Paul,
I couldn’t agree more.
I’m old enough to remember when a privately owned Sabre Jet crashed into a Sacramento ice cream parlor in 1972. California immediately forbade the operation of private military jets in the state. The GA community was upset, but it exercised restraint. The subsequent investigation revealed glaring deficiencies in the training, oversight and type certification of some warbird operators. That these issues were addressed in a timely manner is the reason we continue to enjoy warbird demonstrations four decades later - including in California.
Today it may be time to take another look at warbird revenue operations. Their designers expected a third of these airplanes to be lost in combat and, maybe, 20% to be lost in accidents. There was a war in progress and getting them off of the drawing board and into the theater was the most urgent requirement. None of the heavier designs remotely meets contemporary certification standards.