Originally Posted by
alfred_the_great
and thus unsafe to fly.
A bit of paper doesn't magically make an aircraft safe. Aircraft are safe to fly when they are maintained and serviced properly. None of the aircraft produced during the war went through what we would now recognise as the sort of safety certification used in civil aviation. Come to that, none of the gliders used to give ATC cadets their first taste of flying were certified either.
Doesn't mean they were unsafe. Arguably the safety record for loads of uncertified aircraft proves beyond doubt that having an airworthiness certificate is a marginal benefit. Plenty of certified aircraft crash.