Photo: Trade-a-Plane
Ownership of retired old warbirds is quite an expensive hobby. It's to the point where it makes classic car ownership look like a sound investment by comparison. But you don't need to mortgage your home and have your spouse and kids leave you as a result to own an old warplane. You could find a consortium of five or six investors and buy this Chinese Nanchang CJ-6 trainer for a sticker price of less than six figures.
1973 was a pretty weird year for the People's Republic of China. Mao Zedong was actively beefing with the Soviet Union and had been since at least the early 60s and possibly even a bit longer. At the same time, Chairman Mao was all too happy to welcome a pre-Watergate Richard Nixon and company for a state dinner while the Kremlin smoked endless "copium." All the while, this rinky-dink CJ-6 piston-engine basic trainer was the introductory course for thousands of People's Liberation Army Air Force pilots.
Though it might look like a plane straight out of the Pacific theater of World War II, the CJ-6 wasn't introduced to trainer service until 1960. That's a full 15 years after the end of the Second World War. As a license-built reproduction of the Soviet Yakovlev Yak-18 tandem two-seat trainer, the CJ-6's foundations were decently sound, albeit totally forgettable compared to more flashy hardware. With a 286-horsepower copy of the Ivchenko AI-14 nine-cylinder radial piston engine and a top speed of around 190 mph (300 km/h), it made the T-28 Trojans US Air Force trainees were flying at that time look like SR-71s by comparison.
But it's because this 1973 CJ-6A has an engine seemingly pulled from a tractor and an old-school but familiar form factor that makes it accessible and affordable to pilots who don't have a private mercenary army to accompany them on a private jet. You know, just normal people who're happy to invest the money in a legit military aircraft and the right to fly it whenever they please. For your money, you get a fully restored airframe completed by Avcraft Inc. of Columbus, Nebraska, and has all the appropriate instruments and communications equipment to fly right out of the hangar expediently.
This equipment suite includes a GTX 327 transponder, a GTR 200 radio unit, and an Aera 760 portable aviation GPS, all from Garmin. The complimentary Chinese wing jack and oil drainage cart add another layer to the legit military experience investors want from old warplanes. To have such a genuinely immersive experience for a sticker price of only $93,000 out the door is nothing short of a treat. We know for sure there's at least one group of av-geeks out there who wouldn't mind taking the plunge on joint ownership.
Though it might look like a plane straight out of the Pacific theater of World War II, the CJ-6 wasn't introduced to trainer service until 1960. That's a full 15 years after the end of the Second World War. As a license-built reproduction of the Soviet Yakovlev Yak-18 tandem two-seat trainer, the CJ-6's foundations were decently sound, albeit totally forgettable compared to more flashy hardware. With a 286-horsepower copy of the Ivchenko AI-14 nine-cylinder radial piston engine and a top speed of around 190 mph (300 km/h), it made the T-28 Trojans US Air Force trainees were flying at that time look like SR-71s by comparison.
But it's because this 1973 CJ-6A has an engine seemingly pulled from a tractor and an old-school but familiar form factor that makes it accessible and affordable to pilots who don't have a private mercenary army to accompany them on a private jet. You know, just normal people who're happy to invest the money in a legit military aircraft and the right to fly it whenever they please. For your money, you get a fully restored airframe completed by Avcraft Inc. of Columbus, Nebraska, and has all the appropriate instruments and communications equipment to fly right out of the hangar expediently.
This equipment suite includes a GTX 327 transponder, a GTR 200 radio unit, and an Aera 760 portable aviation GPS, all from Garmin. The complimentary Chinese wing jack and oil drainage cart add another layer to the legit military experience investors want from old warplanes. To have such a genuinely immersive experience for a sticker price of only $93,000 out the door is nothing short of a treat. We know for sure there's at least one group of av-geeks out there who wouldn't mind taking the plunge on joint ownership.
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