Oh I know how much it is to fly the birds, it ain't cheap to run even a 180 Lyc any more, but it is also the politics that are involved in it. If you are checked in the bird, let's say a PT-22, you have paid for your own fuel, and have done most of the work on it. The airshow comes up, and someone from a larger hanger that is better known than the poor slob who has been maintaining it, and flying it, well then it becomes, "hey thanks for all the work that you have done, all the fuel you have spent to fly this thing every two weeks or so. So the engine doesn't set and rust, but Mr. Williams, who by the way hasn't flown anything smaller than a 767 wants to fly it. Wy don't you go volunteer at the food court, and we will let you fly it after the show is over,,,,,,, next weekend." It has happened, and it will continue to happen, and their insurance costs will continue to go up, until they quit letting airline captains check out in anything that they can afford to pay for. The CAF is already having troubles getting insurance for this exact reason. You can not let a jet pilot, no matter how many hours he has, or how much money he has, fly the big torque birds, with a 5 minute ride in a T-6 or an SNJ. When the chips are down and he gets himself into trouble he well revert to shoving the power forward, with his feet flat on the floor. Or like the instance with the crash of the F4f a few years ago. The F4f pilot was flying formation with the B-25 and made a 360 to give spacing, the aircraft stalled in a turn, and spun in. When the smoke cleared and all the investigations were done, the MIXTURE was all the way back, and the Throttle was all the way forward.
Another instance was the PBY that went in in the bay east of the Port Mansfield cut. They were trying to get some aerial photos of the plane with some spray, a plane that takes 4 feet of water, the bay barely has that in some spots. They let down in cruise, flew it onto the water, hit a post that was just below the water, caved in the nose gear door, the plane opened up like a tin can. It killed everyone on board, the only two guys rated to fly the plane were in the back, two pilots that had no sea plane time were flying. If someone that had a rating and was checked in the plane was in the front seat, maybe they would have flown another 10 minutes out into the gulf of Mexico and not killed everyone.
The CAF is a good organization, do not get me wrong, I love what they are doing. I do not make enough money to join, sponsor, and fly with them, much less to make all the bribes, and palm greasing that you have to do, to get far enough up the ladder to make the changes that need to be made. I have been flying tail-wheel planes since I was 14. I love flying them, more than milkstools any day, and there are less and less conventional pilots every year, they need conventional gear pilots, and not airline captains. The problem is that most people that are qualed on the old conventional gear planes can't afford to be involved with the CAF, they have priced themselves out of pilots. Just my two cents, maybe 4.
