And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Wednesday, September 8, 2021
Imagine what that load of Mustangs would be worth now
That's for a pristine one. An average one would probably go for "only" $2.5 million. My Dad (WWII Vet) told me that after the war you could pick up a P-51 (no guns, no radios, full of 115/145) for $1500 or a P-38 (same deal) for $1600, but after the war who had that kind of money to "throw away" on an airplane?
I once flew into a small airport and got to talking with a gent there. When he found where I had flown in from, he mentioned that he was there once - just after WWII. He said that the field was covered with rows of Mustangs, fresh from the factory and now with nowhere to go. He said they would sell one for $50. He kicks himself for not picking up a few, but hindsight is 20-20, as they say.
The .gov was selling planes for the value of the gasoline in the tanks, in some cases.
In ~1970, a classmate and his father bought a P-51 for $10k.
The only planes that were returned to the US from the war were those able to transport some passengers, so some bombers came back. In the Pacific, most were bulldozed into pits dug by those 'dozers. Supposedly, the basis for this is wartime agreements with producers that no wartime material would be returned so business would not be ruined by all that metal and vehicles hitting the market in the states. Aircraft carriers were pushing planes off the deck while enroute home.
I can understand the concern for the future economy, but they threw away our military in the process. Five years later, we had almost nothing in the way of military gear to handle the Korean conflict. All the Airforce had in single engine tactical aircraft were liquid cooled P-51's, as they had thrown away all the radial engine P-47's. They had learned in Europe that that was a stupid situation to employ P51's.
See my reply above. There's a nice but small museum at Millville, NJ airport. Most of the P-47 pilots going to Europe did their tactical training there. The museum had a bunch of pictures of brand new P-38 on a barge in the Marianas being pulled out beyond the reef to be dumped in the ocean. They were there for the invasion of Japan but with the end of the war it was cheaper to just dump them in the ocean than to bring them home.
Back in the 50's there was a guy at Sarasota-Bradenton Airport who bought them surplus, assembled, and sold them....I was just a kid at the time and don't remember what he sold them for.....couldn't have been much at the time....never forget the sound of those Merlins....
Or even just all the Merlin engines.
ReplyDeleteThey were selling them to the public after the war for next to nothing.
ReplyDeleteAbout $4 million apiece.
ReplyDeleteThat's for a pristine one. An average one would probably go for "only" $2.5 million. My Dad (WWII Vet) told me that after the war you could pick up a P-51 (no guns, no radios, full of 115/145) for $1500 or a P-38 (same deal) for $1600, but after the war who had that kind of money to "throw away" on an airplane?
DeleteI once flew into a small airport and got to talking with a gent there. When he found where I had flown in from, he mentioned that he was there once - just after WWII. He said that the field was covered with rows of Mustangs, fresh from the factory and now with nowhere to go. He said they would sell one for $50. He kicks himself for not picking up a few, but hindsight is 20-20, as they say.
ReplyDeleteThe .gov was selling planes for the value of the gasoline in the tanks, in some cases.
DeleteIn ~1970, a classmate and his father bought a P-51 for $10k.
The only planes that were returned to the US from the war were those able to transport some passengers, so some bombers came back. In the Pacific, most were bulldozed into pits dug by those 'dozers. Supposedly, the basis for this is wartime agreements with producers that no wartime material would be returned so business would not be ruined by all that metal and vehicles hitting the market in the states. Aircraft carriers were pushing planes off the deck while enroute home.
I can understand the concern for the future economy, but they threw away our military in the process. Five years later, we had almost nothing in the way of military gear to handle the Korean conflict. All the Airforce had in single engine tactical aircraft were liquid cooled P-51's, as they had thrown away all the radial engine P-47's. They had learned in Europe that that was a stupid situation to employ P51's.
See my reply above. There's a nice but small museum at Millville, NJ airport. Most of the P-47 pilots going to Europe did their tactical training there. The museum had a bunch of pictures of brand new P-38 on a barge in the Marianas being pulled out beyond the reef to be dumped in the ocean. They were there for the invasion of Japan but with the end of the war it was cheaper to just dump them in the ocean than to bring them home.
DeleteBack in the 50's there was a guy at Sarasota-Bradenton Airport who bought them surplus, assembled, and sold them....I was just a kid at the time and don't remember what he sold them for.....couldn't have been much at the time....never forget the sound of those Merlins....
ReplyDeleteAs military aircraft they wouldn't be worth as much as what the Taliban Air force has.
ReplyDelete