StormBirds Project Update

ME-262 Project Update

For about as long as I've had this blog going, I've been posting occasional updates on the Stormbirds project. This project involves building brand new Me-262 jet fighters from the ground up to serve the warbirds market. In case you didn't realize, a restored P-51 Mustang goes for over a million dollars now. (If you would have been around with some cash in 1946, you could have had one for under $5,000.00. Frank Tallman, a Hollywood pilot and stunt coordinator, was said to have bought hundreds of warbirds right after the war, and he made a lot of money doing so. Apparently the planes came with full tanks of gas, and the high-octane aviation fuel could offset a large portion of the purchase price.)

Back to the 262s. It's taken years, but this group has built 3 planes now, at least two have flown. Deliveries are about to start. The new construction planes have higher performance than the originals. The biggest deviation from the original design: they put modern engines in replicas of the original nacelles. The modern engines are smaller, so they don't disrupt the lines of the aircraft. I've read various statistics regarding the overhaul requirements of the original engines: a complete tear-down overhaul in 8-25 hours of flight time. It won't be hard for the modern engines to beat that reliability.