Is it not just sheer complexity and metal fatigue?
If you watch the video above, the official reason was it was considered a "complex aircraft" except it was designed in the 50s when the total sum of complexity was cables to the control surfaces and two jet engines of which there are many privately owned jets so it no more complex than any other jet in private ownership.
Talking about complexity, the Vulcan managed to get an exception the the Complex aircraft rules despite being many times larger with twice the number of engines needing 3 times the crew to fly it and being considerably larger and more prone to metal fatigue.
The Lancaster and Spitfire are knife and fork tech and not particularly highly stressed how the BBMF use them. Tend to fly low impact displays with very little aerobatics to conserve the aircraft.
Spitfires are regularly used in aerobatics, as is the P51, they even race them in the states, so there is no low impact flying for many of them.
The RAF had a job keeping the lightning in service in period as they weren't the most reliable of things and they were withdrawn due to crashes caused by technical issues and fatigue if memory serves rather than being no longer useful.
Like anything built in the 50s and 60s they were not fool proof and advanced for their time, they were also like nothing else at that time so of course they lost more than say a modern aircraft today, but when you look at the number of accidents in General aviation the numbers of cessnas that crash is probably many times higher.
all that being said they were in service for nearly 30 years and that is comparable with the likes of the Jaguar and the Tornado.
the amount of damage you could do with one is large if all was to go wrong. Most of the ex-raf service aircraft are also hardly one careful owner...they will have been de-mobbed because they were knackered, had fatigue cracks etc etc.
again nothing is fool proof and the spitfire that crashed just a couple of weeks back proves that. The Lancaster would probably do a lot more damage than a lightning, but then again the Lancaster cannot go a quick. a lot of the issues boil down to just how fast the aircraft could go and not wanting civilians to have aircraft that could technically out run and out climb the current line up of RAF jets and this is really what it all boils down to.
& 4 new tyres fitted so have to arrange a time/day to collect it, then get Luigi out the building after a quick clean & emptying stuff out of it, I don't suppose anyone here knows where I can get hold of a clutch quadrant for a Cinquecento/Seicento anywhere as I thought I would get a spare because they are common for breaking from past experience with Cinquecento's but they seem to be unobtainable nowadays
