On Sat, 7 Feb 2004 17:00:51 -0600, "Jake Donovan"
wrote:

PS - All CIA and NASA birds are registered civil aircraft and could be, if
these agencies so desired, sold to private concerns. I included the CIA as
many CIA aircraft used in SE Asia made their way back to the US in private
hands and are still being flown today. (Mary, I know some of the NASA birds
would NEVER be sold)

Well, sort of. We assign N-numbers to them, but we don't always
bother to tell the FAA which numbers go with which airplanes. I was
looking at the N8nnNA registrations one time and found that the only
two aircraft listed had been given to museums a while back.

We also really can't sell them, exactly. We have to put them on the
surplus list, the same way every other agency has to. The list is
circulated in-agency, within Federal agencies, and then to state,
county, etc, agencies in order. Only after every governmental agency
in the entire United States, including the Antelope Valley Mosquito
Abatement District, has failed to request the item can it be sold to
the public. And I think that GSA handles the actual sale.

We surplused the C-47 Gooneybird and a large public university in the
south picked it up. It was in flyable condition, too. In fact, we
made a mistake and sent the N-number with it and had to have them
re-number it because we didn't mean to include the N-number (we
couldn't, actually, because these aren't transferrable).

In case you're ever thinking of buying anything off the gov't surplus
lists, let me give you a little warning. Don't expect to get an
unappreciated treasure this way.

We usually don't surplus our aircraft because they're either research
aircraft, promised to a museum, or ex-military aircraft, with
restrictions on disposal (or both). Typically, the support aircraft
get turned into displays or gate guards. We gave the city of
Lancaster a clapped-out old F-18 for the baseball stadium; the stadium
is "The Hangar", where the Jet Hawks play, and the city fathers
thought that every hangar needs an airplane, I guess. A few years
later, the USAF gave the city an F-4D to put by the Metrolink station.

The KingAirs would probably be surplused, though, since they're just
stock airplanes, with FAA certifications and everything. They've been
maintained to FAA standards, too. But we'll fly them until they
really can't be operated properly because it's so hard to get
replacements.

Then there was the PA-30 Piper Twin Comanche....

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer