The Year Saw Many Triumphs, But Had Its Tragedies

The overall theme of 2005 to warbird operators is: growth and expansion. As hard as it is to believe, there are more warbirds of more types flying at the end of 2005 than there were at the end of 2004. Not only individual airframes, but entire fleets of entire types have been resurrected and are returning to the register. Other types that were once believed to be entirely extinct, have at least been brought back to existence in museums.

It isn't all roses worldwide. The European community was driven mildly mad by the latest excess of Brussels Eurocrats: insuring large warbirds as transport aircraft. This meant that a vintage B-17 needed to carry the liability cover of an Airbus toting thousands of passengers a day, which was unbearably costly -- a 500% hike, according to one source. One B-17, "Sally G," had her season in Britain saved, not because the Eurocrats wised up, but because aviation enthusiast and entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson wrote a check. (He didn't even rename her "Virgin Sally B," which he probably could have gotten away with -- maybe the knighthood is getting to him).

There were also some tragic losses during the year.

Warbird Rebirths!

There's more Axis airpower in the air today than there ever has been since V-J Day, including types that have been silent for many years. The first that comes to mind is the Messerschmitt 262, of which five replicas have been constructed in Seattle by Bob Hammer LLC and two are already flying. (as has been reported by Aero-News this year).

The next project for Hammer and company is restoring a pair of ultra-rare Me109Fs to flying status (and one of them's for sale).

The Me109's single-engine fighter stablemate is the real success story of 2005. Until a few years ago there were no airworthy FW190s, now there are two separate, top-notch projects restoring FW190s to flight. The one working with authentic airframes is White 1 Foundation in the USA (soon to change its name as its mission continues beyond the return to flight of the original White 1).

Another exciting project is a functional rebuild of FW190s to as exact reproduction status as can be possible in 2005. This is of course the Flug Werk project, which flew in 2005. Due to the difficulty of finding original BMW 801 engines these planes are powered by a readily available Russian equivalent. Flug Werk is flying one of these machines already, and test pilot Horst Philipp conducted the first flights including gear retraction in late fall 2005.

Flug Werk is committed to a production run of 16 FW-FW190s, and has secured official permission to pick up where wartime production serial numbers ended. And most amazingly, all 16 of the new planes are sold. So what's next? For Flug Werk, the answer is to make a version of the late-war FW190D, which was powered by a V-type motor. Once again, Flug Werk is going to substitute a commonly available engine, the Allison V-1710, for the unobtainium one, the Daimler-Benz DB605.

Flug Werk is also making structures for the P-51. Their program of Me-109 structures appears to be moribund.

(Note: the Flug Werk pictures were taken by project photographer Urban Kirchberg, who passed away only three days after he shot these images. Aero-News regrets the passing of this talented photographer and extends our condolences to his family and friends).

Japanese aircraft have also benefited from this burst of new activity, but as the recovered aircraft are often in tough shape, it's expected to take longer for them to return to the air. The rarest of these ships at this time may be the incomplete Nakajima B5N2 "Kate" torpedo bomber recovered by the Hunt Brothers from the Kuril Islands a couple of years ago -- it is, as they point out, the only Kate above sea level in the world. For somebody with lots of money and lots of time, it's the ideal project).

But it isn't just the Axis that have had forgotten types return to existence. Most every schoolboy in the US knows that our heavy bombers were the B-17, B-24, and B-29, numbers of which survive today in flying or static service. The British Commonwealth, as the schoolboys elsewhere in the Anglosphere know, flew the Avro Lancaster, Shorts Stirling, Handley-Page Halifax. Until very recently, Bomber Command, which lost a staggering 44% of its men on missions over Germany, was represented only by the Lancaster, with no complete Stirling or Halifax existing anywhere. That has changed with the recovery and restoration of Halifax NA 337.

The aircraft, lost on a mission to support the Norwegian Resistance, was recovered from Norway's Lake Mjosa in 1995 and, restored, opened to the public in Trenton, Ontario in November, 2005. A second Halifax has been recovered from a lake in Belgium.

Lakes have proven to be the best source of lost airframes, especially deep lakes in cold northern climes. The cold, fresh water does minimal damage. One very significant recovery in 2005 was one of the last P-47s lost in the European Theater of Operations, which ditched on VE-Day minus one. The machine is supposed to be restored to flying status.

Another type under restoration and rebuild, with a view to flying, is the De Havilland Mosquito. 

World War I is also represented in the ongoing progress. Aero-News has always been pleased to cover Great War restorers and rebuilders, particularly the fanatically accurate Achim Engels of Fokker-Team. Engels and his merry men are now at work (simultaneously) on 2 Fokker D7s, a short production run of E. IIIs, and a Pfalz.

Warbird Losses

Jonathon Hedgecock of Warbird Adventures in Kissimmee, Florida and student Jim Kern died in May when a wing departed from carefully-maintained SNJ-6 N453WA. Fatigue failure of wing attach fittings was the culprit, and in less than a month a final emergency AD was in effect, mandating immediate and repetitive inspections to prevent a repeat accident.

Two vintage fighters were lost in fatal accidents. P-51D "Donna-Mite," N6327T, crashed at Fond du Lac while preparing to overfly Airventure 2005; pilot Dick James was killed. And in October, race pilot Art Vance died in the crash of a 1944 Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat, N4994V. According to the NTSB factual report, he may have been scud-running and remaining in visual contact with a highway when he crashed. It was the second fatal mishap involving that Hellcat; a couple of years ago, it survived an untowered-field midair that claimed the lives of two in a Cessna 182.

A rare Yak-3 rebuild was lost in a July crash, although the two on board escaped with injuries.

There were several tragic trainer accidents that all look likely to be called pilot error. A Fairchild PT-26, N26GA, of the CAF Dixie Wing off downwind, and apparently with full flaps, on an 82-degree day in June. June was also the month that an L-39 missing since October 2004 was found by hikers, with the remains of pilot and passenger aboard. In July, Rodger Modglin lost his life in a Yak-52 during an airshow.

In August, a Consolidated Vultee BT-13A crashed and burned shortly after takeoff from Lyme, New Hampshire, USA. The pilot and passenger were fatally injured; witnesses said the warbird rolled inverted and plunged into the ground while climbing out on the hot day. In October, a T-6D Texan, N494S, crashed in North Carolina, killing the ATP-rated pilot was killed, and the passenger was seriously injured. The pilot, who had 25 hours in T-6 aircraft but thousands of total time, appears to have run the fuel tank dry and failed to switch to the full tank.

The World War One community also suffered some losses, at least in Europe. A two-seat Bleriot of the British Memorial Flight crashed in France, injuring its crew of two, and a carefully-built Etrich Taube replica crashed and burned in Berlin with fatal consequences to its experienced pilot, a former Interflug (East German AIrlines) and agricultural pilot.

Regulatory Issues

Two regulatory issues arose during 2005. The first was a new pilot-examiner program, made necessary by the retirements of many experienced warbird pilot examiners. The National Designated Pilot Examiner (NDPER) is designated a "National Resource", and is authorized by the FAA to provide check rides on a national basis. (there's a National Designated Flight Engineer Examiner program, too).

The benefit is that these examiners can provide checkrides nationwide, not just within the purview of a single FSDO. They're managed by an FAA Flight Standards Manager, and EAA picks up their administrative slack. It looks like a good and rational program to keep 'em flying, safely.

The second was a wacky FAA NPRM, Draft Order 8700.1, Chapter 49, on airshow operations.  The new rule imposed numerous new and unjustified restrictions. In consultation with EAA Warbirds of America and other airshow participants, FAA has made some modifications in the NPRM. The changes are certainly improvements, but the rule still goes too far.

The Year, Overall

While a review of the mishaps is always in order, and one hopes all will learn from it, we can't lose sight of the fact that the year was positive, overall, for warbird operators and enthusiasts. One serious challenge we'll face in 2006 is the continuing high fuel costs (although, thank God, they're down from their peak). This is a particular threat to multiengine warbirds, and to those with very large engines (like the Douglas AD Skyraider's R-3350).

The Phantom Streaker

Finally, all Aero-News readers are advised to be on the lookout for a warbird operator who drove the authorities mad this October. Despite thousands of eyewitnesses to his misconduct, he remains at large. The dirty deed? A low, high-speed pass over a college football game in Missoula, Montana. If you have any information about the incident, the FAA would like to talk to you, you betcha.

FMI: www.warbirds-eaa.org, 2005 Year-in-Review Comments?