What is a warbird?
Warbirds are retired military aircraft that have been restored, largely by civilian owners who purchase the planes on the open market, almost always after the military has retired the model….
Photo by Alan Wilson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Warbirds are retired military aircraft that have been restored, largely by civilian owners who purchase the planes on the open market, almost always after the military has retired the model. With hundreds of thousands of American planes built for World War II, following that global conflict, most of those planes were soon either no longer needed, obsolete in the wake of new technology or both. There's no official definition of a warbird. Most warbirds are maintained in non-flying condition as museum displays, but thousands of them are kept in flying condition, part of a commitment by aviation historians to keep the planes flying and not just part of a static display.
Everything from training aircraft to executive transports can be flown as warbirds. The cost of restoring, operating and maintaining these aircraft, many of which are more than 70 years old, is high, and when it comes to larger planes, like the B-17 that was lost in Dallas, those costs are astronomical. The engines alone, large, multi-row radial piston models many out of production for more than 50 years, are prohibitively expensive to fly behind and to care for. Aviation gas costs by themselves are staggeringly high. So while regular (though reasonably affluent) owners can operate small, single-engine, trainers and observation aircraft, like the military version of the Piper Cub, it takes larger organizations with fundraising capabilities to successfully operate larger, more complex aircraft, like the Boeing bomber that crashed in Dallas.
Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Get the latest Plane & Pilot Magazine stories delivered directly to your inbox