This Man Owns The World's Most Advanced Private Air Force After Buying 46 F/A-18 Hornets

Yeah and 36 of the 46 are already air worthy.

 

They're not Suzukis.

 

IIRC you can buy the planes, but the avionics, radar, weapons are the untouchable parts.

Related:
https://www.businessinsider.com/how...-the-6th-largest-military-in-the-world-2018-7

 

I just think they look cool...no idea what their shortcomings might be. I like all the twin-booms and twin-tails.

 

Yeah thats usually how it goes. According to the crappy article "the powers that be" let him keep the radars, guidance, EM pods, etc. Which makes sense since he would that to accurately play OPFOR

 

According to that article, the planes are equipped "as flown" by the RAAF - including the cannons and latest radar/avionics etc.

Also says he has all the permits required for owning these fully functional weapons, as well as 76,000+ rounds of ammo for the cannons.

Getting through the amount of paperwork required is a huge task all by itself.

 

Hey know...dont talk bad about the mixmaster.

Danny Glover may shoot a WP rocket at your house....

 

That's a lot of ATF forms...

 

In talking with Kermit Weeks he said that any weaponry on a war bird that was originally real triggers a whole bunch of regs and paperwork. Not sure how that would apply to this dude but it was anecdotal information I always wanted to share so I a taking the opportunity.

 

This guy is obviously the exception. I was talking about how the average Joe can buy a Mig, Sherman tank, or space shuttle from ebay but you don't get the really good parts. Like buying a MotoGP bike without the electronics.

Friend of a friend thing but there were a couple of MiGs hangered here at the local airport. Story I heard was some Silicon Valley guys would come over and get their ya-yas out in uncontrolled airspace on the weekends.

 

In his line of work, I'm sure he knows a person or two that can help get around those and/or get them pushed through a lot faster than the "average joe" can.

 

FOX ONE!

 

That’s cool. Back when I was flying we had many adversary squadrons. Now there are only a couple and the burden of playing Red air has gone to the squadrons doing the training. With a fixed number of hours you end up with our guys wasting their time acting as red air. And, it’s puts more wear and tear on our frontline jets. They’ve run the numbers and concluded it’s cheaper to hire a company and have them provide red air. All flown by US ex-fighter pilots.

 

Nalls Aviation's Harriers went on the market earlier this year in case anyone wants to add to their collection.

 

I read this and thought it was awesome. I've flown some aerobatics and high performance piston singles and while it's a blast, I would love to get the opportunity to fly something like that. Did anyone catch the part about $20,000 per hour operating cost??

One of these days I'm going to buy a ride in an L-39.

 

Jesus H. This guy has more air power than our whole country.

 

They're fairly loud inside because there is an engine on each end of the fuselage. The rear engine tends to run hot for obvious reasons. I agree, they do look cool.