Liberty Bell was in a museum and was damaged in a Tornado before they restored her. So "Safe" in a museum is not necessarily correct.

I shudder to think what might happen at Planes of Fame, Yanks Air museum, Palm Springs Air museum, or the March Air museum, or any air museum in California during a really big earthquake. The loss of historic aircraft safely tucked away in a museum could be immense.


Wheels

Reading that made me boil. The fire department exists to take risks in order to save life and property. What is the cost of a pulling a stuck fire truck out of the mud compared to the value of an aircraft, especially one like "Liberty Belle"?

while it is true they CAN be damaged in a place like a museum, a museum that is properly protect the odds of a plane destoryed beyond repair are slimer then when it crashes.

So long as there are more than a handful of examples still in existence the B17's, and other warbirds, should keep flying. That is what they were intended to do, not sit and collect dust. There are already several B17's on permanent static display, the flying ones don't endanger those at all.

While it's nice to look at airplanes in a museum, nothing compares to seeing one fly right over your head. They are airplanes...fly 'em.

I seen a 'Lanc and then was able to touch it. It was beautiful. I thought I was pretty lucky. Later, it flew low over me. The previous sensations did not compare.

That is an misconception on your part about the effectiveness of the museums. Due to their size several museums are storing their B-17's outside and they are cared for less often than Liberty Belle or any of the other flyable B-17's. Birds and the weather are taking their toll on them and every aircraft stored outdoors every day. Most museums just don't have the money to build hangars big enough to house them or the personnel to dedicate to maintenance on a daily basis.

This site will give you a decent overview of the static B-17's on display and how they are displayed.
http://www.johnweeks.com/b17static/index.html
When time, weather, and the birds destroy these examples all that will be left of them is the pictures too. IMO, How fast that happens will be dependent on our support of the museums and the condition of the airframes after 70 years of being stored outdoors in the elements. It was amazing to me when I was shown by the aircraft restorers at Planes of Fame how an aircraft can look perfectly sound but the amount of deterioration that is unseen is huge.

I am not making a statement against the museums either. The museum's I have visited are staffed by extremely dedicated yet overworked volunteers who want to do more but can't due to money constraints. If it were up to them all of their planes would be maintained daily and have appropriate shelter from the elements.


Also, IMO without the flyable legacy aircraft to keep generating new interest in the warbirds the museums will wither and die on the vine causing all of their collections to end up being scrapped.


Wheels

A crash like this can certainly bring up concerns, but kind of echoing other posts, seeing an airplane in a museum doesn't really give anyone the complete historical picture of what they were like. Sure you can see them there, but you don't hear the engines, you don't feel what it was like when they flew overhead, so having them only in museums is a bit of a disservice to history, to me.

I've been lucky enough to actually fly on a B-24, which my father worked on and flew a few non-combat missions on back in WWII, so being able to fly on one really made me feel more connected to his youth, and I'm so glad I was able to have that experience.

And again echoing Wheels, those types of activities generate interest for many, helping to keep them supported and maybe even interest someone a bit more in history.

As a pilot of and tinkerer with several vintage planes, including several Tiger Moths and Europe's only flying Fairchild PT-19 Cornell, I can't understand those who say vintage planes are better off in museums. There is simply no comparison between touching one in a museum and the sensation of seeing and hearing one fly before you.

S! to the Liberty Belle. She brought her crew safely down, like so many other B-17s before her.

I am so sad right now

Just a nitpicking observation about the title of the link to this thread on the SimHQ home page, and some posts in it, the aircraft did not crash. It made an emergency landing. Only after landing was the aircraft destroyed due to their not being able to put out the fire.