january-2012

70 years of history in its fabric. Unlike
modern aircraft , the instruments are in
diff erent positions, the fl ight deck isn’t the
most comfortable, and you can smell the oil
and petrol. Th ere’s a giant piston engine
which you need to get a feel for…”
Of course, all that aircraft comes with
sky-high running charges. Warren Wilson
estimates it costs up to £200,000 (€230,000)
a year, depending on the hours fl own. All
that fuel, insurance, maintenance and
hangar space is paid for by displays, fi lm
work, Catalina Society memberships and
monthly contributions of £150 (€175) from
20 shareholders.
So, how easy is it to buy a vintage
aircraft ? Very, according to Neal Perkins, an
American airline pilot and director of the
Tennessee Museum of Aviation. He sells
aircraft for airplanesusa.com. “What do you
want?” he laughs down the phone. “We have
a MiG-21 fi ghter. You can have it for
US$300,000 (€220,000). It’s been well
maintained and is completely airworthy.”
For the price of a small urban apartment,
it seems, you can have your own fi ghter jet.
“Yes. But it would be a good idea to get some
training fi rst,” warns Perkins. Th ere are
other considerations too, like jet fuel. “It’s an
expensive proposition,” he says.
At Raptor Aviation, also based in the
States, pilot Albert Heidinger sells jets,
helicopters and ‘warbirds’, and carries out
“military contract work”. He says sourcing
planes for sale used to be hugely
entertaining. In the 1990s, for example, as
the USSR broke up, aircraft from Eastern
Bloc countries were cheap and easy to fi nd.
A MiG-17 could be picked up for around
US$35,000 (€25,000).
“Aircraft have to be bought from offi cial
sources today,” says Heidinger. “Moving a
jet around the world needs huge amounts of
paperwork. Th ey have to be demilitarised
and special licences are required to allow
them to fl y. No reputable dealer would get
involved in suspicious deals.”
Auctions can also turn up rare gems. In
2009, Bonhams sold a Mk IX Spitfi re for £1.7
million (€2 million) to the adventurer and
entrepreneur Steve Boultbee Brooks, and in
2010, the auctioneers sold a 1917 Seagull
Flying Boat for US$506,000 (€370,000) to an
unnamed Asian collector.
Occasionally, sourcing a rare aircraft is
more of a challenge. “My favourite story is
about a guy called Peter Vacher who found a
Battle of Britain Hawker Hurricane in the
grounds of a college in India,” Ken Ellis, an
editor of UK aviation magazine Flypast,
explains. “A tree was growing through it,
and it took four years of bureaucracy to get
it back to the UK. It’s fl ying again now, but
cost a fortune to restore.”
So who buys their own aircraft ? “My
clients are people who want to play and are
passionate about aviation,” says Heidinger.
“Th ey loved aircraft when they were children
and then when they become lawyers,
dentists, business owners or whatever, they
discover that a plane is within their reach.
Th ey perhaps fl y only 25 to 50 hours every
year, but they treat their purchase with the
same reverence as someone who loves cars
would treat a vintage Ferrari. Th ey probably
wake up on a Sunday and think, ‘What a
great day for a fl y’.”
It’s a feeling Wolter Portier gets regularly.
Th e engineer, who as a boy used to spend
hours watching planes land while his father
worked in the Dutch Airforce, now co-owns
a Piper L4H that was fl own in Italy during
World War II. “It’s now registered in Th e
Netherlands. I rebuilt it and painted it
AEROPLANES UP
Holland Herald 59