This video is a highlights/promo from the Flying Legends Airshow over the historic Duxford airfield. One thing I noticed when watching it was just how OLD most of the pilots are. The advanced age of the airshow pilots is probably to a few different reasons. 1. Flying high performance warbirds is EXPENSIVE! The amount of money these guys get from the airshow circuit probably doesn’t cover half what it costs to keep a 60 year old fighter airworthy. To be able to own and fly one of these baby’s you need a lot of money, i.e, old guys. 2. Time. Even if you don’t work on the plane yourself there is still a lot of work that goes into maintaining any plane let alone one that needs waxed to perfection. 3. Experience. One thing you will notice about old warbirds is that they almost all have conventional landing gear, you know, tail draggers. Very few pilots these days get their tail wheel endorsement let alone the hundreds of hours required to be considered competent enough to be entrusted to a 2 million dollar museum piece. A few years ago I looked into joining the Confederate Commemorative Air Force, to see what it took to fly the P-51 Mustang they had. The requirements really weren’t too bad. Just donate $10,000 to the club, get checked out in one of their T-6 Texans and spend every weekend helping work on their collection of planes. The first two requirements I could handle but I’m a busy guy and there was just no way I could spend the time it would take to satisfy them. But who knows? Maybe when I get old.
