Slashdot Mirror
Navy Jet eBayed - Some Assembly Required?
madmancarman writes "The world's only F/A-18 Hornet in private ownership, formerly a Navy Blue Angel Jet, is for sale on eBay. The initial asking price? $1 million unassembled, or $9 million assembled and certified airworthy 'with your choice of paint' - more info is available via a Yahoo News story. I wonder how much it would cost to fully arm it? The same person selling the F/A-18 is also selling a 1950's T-33, and claims they'll soon be auctioning off an F-16 and a Mig-29 as well. Build your own air force for fun and profit!"
While owning a Blue Angel would be awesome, it's unlikely a civilian would actually get any flight time in such a vehicle. To fly it, you'd need a Letter of Authorization because there's no FAA type certification for this aircraft - and unless you're an ex-military pilot, you've basically got no chance of getting an LOA.
Even if you were to get an LOA, to fly it you'd have to get permission from the FAA to put it in the air every time you take off. So add your own private island to the total cost if you actually want to fly it without hassle.
So unless you're ex-military, you'd have yourself a $9 million lawn ornament.
Hmmmm. This sounds like the owner might have been Larry Ellison. There have been a number of Mig-29's available in private hands over the years as well as a couple of F-104 Starfighters. I don't know if Larry owned an F-18, or an F-16 but I talked to him at a Java conference (at least I'm pretty sure it was Ellison) years ago and he expressed an interest in obtaining fighter jets like the Mig-29. Someone told me that he recently married, so perhaps his wife would rather he not go "jetting off" and would like him to calm his lifestyle a bit?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Duh. The tri-foil on the nose cone is warning about the radiation from the radar, not from nuclear weapons.
"If you are close enough to read this, the nukes had better not be going off just yet."
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
If I'm not mistaken the Blue Angels upgraded to the Super Hornets. 3700 is not bad. And you should seriously see what that 20 year old jumbojet you last flew on had gone through every few years. Stripped completely apart and put completely back together without coffee stains, corrosion and cracks. I remain convinced that if people saw what involved in that process half would feel better, and the rest would insist on flying only on brand new planes.
Actually 3700 flight hours is fairly small for a plane of this age. Most commercial planes have a 20,000 operating hour overhaul schedule.
Here's old ad
Did some googling couple weeks ago when it came up on ebay for first time and found photos of same plane while disassembled and under restoration. Didn't find URL, but shouldn't be that hard. Just follow links from official Blue Angel's web page to list of decomissioned planes. It was somewhere over there.
The Commemorative Air Force (Formerly Confederate Air Force) own and fly a B-29 Super Fortress. I'm fairly sure these are nuclear capable!
If I remember the stats rightly (these are a bit old) CAF is the largest Air Force in the world based on man power.
They are the third largest based on operational aircraft numbers. Right behind the then USSR and the USA.
Check em out http://www.commemorativeairforce.org
Scary huh?
-1 Ignorant. There are plenty of ex-military (and non de-milled) aircraft flying around the country. They're classified as experimental aircraft. Poster andyrut is an idiot.
Now a P-38...
sPh
is tihs. Not quite flyable condition...;)
Yes, it can be put back together. But no, it's not in 'fly-away' condition.
There are several ex-military jets in private hands. F-4's, F-86's, etc. And you can just return it to weapons capable status. *All* of the fire control circuitry will have been removed. And without that, a missile won't launch in anything other than a randowm direction, if at all.
Given the restrictions on actually flying ex-military aircraft, it would be easier for a purported terrorist to drop a case of TNT out the door of a Cessna.
Not at all - the maintenance schedule on military aviation is extraordinarily rigorous, because of the type of flying that is done and because much of the equipment (for its time) is cutting edge, at least mechanically speaking.
The maneuvers that the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds do are the same maneuvers that all of the pilots of those aircraft perform. It's just that the demonstration teams perform them as a group. My old naval aviation buddies tell me that the Blue Angels' jets actually get easier use than the regular jets. They certainly don't have to make any arrested landings or catapault takeoffs!
-h-
Reminds me of one picture in an aviation magazine when the Finnish Air Force got their F-18 Hornets. The Hornet was escorted by a couple of Saab Drakens. That was probably the only picture in the world where a hornet was bigger than a dragon...
Did you see the other thing Landa was selling? I'm sure some fool would pay ten million dollars for this for advertising maybe, but I bet it'd make a nice target for the F18.
After the wall fell, one of the airplane magazines had an article on one of the older MIGs (don't remember which model). At the time, you could pick them up for fairly cheap (well, cheap for being a jet). Since getting spare parts was some what difficult if even possible, the magazine recommended that if you REALLY wanted a MIG, buy two just so that you have spare parts.
Another thing that I remember from the article, the jet on that MIG had a really slow spool up time. This meant that when you pushed the throttle to full, it would take the engine a while before it produced full power. This becomes a problem if you have to do a missed approached or abort a landing. This meant that when you landed that MIG, you would push the controls to full throttle before the wheels touched down, just in case. This is the same thing that planes do when landing on a carrier. But it seemed strange to do for a ground based runway.
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
knots is a naval unit measured by a number of knots on a rope that's trailing the ship in a given time period.
Where did you hear that?
A knot is a nautical mile per hour. A nautical mile is one minute of latitude (1/60th of a degree of the Earth's circumference -- 6076 feet, versus 5280 feet for an English mile).
Regardless, the FA-18 was undoubtedly built to take a good bit more stress than a Cessna. I can't see why the airframe would necessarily be any bit the worse for wear after so few flight hours, so long as it wasn't pushed past its limits (which I doubt the Navy would tolerate on a multi-million dollar piece of equipment like that).
I have seen this aircraft for sale for several years, held by Air Capital Warbirds in Wichita, Kansasm
http://www.airwarbirds.com/f_a-18_pics.ht
Think again. It's been done.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
no weapons pylons
Dude, RTFA (auction.. hah!):
Complete with extras including bomb racks, drop tanks and pylons.
Sweet!
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Actually I know the answer to this one....
The F/A 18 has a titanium ring gasket that clamps around the engine exhaust where the fusalage meets the engine. This thing is roughly 1/4" wide, about a 1/16 or an 1/8" of an inch thick with a little clamping lever - its about 30" in diameter or so...
I was told when handling it at Fallon Naval Airstation in Nevada (top gun school at the time) that the gasket was 27,000 USD. each. and it requires 2 of them.
and thats just one small part.
The issue is not the tonnage of the carrier but rather how many pounds the catapult can shoot to takeoff speeds.
The French Clemenceau or newer DeGaulle class carriers are entirely capable of operating F18s, although not particularly efficiently due to deck space limitations. However you'd have to refit them by upgrading the catapults and putting arresting gear in that can stop a 40,000 pound plane. And of course only one country in the world has a company that makes equipment capable of handling a F18 for arrested landing. So unless you know a guy who can build cats in his backyard shop you are SOL.
http://www.aircraftbargains.com/ad/355/buy/
Appears to be for sale by a "research organization" near Zhukovsky Airbase, where most Russian prototype aircraft are tested. I wouldn't know, but even though the Russian style is to use centralized radar on the ground, the FAA probably wouldn't allow any sort of experimental or combat radar. Of course, the first person to plop down 10 million takes it, whether playboy or desparate foreign government.
Max load factors for utility category airplanes are +4.4g -2.2g. Aerobatic category airplanes are certified for +6g -3g. I believe there is a 150% safety factor built into these numbers as well, so a utility category airplane (such as a Cessna 172, when loaded properly) must be able to actually withstand +6.6g -3.3g. Now, bear in mind that the real-life numbers match the book when the plane rolls of the assembly line, and decrease with age. You sure as hell won't catch me pushing a '77 Skyhawk to its design limits.
irb(main):001:0>
You can frequently find surplus Government jets and jet engines on GSA Auctions. There aren't any up right now, but you will find a few buses and boats and some nice jewelry. You never know where some of this stuff comes from - foreign gifts are sold without attribution to avoid state embarassment. A while back, we sold the Coast Guard Cutter Tamaroa featured in "The Perfect Storm."
maybe, but the story I got from a friend on the scene was, years ago, China was selling some of it's older aircraft for dollars and a gentleman from SoCal bought one, a MIG-15,for about $100k. Not a bad price when you consider that a P-51 airframe runs twice that. The day (and Plane) arrives and our hero gets a panicked call from the freight company to get his azz down to the docks. Our Asian buddies had sent the plane with the wings detached....with the CANNONS , RACKS AND ORDINANCE STILL ON BOARD. Trying to explain this to the Customs guys (one of which was my buddy, rolling on the dock in hysterics) was the high point of this dude's year. (And yes, they let him have the plane, after he stripped ALL the offensive gear of it, dockside.)
I want revenge. I'll settle for justice. Mercy is optional, but not very.
Claw is a little different on a claw hammer. It's a single, long, sharp point. The idea is breaking up rocks, which was the primary use. Then you'd grab a wood stake, flip the hammer over to the flat side, pound the stake in, find anohter rock, flip the hammer over, destroy the rock, etc. It was also durable enough that you could get 2 guys, hold the claw on a particularly stubborn rock, and hit the flat with a sledge hammer to break the rock.
Hence, no wood handle.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cate gory=4672&item=3079057375
The price is now $29M + $9M to assemble it.
What a bargain!