About a year ago I crapped my pants with RAGE and I made darned sure everyone smelt it too! It still hacks me right off today. A vintage P63 crashed into an antique B17, killing the bungholes involved - and erasing the history in those artifacts forever.
I got egged by the ignoratti when I flipped out and said every single original warbird still doing the air show circuit should be grounded, refurbed and hung up in a museum.
I was told “Don’t be an ass! These shows are expressions patriotism and heroism! Americans deserve to see them fly!”.
“Shut up!” I explained, “Those birds aren’t yours. They belong to the generation that built them, and flew them, and to the children that haven’t been born yet. Those birds are artifacts and they’re the only connection future kids will have to their grand and great grandparents that passed on and are no longer around to tell their stories. If crap like this continues, they’ll have nothing left but pictures in books…”
And ashes, I guess.
But… whadda I know, right? I’m just an old fart that shouts and rages at clouds. Shaddup yaself, Filthie! Yer an ass!
They’re correct in that, at least I suppose. But - I am not wrong. We could retire every single one of those old soldiers and put them in loving homes where they’ll be honoured and remembered forever… and turn over the show to skilled and dedicated craftsmen and skilled reenactors. The Yanks do the same thing with the Civil war all the time - you can see entire regiments of the Grey and Blue clash before your eyes today. The same thing will have to be done with WW2 soon.
If you can afford a $5 million dollar original… $900,000.00 for a flawless replica is chump change.
WOW! The skills involved in a build like that could burn up 5 lifetimes to acquire! And Bob did it in only 29 years! And what a sweetheart! Rifled cannons? In addition to being an artist and pilot… Bob’s a skilled curator too! Details matter in things like this. The beauty is that if this bird crashes and burns, it’s still an awful tragedy… but you lose a replica - not a national treasure. To my mind - this project honours The Greatest Generation and is a gift to the kids that honour Bob too.
There should be equally flawless replicas of the P51, P47s, the Zeros and Messerschmidts, etc etc. But… we live in times where we don’t give a shit about our kids, we don’t understand why they don’t give a shit about us or anything we care about. But…I project, I suppose. It’s nice to know that there are still wonderful ways to maybe reach across time and generations and perhaps touch the kids that know nothing about us.
Have a great Sunday.
Cheers!
Filthie
I took a tour of the Texas Raiders a few months before the crash. Got pictures of the crew and the aircraft, both inside and out. Sure made me sad to hear about that collision.
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, this is a subject I've put a LOT of thought into. I owned an antique car for many years, fixing it up and driving it as the mood took me. There was constant worry that some wayward teen texting instead of driving would instantly destroy it. There was the wife's anger issue with the amount of time I spent in the garage working on it. Finally neither of my two sons showed any interest, prompting me to wonder who exactly I was saving it for? I even considered donating to museum, but it was not any of the super rare cars that rated any sort of museum level display. I eventually sold it.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the people most invested in preserving those old birds are the ones who still want to fly them. Without their enthusiasm most of those birds wouldn't even exist. The risk they take flying them is really the only payback they get for the love, effort, and costs of maintaining something closing in on a century old. In similar fashion, it's the hunters and fishermen who are most invested in wildlife preservation, not the blue-haired lesbos protesting inbetween carpet munching. And likewise the flyers take far better care of our inheritance than govt paid museum curators.
Let's face it. If it was grounded and placed in a museum, the first thing they'd do is completely strip it - no engine, no fuel tanks, most controls removed. It'd be an empty shell on display only as long as it draws the crowd, and then shuffled out back. Eventually the dilapidated shell would be parked in front of some backwater VFW hall to quietly rust away. So in lieu of that, let them fly. But maybe cut back on the group exercises and avoid the crowds.
How very true. You see it with Cars donated to Museums all the time. New Curators are forever trying to "Update" and make "more relevant" collections. Priceless artifacts are thrown out or discarded all the time to make room for newer items.
DeleteIf I could have a repo of any warbird I'd be hard pressed to choose between the B25J-2 the P-38L or a P-61b black widow
ReplyDeleteExile1981
As long as there are rich men that want to acquire the birds, skills, build/rebuild, maintain, house, fly, display, these insanely expensive treasures, more power to them.
ReplyDeleteIt would certainly be awesome for your vision of replicas to "take off" and blossom into a movement. COOL video!
Awesome bird, video and awesome Bob/story!
ReplyDelete