Great post Bob - I have the book on the recovery of that Greenland aircraft - an incredible story.
A P-38 is a pretty difficult airplane to fly and the number of pilots out there qualified to handle one gets smaller every year. Not sure how many flyable P-38s there are out there but I'd bet it's less than 20. Given the high cost of operation and small number of aircraft, I can't imagine anybody being truly proficient in such a plane.
Most vintage bikes - even mint Rene Herse - are just not THAT rare, and the level of skill required to handle a bike (even a bike equipped with Cambio Corsa) is probably less than that of a P-38, and the consequences of an accident far less. I beleive that vintage bikes - unless they are at the level of "Eddy Merckx's Mexico hour record bike" with provenance and documentation - should be ridden, CAREFULLY, on nice days, so that they can be enjoyed by a new generation of cyclists.
As for the P-38 or other aircraft of that ilk - I'm for leaving them in museums. The risk to the historical artifact AND the innocent bystanders on the ground is just too great. Jeff Ethel's fatal crash of a really fine P-38 a couple years ago is a case in point - the day will come when there just are'nt any more repairable Allison V-1710 engines or other critical parts - and then they WILL be retired to nonflying status. Nonetheless, the owners DO fly these priceless machines, the rationale being the enjoyment of airshow crowds and the incredible rush of flying one. Thanks to this list and Ebay, we appear to have a pretty good supply of spare bike parts for some time to come. And the cost is much, much lower!
So RIDE 'EM!
================================================ Mark Petry 206 618 9642 mailto:mpetry@bainbridgeisland.net Beautiful Bainbridge Island ================================================ "Be quick, be quiet, be right. Especially right" - Kelly Johnson ================================================
From: BobHoveyGa@aol.com Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 22:33:45 EDT To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: [CR]To ride or not
From: Chuck Schmidt <chuckschmidt@earthlink.net>
>I have one of Andy Hampsten's Motorola bikes he raced in Europe on in
>1992. Andy Hampsten, the only American to win the Giro d'Italia. I
>don't think twice about taking it out on a 60 mile ride. I'm not hurting
>that bike in the least by riding it. People don't see my bikes when
>they are hanging on my wall; they do see them when I'm out riding them.
>BTW, I can not name a place west of the Mississippi where you can go to
>a bicycle museum to view bikes.
Excellent point! A bike of historical value kind of loses some of that historical value when nobody gets to see it... it becomes furniture.
There's a P-38 called Glacier Girl that's being restored in Middleboro, KY (its the one they hauled out from under 260 feet of ice in Greenland. They've spent 7 years and who knows how much money restoring the thing and its supposed to be ready to fly in October. Imagine how difficult it is getting parts (many had to be handmade). Imagine how much its worth (they turned down a $5 million offer when the restoration was only half done). Imagine the historical importance (there's only a handful left, and only 6 worldwide that fly). But what are they going to do with it? Fly it! The owner wants people to see it and appreciate its beauty and its place in history... and he doesn't think those ends can be accomplished nearly as well if it's on static display in a museum. Folks need to see it taking off and buzzing their heads with its engines roaring.
I say ride those old bikes. That way you as the owner can enjoy them as they were meant to be enjoyed, and the rest of us can see them as well. I know tragedies happen, maybe the paint gets scratched or God forbid, a crash dents a tube... but most damage is repairable. We've got some great artisans out there who can fix/restore most anything on a bike. Besides, tragedies happen everywhere... maybe the bike you're out riding is the only one that survives because a burglar or fire tags your garage while you were gone...
Bob Hovey Columbus, GA
================================================
Mark Petry 206 618 9642
mailto:mpetry@bainbridgeisland.net
Beautiful Bainbridge Island
================================================
"Be quick, be quiet, be right.
Especially right"
- Kelly Johnson
================================================