Old Warbirds are just inherently very dangerous. I was a mechanic at the FBO in Clifton, Texas during college. I knew three people who were killed in a P-51, an 8F8 Bearcat, and another warbird that I can't remember:
Don Knapp, in 1989, cool dude. Owned a P-51D, a triple row Wasp F4U that won the 1949 Cleveland Air Race, and, at the time, the only Me-262 (all in parts in crates) known to exist. He ran his P-51 out of gas at the air show at Dyess, in Abilene (his home base) in 1989. My boss' wife was from Abilene, we would go out there every year for the airshow. Her brother was an A&P at the American Eagle repair facility, next door to Don, in the same sized hanger. I was lucky enough to get to sit in the cockpit of both the P-51, and the F4U.
Another amazing airshow, we would go to, was in Breckenridge, Texas. My boss and Howard Pardue were pretty good friends. Howard had an extensive restoration facility at the airport. You could walk into his hangar, and there would be partially assembled Spitfires, P-51s, F4Us, you name it. His pride and joy was his 8F8 Bearcat, couldn't wait to get it in the air. Well he did, and it killed him in 2012. His daughter, Kimberly, was killed in a warbird, that she was piloting in 1984, at only 19 years of age. I never wanted to bring it up, and ask Howard what she was flying when she crashed, I guess you could also say I didn't know her personally, but he named his 8F8 after her.
One year, my boss had this great idea to fly this piece of shit to Breckenridge:
https://www.pietenpolaircraftcompany.com
It was all painted up like the Red Baron, Iron Cross, the whole enchilada, from Clifton to Breckenridge, Stephenville was our midway stop to refuel (his wife was waiting with car gas). We had rebuilt the 1935 Lambert five cylinder radial to power it. It didn't have any pistons when we got it, but standard 350 Chevrolet pistons fit it perfectly. At that time, Stephenville had a crosswind runway, and the wind was out of the west, so away we went. On the climb out, the engine sputtered and begin to loss power, we were descending directly into a big power station with huge transformers, heavy gauge wire, etc. Asshole puckering moment, it cleared up after about 5-6 seconds. My boss just looked back, smiled, and winked.
The control sticks were two sawed off baseball bats, no instruments, and a float gauge for the fuel level (it had a marked wire, you knew how much fuel you had by how far the wire stuck up out of the fuel cap). There were no trim tabs, so it was like fighting a Grizzly, the whole way. You could look down, and old farm trucks were pulling on you. We flew the highway, and made a deal to switch, as the pilot, at each town we came to (about 12 miles apart). It was absolutely exhausting. The only cool thing was spitting over the side, and realizing you had just spit 3000 feet.
I also had the chance to buy a Cassutt from my high school history teacher and aviation teacher's FIL:
https://www.cassuttaircraft.com
But with less than 100 hours, he said we would have to rename it "Casket". Could have bought it for $5k in 1986.
Also had a chance to buy a Pitts Special biplane that had been flooded in the Leon river bottom for $9500 around 1990 from a guy that lost his leg in an airshow accident, and had lost his medical. My Boss nixed that.
Like I would have been with those planes, the people flying these warbirds are getting in over their heads. Their money lets them hotrod in hot planes that even airline pilots with thousands of hours aren't qualified to fly. In wartime, this was probably a daily occurrence you never heard about. The flight hours to be competent gets shaved by deep pockets. These planes are not very reliable, Howard was killed due to engine problems, Don had a faulty fuel gauge. It's dangerous enough to fly them with no one else in your airspace. Get them in close proximity and showing off and you get midair collisions.
CHIEF