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!"

Comments

Flight Hours on Airframe

[DaRat]

3700 odd flight hours, many of Blue Angels type maneuvers. Probably some significant stress and wear on that airframe due to the type of flying. There probably was a good reason that aircraft was retired.

Also, the article should have read "F16 Fighting Falcon" for one of the upcoming aircraft, not "F16 Hornet"

If you have the cash...buy it assembled

[SquierStrat]

Being a aviation mechanic for the Marine Corps, I'm going to tell you that you want hte thing flight worthy...the assembly isn't something you would want to tackle yourself. In short: it's a bitch.

And to the person doubting you could get an LOA for it...that's crap. The question is would you want to fly it?

How are they serious?

[lostchicken]

Looking at the minimun bid of $1 mil, that means that there have, so far, been 7 people willing to fork over $1,000,000 for something. Now, looking at the feedback for these people, I can't possibly see how some of them could pay for this. wtmahan has bought repair manuals for a 1995 Nissan Protege. Anybody who drives one of those, and wants to fix it him/herself probably cannot afford an F/A-18. The current high bidder has bought a bunch of shirts and a $15,000 Porche, not cheap, but not a car for a person who can spend $1mil on an airplane kit.