[Boatanchors] Re: Information About B-17's

[Clarke, Tom AIR4.0P NATOPS]

 Maintaining any airplane is an expensive proposition, much less one
that is 50-60 years old.  Keeping them flying is what the big $$ do, no
one is getting rich I suspect.  Seeing them in a museum is one thing,
but hearing that Rolls Royce or Allison engine roar across the flight
line is awesome!

I wish I had that kind of "discretionary funds"!

If you think keeping a B-17 flying is expensive, there is a group in the
UK that is flying a Vulcan bomber of cold war fame.  Wow!

tom/W4OKW
USN Ret with lots of piston slapping time in the log. 
My current ride is a 1939 J-3 Cub.


Tom Clarke
Wyle Labs,  Aeronautics
NATOPS Program Support Specialist
USN/USMC National Airworthiness Office
Naval Air Systems Command, AIR-4.0P
(301) 995-3793/DSN 995-3793
Fax: (301) 757-6599
Cell (301) 904-2053
frederic.clarke at navy.mil


-----Original Message-----
From: Ian [mailto:ianwebb5 at comcast.net] 
Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2008 11:56
To: boatanchors at mailman.qth.net
Subject: RE: [Boatanchors] Re: Information About B-17's

The WWII planes made the rounds in the San Jose/Silicon Valley/San
Francisco
area within the last month.  In Silicon Valley they were on the ground
at
Moffett Field for 4 or 5 days.

B-17 Flying Fortress, B-24 Liberator, B-25 Mitchell, P-51 Mustang  --
All
like new airplanes.

Rides were as high as $3,200 for an hour in the second seat of the
Mustang
with a chance to be "pilot."

A friend of mine said he'd read somewhere that it costs about $10,000 an
hour to fly the B-17.   Who knows what it costs now with the dramatic
increase in fuel costs.  And the B-17 rides were the least expensive I
think
since they could take up more than one passenger.  Several hundred
dollars a
ride.

>From the number of times that I saw them in the air over Silicon Valley
and
some directly overhead they had quite a few paying customers.  You had
"for
pay" walk/crawl throughs during the mid day times and flew morning and
evening,  The on the ground views were more like paying for a movie and
some
refreshments.

I guess a lot of the entrepreneurial "trying to become billionaires" in
this
area have lots of $$$ to spend on nonessentials.

Several winters ago I had a B-17 tour in Palm Springs at the air museum
near
the airport as part of the admission to the museum.  If you're
interested in
vintage airplanes it's a good place to see them.  During the winter
planes
from some of the cold weather area museums are moved to Palm Springs for
the
winter to get into a dry warm climate.

Ian, K6SDE