Older twin engine aircraft are often much cheaper than smaller, single engine aircraft of the same vintage.
Why? Supply and demand. An older Learjet uses turbojet engines instead of more efficient turbofans. And most of these older airplanes are close to engine overhaul, and the engines can cost over $100,000 each to overhaul.
At some point, these airplanes become too maintenance intensive and fuel gulping to make sense in a corporate flight department. So they get put on the market, and the price plummets.
The same goes for older twin engine piston airplanes like Piper Apaches. These older planes are extremely expensive to maintain, and the older airframes are not as efficient as some of the newer, more modern versions. So no one really wants them, and people can pick them up cheap.
But the low purchase price is an illusion, and plenty of people have been sucked into buying these airplanes by the low purchase price and then been nickel-and-dimed to death by maintenance costs.
I was wondering if one could be bought stipped. Only the common avionics needed to fly the plane. But as Sam Stone said, we couldn’t even get near one.
Following up on what Sam Stone said, remember that if you buy a two million dollar airplane for $50,000, you’re still maintaining a two million dollar airplane.
However, you can get around restrictions, occassionally! 60 Minutes a couple of years ago did a piece on how buying the Government’s garbage could be really profitable. Valuable things like scrapped aircraft are supposed to be chopped up into little tiny pieces, suitable only for melting down. Only, it doesn’t (or at least didn’t) happen that way. A couple of guys managed to buy enough pieces to be able to assemble a complete Cobra helicopter! They figured that they’d be able to make back their investment costs (buying the pieces, paying someone to put them back together) by renting it out to movie companies.
Now that’s one thing that pissed me off. “A Cobra is an assault helicopter! Ohmygod! Ohmygod! We have to do something!” So Congress got the Pentagon to issue orders that no more Cobras must find their way into civilian hands.
But what makes the Cobra dangerous? Its weapons systems. Guess what? It’s illegal for civilians to own machine guns and cannons (outside of the Federal and state restrictions), and you can’t have such ordnance as bombs and rockets either. So take away the weapons, and what do you have? A helicopter. Nothing dangerous about it (aside from the normal dangers of flying any aircraft – which are minimal). Banning the sale of surplus Cobras is just stupid. It’s a stupid rule made by stupid people who have little or no knowledge of aircraft.
“But you could get the weapons systems illegally!” So what? You can put guns on virtually any aircraft. There are plenty of WWII and Korea era aircraft out there that can be armed illegally. But who does it? No one, that’s who. You could put a couple M-60s in the doorway of a Cessna 206 and have your own mini-AC130. Who’s done that? No one, that’s who. For that matter, you could make some napalm bombs from 55 gallon drums and roll them out the door of your Skywagon or LongRanger.
There is nothing special about an unarmed Cobra that would make it a threat.
Sorry, but this is a sore spot with me. It’s fear-mongering by the media and knee-jerk legislation by ignorant politicians.
A couple of questions for you Johnny: Aren’t Cobra’s faster than most civilian helicopters? Are Cobra’s built to the same level of safety standards as civilian helicopters? (HMMVs don’t have the same kinds of safety features that civilian Hummers have.) Is it possible that someone could purchase a surplus Cobra and learn something about it’s weaknesses that isn’t commonly known?
Cobras are faster than most helicopters. That slim profile cuts down the drag a bit. But I think there are some civilian helicopters that come close; and of course a Cobra is a lot slower than a lot of “warbirds”.
Safety standards are a funny thing. There are civil versions of the Huey, and there are military versions. When they military versions get onto the civilian market they are often registered in the Experimental or Restricted category. I don’t know what the certification issues are, but I assume that military aircraft do not have to meet civil standards. On the other hand, military aircraft are designed to be shot at. I’m guessing that military aircraft are built tougher (and the military has the money for more powerful engines to lift a heavier airframe – within reason, and in accordance with the design parameters), so the deal is that they just don’t do the certification testing required for civilian aircraft and not that the aircraft can’t pass the tests.
The Cobras on the marked are rather old. (That’s one of the reasons they were surplussed.) The design is from the 1960s, so there’s probably not a lot to be learned about them structurally. IIRC, the Super Cobras and Sea Cobras are a little bigger. I have never seen any come up for sale (BTW: AH-1Fs I’ve seen generally go for about $500,000 to $800,000 depending on condition), and in any case the design is similar enough that there is anything to learn from their structure.
Basically, tha Cobra is just a bunch of aluminum rivetted together. It’s “heart” is the weapons and weapons control system.
Why would anyone want a B2 bomber? I am assuming you’re talking about the stealth bomber. This plane has to be flown by computer, since it requires corrections that are too numerous and too quick for a human being to carry out. The plane doesn’t rely on the classic airfoil shape to give it lift, its shape is too unstable. If I understand it correctly, the computer makes countless small fast changes in the flight surfaces to compensate for the odd shape and make the thing fly - I guess simulating bernoulli’s principle, without actually having the airfoil shape.
That’s part of the reason it’s so hideously expensive.
I thought most hobby pilots like to fly a plane on their own. I wouldn’t want to trust my life entirely to a computer. If the computer craps out, unlike most airplanes, you’re dead, and who is going to fix the computer if it breaks?
Rusalka, I think you may be thinking of the F-117A Stealth Fighter. The skin of an F-117A is composed of flat facets, whereas traditional airfoils use curves. It is because of these facets that the aircraft is inherently unstable, requiring a triple-redundant fly-by-wire control system.
The B-2 Stealth Bomber is based on Northrup’s “Flying Wing” experiements, in which nearly the entire plane is an airfoil.
I think there is some prohibition in place regarding a US civilian’s ability to buy aircraft that have supersonic capability. This wouldn’t apply to the B-2(which you can’t buy for other reasons) but would extend to aircraft like the Mig-21 and Mig-23. Picture a small subdivision having all of its windows blown out by a super sonic boom.
At the US Air Force Museum here in Dayton we have a Mig-23 that was confiscated from some fellow who tried to import it into the States from Egypt. I dunno, maybe it was the cannons that caused the problem.
No, but there is a prohibition against flying supersonic over the U.S. You either need a waiver for each supersonic flight, or you need to go offshore. There are a few privately-owned MiG-21s around. You know that T-38 that was on the Pepsi commercials back in the '80s, and the comedy version of Dragnet? That’s privately owned. (FWIW I talked to the ground crew in the early-'90s. They said it belonged to the son of the president of Litton Industries and cost $1.2 million to get in to the condition we all see it in.)
I remember that there were some problems with MiGs coming into the country still armed. I also recall a few years ago that there is a prohibition on importing any more. Still, there are a lot of MiGs out there, as well as several L-39s.
Actually, he was kind of on the right track with that. The Spirit has a very advanced flight computer that indeed makes all sorts of corrections to keep the aircraft stable. That is quite common in itself though, as you mentioned the “Wobbly Goblin” F117A does, as does most (if not all) modern fighters. The F16, while it “looks” quite conventional, is reputed to be virtually unflyable without computer assistance as it is so unstable. I think the F15 is in a similar boat. These are early 70s designs.
A flying Wing in itself is not necessarily terribly unstable. The YB49 indeed had some small stablizers to help it on the Yaw axis. The Nazi’s in WW2 (especially the Horten bros) were quite succesful with their Flying Wing experiments. The Gotha GO9 was a pure flying wing fighter prototype, with no “flight computer” nor rudder. It had great promise and made a few flights before the end of the war (although one crashed due to a flameout, IIRC).
Other than the fact that they are almost the coolest, baddest looking aircraft on the face of the planet (if I was under attack and saw one of those in the sky above me I would shit!) I think you’re missing the point of the thread.
Exactly! I wasn’t asking anything about the practicalities of actually flying one - there are probably lots of planes that are easier/more fun to fly. As bernse said - what is cooler than a B2 ?! (Except perhaps, on reflection, an SR-71 Blackbird. Hmm…)
