Great food, really cool place to eat in Manuel Antonio.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g309274-d15099...
> back-of-the-envelope math and estimated they could probably complete the entire project for around $250,000—maybe less if they did most of the work themselves
This sounds pretty cool and I wish them luck, but I suspect their estimate is pretty far off.
Everything about old jets like this is highly specialized and "refurbishing" anything with real parts, or even just matching "period" parts, is likely to be an absolute money sink.
But good luck! Sounds fun
If they need a part and can find one that is used up, they’ll be able to get it dirt cheap - it’s literally trash when it’s reached its service life limits.
Not to mention, they can buy hardware (e.g. bolts) from Home Depot at 1% the cost of certified stuff.
Wouldn’t surprise me if they can hit the 250k budget and have something that looks serviceable (but will never fly again; that bridge was crossed long ago anyway).
It was less than 3k gallons of fuel - they probably could have dealt with it themselves (I bet someone out there would have loved to heat their house with that; it’s just really nice kerosene), had their initial reaction not been to call the authorities. After that point their hands were tied.
It would be neat if they refurbished the cockpit to make it operational and changed the windscreens to computer monitors, basically make it a low-feature simulator that people could experience.
I smiled at that one. It was like when, probably 1980 or so, the Austin American-Statesman newspaper ran a photo of a "robot" parading in front of the White House. The caption explained that the robot's name was FUBAR: Futuristic Uranium-powered Bio-Atomic Robot. Evidently the Statesman's photo editor had never served in the military — or had served, and intentionally ran the photo and caption ....
sg47•6h ago
skyyler•5h ago