Club Homepage Forums Classified Ads Buy & Sell - Everything But Airplanes B-25..... yea really!

We have a B-25 parked at our airport (South Countay -- E16). These guys bought it and are supposedly going to restore it, but frankly it's just been sitting for several years. I'll look for details and take a picture next time I go by it.

I do know that it was flown from Georgia to the West Coast, and it supposedly burned -- 50 GALLONS -- of oil.

During the late forties/early fifties my father belonged to the Civil Air Patrol in Kansas City. One of the wing's aircraft was a raggedy Piper L-4. One afternoon a couple of CAP boys took off but couldn't get enough power to clear a fence at the far end of the airport. The two guys left the L-4 where it lay snagged in the fence. Someone removed the engine but left the plane to rot away. It was worth so little that no one ever removed it.

Think what that plane would be worth today.

Dennis,

I haven't had the courage to look at prices of the Liaison/Grasshopper warbirds lately. Any idea what kind of dollars a good L-4 would command?

The idea of putting along with the door open on a nice spring day sounds very good right now - it's snowing here for the seventh day in a row. arrrgggghhhh

Best regards,
Rick

I have been intrigues by the genre of aircraft also and have been a looking. Owners of L-2's, -3's and -4's appear to be asking between $30,000 to 0ver $60,000.

Bill
Grants Pass, Oregon

Bill,

While asking and getting are two different things - that still provides a point of reference.

I never have figured out why painting a bugsmasher up in military colors makes it more valuable than the identical (or nearly identical) civilian paint scheme bird.

Best regards,
Rick

Because it let's you hang out with the cool kids at Chino.

Kendal,

I trust you were being ironic.

I've been hanging out with the all the kids at Chino off and on since 1985 and have flown a fair cross section of their airplanes. They don't seem to give a flying fig about how your airplane is painted. (I was also thrown out of the Chino VFW - it no longer exists - on the 50th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo - long story.) That being the case, I haven't noticed any difference between the pilots who have airplanes with civilian versus military paint jobs. They all love to fly and do it as often as they can afford. Some of my friends have had both civilian and military paint schemes on the same airplane over the years. Yes, there was a military version of the Cessna 195 and Navion. And the Cessna O-2 weighs a fair amount more than the Cessna 337 and I prefer the 337 when dealing with a short runway.

Then again, there are the insecure "warbird" folks who feel the need for wearing one-piece outfits with lots of patches and great big wings, but the guys like Steve Hinton who have actually been around the block don't seem to care how the airplane they are flying is painted.

And yes, I've got my warbird time; I've flown a Stearman and a Bird Dog in the last month and have given a fair bit of dual in Boeing Stearman Kaydets over the years. I've flown some warbirds that were utterly, nearly indescribably, incredible and some that had crappy performance and handling and were no where near as nice as civilian birds of the same vintage. (How do you like the stall warning and accelerated stall behavior of the AT-6/SNJ?) By the same token, my experience with the Piper and Aeronca warbirds is that it's impossible to tell which is military and which is civilian when you're inside and flying - they handle the same.

Funny, I haven't seen Rare Bear in a military paint scheme.

Cheers,
Rick

Rick,

I know what your talking about. I think it all boils down to the reasons for their interest in the warbird of choice.

If you put it in the context of classic cars for example. When my father was alive we would restore classic cars and take them to car shows. My father and I were the traditionalists, we would want our cars to be as close to "Original" as possible. Trying to get them to look and run the way they would look and run when they came off the assembly line. Searching for original parts, radios etc. These guys would be your traditional warbird types with the military paint.

Then you had the hot rod guys. They chopped and channeled and leaded joints. Swapped out engines, bored out cylinders. They were all about performance and their own custom look. These would be your Reno guys.

Now I can appreciate both kinds and have participated in the creation of each kind, though as a lover of history it kind of hurts to watch a guy take a torch nice original '49 Mercury (or a P-51 Mustang).

But which ever you prefer, even in the classic car show world the "originals" generally are considered more valuable then the modified. This would be true for both the guy painting a warbird like a race car and to the guy who painted his civilian airplane in military colors - both cases they are no longer original.

As for the people who fly them. There again, you go to a car show and you'll see the guy in his bluejeans polishing his '30 ford and the guy parked next to him will be wearing his zoot suit and toting a toy Tommie gun next to his '30 Ford. Getting into character I guess? (I'd be the guy in the blue jeans).

At least the flight suits have a purpose. They are safety equipment; though you will notice that most the performers and racers these days will now wear the same jump suits that drag racers and NASCAR drivers wear as they provide better protection than the standard military suit. The new ones are typically covered with "Sponsors" To me those look just as foolish as a zoot suit, but again they kind of serve a purpose. Both kinds keep the grease off you good clothes. I guess that's their best function. Warbirds leak

Oops Sorry, "Radials don't leak, they're just marking their territory."

The L-3B that I (very briefly) owned was purchased in the mid-70's for ..

... $1700.00


Rick-
Can't vouch for an L-2 or L-4, but a military model L-3 is a different beast from the Champ or Chief. On our plane the rear seat could be turned towards the rear and a small map table could be folded down. Our L-3 had a non-working coffee grinder radio w/ a trailing antenna that was quickly removed from the plane because of weight issues.

But the biggest differences were in the airframe and wings. The fuselage was reinforced to military specs making the weight/balance critical. The tail was heavy compared to a Champ and one had to watch carefully the weight of your passenger and baggage. Gary's motto, "Fly naked" comes into play, here.

The airfoil on our L-3 wing was essentially the same used on the Chief. Our L-3 was marginally faster than a Champ, but the climb was abyssmal, (and that nearly got me killed). Not sure the wing was original L-3, but conversations with an couple of other L-3 owners confirm the W/B and the climb characteristics.

The Confederate Commemorative AirForce group at nearby St. Charles, MO.(KSET) owned a restored L-3 and it was placarded against anyone over 100 pounds in the rear seat. Another L-3 owner near Springfield was so spooked by the aircraft that he replaced the 65hp powerplant with an 85hp. His rationale:

"The hell with authenticity. I wanna survive."