Lets say, hypothetically, that I am a very rich man who wishes to acquire a fighter jet for personal use, through the legal means.Could I just give a phone call or send an email to a Lockheed/Boeing/Sukhoi/SAAB/etc. representative and buy an aircraft directly with them?
No, you typically get them used from an air force that's done using them. You'll probably have to pay extra for de-arming and you also have to call the FAA and run it by them
>>65100894Why would you have to de-arm them? The Second Amendment protects your right to own a fully functional armed fighter jet.
>>65100921Supreme Court has already stated that weapons such as missiles do not count under second amendment as they are considered 'unusual' weapons that do not have precedent for civillian self defense. You can legally have a cannon however
>>65100940>>65100921"destructive devices" is the legal term I think
>>65100883Go on Platium Fighter Sales and look at their jets sectionhttps://www.platinumfighters.com/jets/They currently have an F4H (the only Phantom in private hands that's airworthy) on sale for $950,000. That's a steal considering that the F4 had a per-unit cost of $2.4 million when rolling off the assembly line in the 1960s.>>65100921To build on what >>65100894 >>65100940 said, de-militarizing also usually requires removal of classified avionics in addition to removing/disabling internal weapons and the pylons for carrying external ones. When the last F-14s were retired, the ones that went into preservation had to have their engines permanently disabled so that they could never fly again, with the rest being scrapped immediately to prevent any components from making their way to Iran.
>>65101228Think they'd take $800k? If you wired the money same day and had transport within the week?
>>65101228> That's a stealRemember the 3 F’s though. And consider that it goes triple for jets and triple that for warbirds.God, I’d love to own an F-5 tho.
>>65100940They don't get to decide that.
Realistically though, if you really want to own a fighter jet that’s not an L-39, your best bet is to throw money at Draken or…TacAir I think is the other big one under the condition that you get a timeshare in one of their aircraft. They might agree if the money is big enough.
How would Maintenance work?Wouldn’t you still need Lockheed or something to do the service ? How would that even work when they don’t have a civilian workshop ?
>>65101330Top Aces contracts the USAF to do it. Obviously they have a special relationship but, in that same vain you're not gonna be able to get an F16 without that kind of relationship
>>65101369Realistically, there HAS to be at least one A&P out there that’s a former F-16 mechanic, right? You might be fucked when it comes time for a overhaul or other heavy maintenance, but regular service/yearlies shouldn’t be too terribly impossible I don’t think.
>>65101444Actually, now that I think about it. The F-16 has an EPU that runs on hydrazine, which is a fucknasty devil’s brew. I don’t know if a decommissioned version would keep it, but if so it might be a royal pain in the ass to find someone who’s WILLING to work on one, even if there’s a few people who are able to.
>>65100883You can get civ subsonic jets (bigwig my dad used to work with owned a demilled mig17). Govs are pretty hesitant to allow civ ownership of anything that can boom
>>65100883You can only buy at best, last gen fighters that are retired from the military. Never anything brand new. Unfortunately for you, many of the 4th gen fighters are still in use (as updated models) even 20-50 years after they were introduced. So, manufacturers and governments won't allow you to buy even used F-16s or F/A-18s. At best you are looking at old 2-3rd gen fighters as third hand or more to buy.
>>65101775> governments won't allow you to buy even used F-16sThe listing is dead, but there was absolutely an F-16 for sale a couple years ago. I don’t know if it was ever revealed who bought it, but it was probably one of the REDFOR PMCs.Also, there’s at least two Su-27’s and a few MiG-29’s in private hands.
>>65101801In the US that is. Not sure about other countries.
