I’m reading a story of a round the world trip. A guy is flying his plane around the world, and it’s a WW2 plane and he’s had the guns refitted and ammo loaded.
Can you actually do this? Wouldn’t many governments object?
Yes. A great many. Sounds like a good way to end up spending years and years in a foreign prison. Consider this exmple.
WAG: I would think the plane would have to be certified and recognized as airworthy in every jurisdiction in which he intended to land (actually, to allow him to take off again!), and so the various governments would need to know the aircraft’s configuration and I imagine an armed aircraft could be refused under their various laws. Anti-terrorism laws probably prohibit armed aircraft from entering many government airspaces without prior authorization, and I have a feeling that is very unlikely to be granted.
I don’t think it works quite like that. If an aircraft has proper paperwork from country A, and if country B is generally on good terms with A, then B will allow the aircraft to fly in its airspace. This tends to work on a reciprocal basis - “if you allow our aircraft to fly in your country, we’ll allow yours in ours.” There are certainly some wrinkles and complications to this, but it is not the case that an aircraft must be certified in every country where it flies.
As an example, I have flown my US-registered glider in Canada. Apart from some minor hassles with Canadian Customs (they seemed quite concerned that I was bringing the glider into Canada in order to sell it) I encountered no paperwork hassles. (There are some differences in the rules pilots must follow in Canada.)
But having armed weapons on board is a different matter.
Link? I doubt the home country would allow this let alone other nations unless it was a military project.
That would be my reaction as well - Canada has strict laws about bringing firearms into the country, which I would think would apply whether you tried to bring them in on foot, by car, by boat, or by airplane.
As far as I can tell from the occasional newspaper article about some dumb-bunny who tries to bring in firearms without the necessary paperwork, the Canadian Border Agency will usually confiscate the firearms, in addition to whatever charges the dumb-bunny faces. If this guy has gone to all the cost and labour of installing firearms on his plane, I doubt he’d want to lose them that way.
It’s a NSFW story of no great merit and linking to it would detract from my question.
I assume you meant a fictional story? Perhaps not everyone made that assumption.
Could you even fly such a plane in the US? I thought fully automatic weapons were illegal in the US and that that was what WWII planes were armed with (though I’m not sure about either point).
Hmmm, I was thinking more along the lines of Type Certifications, which are regulated by individual governments, and without one, a given aircraft type won’t generally be allowed to operate in a country. I actually have no idea how old/antique planes are managed from a Type Certificate point of view, but modern planes can only be found to be airworthy if they conform to their TC and TCDS (Type Certification Data Sheet). An old plane might not meet the appropriate standards in a given country, and so wouldn’t be allowed to operate.
I do know that the planes at the Canadian Warplane Heritage museum have had to have a few modifications, mostly in terms of adding lights/communications equipment in order to be allowed to fly in Canada. They would have to seek approval from each country individually (or each agency, such as EASA), though often if one of the big three give approval, the rest tend to do so as well (FAA, TC, EASA…)
I admit I don’t know much about this and it’s probably way off base. It was just my first thought, given my (very limited) exposure to the paperwork needed to allow newly built planes to be sent to foreign countries to be flown/registered there.
I do think the weapons issue would be a much more important aspect of this, but even without weapons, I think each country would have to approve that type of plane as being allowed to fly there. For those of you who are pilots, your planes are already properly recognized and so it isn’t an issue when you fly US-Canada or whatever.
Meh, I’ll give up now before I make even more stuff up by accident 
Good point. The story is indeed one of fiction.
Well, I think this works much the same way as registration (described above). I’m sure it’s possible (indeed, probably not rare) for a country to say “We feel that aircraft of type XYZ need certain modifications/inspections to be safe, and we’re going to insist on that before they can fly in our airspace.” But the general practice is to honor type certification (and the airworthiness certificate) issued in the country of registration.
In fact, AFAICT the FAA will not issue an airworthiness certificate for a foreign-registered aircraft. I know this from having imported a couple of gliders from Germany: one thing they absolutely insist on is a Certificate of Deregistration from the source country - you get nowhere on the paperwork trail without presenting this. Yet there are no formidable barriers to flying a foreign-registered glider in the US - I have Canadian friends who do this regularly.
Automatic weapons (“machineguns” per the National Firearms Act) have been strictly controlled since 1934; all are registered and require a tax stamp ($200) be purchased from the ATF to transfer a weapon. Permission is required from the ATF to take a machinegun across state lines as well.
These weapons are now extremely expensive due to the registry being closed in 1986. Guns of the type which would be found on a WWII fighter, such as the Browning M1919 or M2, cost over $20,000 to purchase if you can find one that is transferable (ie registered prior to 1986).
So it would be expensive but not necessarily an insurmountable problem for someone who has the funds to refurbish and run a 60+ year-old plane.
Actually, this must not be true in all cases. I have a good friend who was going on a fishing trip up in Vancouver Island, and took the Port Angeles (Washington) ferry to Victoria, forgetting about the 9mm in the glove compartment of his pickup. On clearing Canadian Customs in Victoria he was asked the standard question about having any firearms and answered basically “Oh shit!!!” The Border folks just took the pistol and stored it in a safe in their office. On returning a week later he was able to retrieve it with no hassle. Didn’t even get any sort of lecture. He did say he felt like a real dumb-ass, though.
Actually the scenario put forth by the OP actually happened (minus the ammo) back in 1961.
In order to film the movie The War Lover the movie company had a crew go and get three B-17 out of moth balls in Arizona and refurbish them to full WWII spec including guns.
They were then flown to England. As mentioned on the IMDB trivia page author Martin Caidin wrote a book about the restoration and flights called Everything but the Flak.
During the Atlantic crossing they made a scheduled stop at the Azores. Leaving the Azores, they encountered a storm and would up off course over Lisbon Portugal. From what I recall of the book, at the time Portugal was having some serious political strife. As I recall Caidin wrote The appearance of three war ready B-17s didn’t do much to calm fears in the government.
Anyway they were denied permission to land. One of the pilots declared an emergency and they were allowed to land. They were thrown in jail overnight.
Again as I recall, the next day the authorities were questioning them, and trying to pin all kinds of charges on them because they did not have a flight plan filed showing Lisbon as the destination.
One of the pilots calmly replied they did not need one as they were on a local flight. He pointed out that the Azores belong to Portugal, and therefore the planes had never left Portuguese territory during the flight.
They were turned lose, and warned not to come back again.
I have no cite for this other than my recollection of the book from many, many years ago. It would not surprise me that Mr. Caidin embellished the story just a bit to make for a better book.
I wold also note that this was, what, 40 years before 9/11 and in many ways things were mellower then.
Then the answer to the question is no. No country would allow a civilian plane to fly around with guns/ammunition designed for war. Pure fiction.
You can get anything certified as experimental which is what the war birds do. Can’t find any links but when it comes to military jets I believe there are restrictions to where the planes can be flown.
But if it was previously registered in another country, I can promise you the FAA will insist on a Certificate of Deregistration.
Also, they are reluctant to issue Experimental airworthiness certificates to aircraft that could qualify for Standard certificates.
I suspect for any world war II warbird flying today , the guns have been rendered non-functional and are there for appearance only. (and I.ve seen several warbirds) The only way the machine gun could hurt someone is if it was dropped on someones foot.