Originally Posted by
Ewfflyer
Getting all the paperwork is one thing, continual maintenance is another. Heard a lot of these old birds take more money in that department than anything else. But yeah, if I had unlimited resources, you bet it'd be in my hanger(if I had one of those too!)
I know a guy who has a Mig 21. They're not that expensive to buy, and while they are maintenance intensive, the maintenance is not really hard. They were designed to be maintained by red army conscripts who only spent 2 years in the military...and didn't want to be there in the first place. There is a vast used parts market, and the parts are cheap. You can also find russian/eastern block immigrants who know how to maintain them. Probably a good idea to get it restored to flyable condition by an operation which has experience with the type and can do the FAA paperwork.
For convenience, replace the fire-control radar boxes in the nose with car batteries...that way you can start it without a GPU.
IIRC the largest expense was a new, relatively modern, ejection seat...and you could always save that expense if you have big brass ones
