Re: What Is "Old?"

John,

>For a pilot or an airplane?  ;-)

Touché!

>Well, when I was flying the A-4C in 1977 or so, the one in the Smithsonian
Air & Space Museum in DC was newer than the one I was flying!

Since the designation "A-4C" was the pre-McNamara designation of A4D-2N, you
WERE in all likelihood flying an "oldie."  IIRC, the A4D-2N first hit the
fleet in 1959 or 1960.

Not that the Smithsonian's bird necessarily was any "newer" - we would hope
yours still had usable wing life.  <g>

(Going rhetorical now)
Which brings us - again - to the question, what is "old?"   BuNo seniority?
Airframe hours expended?  Declining utility / suitability for a particular
purpose?  Increasing lack of spare parts / increasing cost of remaining
spares?  Ad nauseum.

-- 
Mike Kanze

"I never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back."

- Zsa Zsa Gabor


"John R Weiss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> "Mike Kanze" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote...
>
> > What is "old?"
>
> For a pilot or an airplane?  ;-)
>
> > 1) You don't know what "old" is (or feels) until you see a bird whose
BuNo
> > adorns several of your logbook entries sitting in a museum somewhere.
In my
> > case:  KA-6D, BuNo 152910, now sitting forlornly in the back lot of the
> > Western Aerospace Museum at Oakland airport
>
> Well, when I was flying the A-4C in 1977 or so, the one in the Smithsonian
Air &
> Space Museum in DC was newer than the one I was flying!
>