Harrier on eBay

Too bad I'm not in Britain.

Oh yeah, and I don't have 65,000 pounds.
 
Decommissioned as in no longer in service with the British Armed Forces. It's been retired. I showed this one to my boss, Dave Cannavo, who brings alot of Eastern Block aircraft into the U.S., and he could probably procure the engines and what not to get it certified here, but he won't touch anything that isn't 90% steel.

mgkdrgn said:
Decommissioned as in un-flyable again ... ever?
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Red Eagle Avionics said:
Decommissioned as in no longer in service with the British Armed Forces. It's been retired. I showed this one to my boss, Dave Cannavo, who brings alot of Eastern Block aircraft into the U.S., and he could probably procure the engines and what not to get it certified here, but he won't touch anything that isn't 90% steel.
Click to expand...
He'd also have to get around the munitions laws that have made owning war birds made after WW II (Korea?) impossible. There is some loophole for the Czech jets and such. As I understand it (Steve?) no U. S. citizen will ever "own" a F-14.

I know there are some Sabre jets and MIGs in private hands. Are those done through museums?
 
Well, we have one of only two flyable MiG 23's in the country right now, and it actually flew today for the first time in 5 months. Pretty exciting to see! The landing was somewhat scary .... left main gear hit first, bounced forward, landed on nose gear second with both main gear off the ground, bounced back off the nose gear to complete the landing. Couldn't believe my eyes. Dave hit .95 mach with full wing sweep today.

I'm still learning the process of have Dave procures all of his MiG's and L29, 39, 59's, but I know that there is no museum involved at all. He has full registration on all of his MiG aircraft as experimentals. To see the MiG's that we have here in the Warbirds of Delaware club, visit this link:

http://www.pbase.com/patkealey/joes_jets

These photographs and this webpage are the property of Pat Kealey. My boss, Dave Cannavo, is the big guy wearing the helmet in picture number simg_6806.jpg. Some really nice pictures of east coast warbirds!
 
There are some T-38/F-5s in private hands. Chuck Thornton in CA has a few for sale.

http://www.thorntonaircraft.com/body/body.cfm?page_name=mil

Also, I believe a couple of A-4s are out there in private hands. Museum/foundation ownership is the most common way to own late vintage, high dollar models, but I think that is more to hedge the operating costs and simplify the paperwork for transferring airframes directly out of the US military surplus inventory, overseas transactions are much faster in the cash strapped east. Ross Perot (Jr. I think) just rubbed someone the wrong way with his acquistion attempt for a T-38, imho. The Collings Foundation owns a flying F-4. The rules govern that surplus military aircraft say they have to be de-militarized, weapons systems disabled, inert bombs, welded barrels, classified equipment removed, etc. Warbirds of America are constantly on guard for proposed legislation that try to change that term to mean "scrapped" or "gutted" for static display only. The DoD seems to try to slip that into proposed legislation every few years.

http://www.warbirds-eaa.org/news/2003%20-%2011_19%20-%20Warbird%20Community%20Bands%20Together%20to%20Prevent%20Demilitarization.html#TopOfPage

I've seen a MIG-29 for sale on the internet.

http://www.moscowaircraft.com/aircraft-sales-29.htm

And occasionally a Siai-Machetti S211 shows up in Trade-A-Plane. Powered by a Pratt & Whitney I suspect we'll be seeing more of these in the future in private hands.

An A-37 Dragonfly was on the WB flightline at OSH this year. I was in the lunchline with one of the Classic Jet members and he mentioned his organization had a fairly comprehensive cadre of instructors for ex-military jets. Their website is

http://www.classicjets.org/instructors.html

Although the photo gallery hasn't been updated lately some members planes are shown at

http://www.classicjets.org/fighters.html

which includes a T-2 Buckeye.

Air Capitol Warbirds in Wichita has the major components for an F-18. For a cool 9 million you could get it flying.

http://www.blueangels.org/Aircraft/Stick/FA18/973/973.htm

My IAR is a 1980 import. I was talking to a restorer at OSH who could make me some rails and shackles for the hardpoints. B)

Anything can be had for a price.




mikea said:
He'd also have to get around the munitions laws that have made owning war birds made after WW II (Korea?) impossible. There is some loophole for the Czech jets and such. As I understand it (Steve?) no U. S. citizen will ever "own" a F-14.

I know there are some Sabre jets and MIGs in private hands. Are those done through museums?
Click to expand...
 
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Steve said:
Although the photo gallery hasn't been updated lately some members planes are shown at

http://www.classicjets.org/fighters.html
Click to expand...


The second and third aircraft in the photo gallery (MiG 23 and MiG 21) are both aircraft that Dave Cannavo brought in to the U.S. If you click on the link for Pic 2 of the MiG 23, you can see Dave's big Italian head and mustache filling the cockpit. Joe Gano, the owner of both aircraft, is a great guy to just sit down and talk with. He's an old fighter pilot from the Cold War. Many stories to be heard.

You can check out the official Warbirds of Delaware website by clicking here:

http://www.warbirdsofdelaware.com
 
there are a couple of F-104's on the civil registry that fly privately. One is a TF-104. That would be a cool ride.....
 
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