Art & Inspiration ot ww 2 planes

Man I have nothing but respect for these great old planes and the men that flew them. We'd be hard pressed to marshal those kind of resources today.

Also, never pass up an opportunity to visit the museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio if you pass nearby. They have just about every known military aircraft (and then some). Last time there several years ago, I stuck my head up into the open bomb bay doors on "Bockscar", the B-29 that dropped the second bomb on Japan. It's hard to describe the feelings that go through your mind....standing in THAT spot. Talk about a 'game changer'.
Wow, hands down, best aviation museum I've ever been in.

 

I really dig the WW II warbirds. My father-in-law did 33 missions over europe in a B-17G based out of england. He was a ball turret gunner. When he was in better health a few years back he had a lot of stories. He said I was the first one he told about some of this stuff since the war. I love lookin at the planes but stories of flak & fighters... Definitely not a fun experience.

 

There's a small restoration shop in East Wenatchee, Washington. Century Aviation.
They do some astounding work on REALLY old planes. Before WW1 and up. I've seen a Martin B1 bomber they built from scratch off the old blue prints, A real Japanese Zero. Thomas Morris Scout. Miss Vidol. They were building a WW1 SE 5 last time I was there. They can built just about anything.

 

I still build models of the old warbirds. My grandmothers cousin flew a
P-51 Mustang and was killed when he went down over Holland.

 

I was stationed at R.A.F. Wattisham,Suffolk,England a few years ago,during the V.E. Day celebrations.Wattisham was the main RV point for the aircraft taking part in the fly-past over London.
There was what seemed like a continuous stream of aircraft landing,re-fueling and up again.B-17,Lancaster,lots of Spitfires and Hurricanes,a flight of Hellcats and loads more.The sounds and smells blew me away.Never seen or heard anything like it since,and probably never will.
Thanks for posting!

 

Those are some beautiful pieces of machinery. The ones today may be better but they sure don't look like those!

 

I can't ever get enough and I get to see em fly everyday. I walked away
from aviation mechanics in 87 to go back to the family business. Not even
a year later Kermit showed up looking for property and the rest is history.
My RV Park is next door to"Worlds Greatest Aircraft Collection".
Not long after he purchased the property hurricane Andrew devastated
his collection in Miami. The pic below is about 2 weeks after and half the
planes are already removed. They just recently celebrated the last load from
Miami. A must see if your ever in Central Florida.
http://www.fantasyofflight.com/









Some eye candy from Fantasy Of Flight...

 

How many of you Wichita guys remember all the great planes flying in and out of MacConnell and Boing? The B-47s and B-52s. I remeber when they were still flying f-100s and F-105s. The Kc 135 tankers and F-4 Phantoms in the 80s. The occasional A or T-37, Rare Beechcrafts. I even went to Stearman Elementary from 62 til 65. The nieghbor kid a house downs dad had been a fighter pilot in WW2 shot down 3 Geman planes with Spitfires and later a P-47. He had was a Korean and got sent to Vietnam in 1965 to fly Thuds. He was a cool dad. We'd hang over there and build models with him. I loved growing up in Wichita and all the great air history that started there. What a great time and place to be an aero nut.

 

HOTROD LINCOLN, that is fantastic! I hope you get him another ride, imagine the memory's that would bring back. You always seem to remember the good times.

Tbraginton, Very few restore there own aircraft. Its cost prohibitive to most with the specialized tools you need. There are however some out there doing it. Then there is guys like Kermit Weeks! He used to come into Moorabbin Air Museum when I worked there trying to buy the MK21 Beaufighter. He ended up offering a blank cheque and told us to name our price.
Glad it didn't sell though, too rare being a totally complete Australian built Beau.
I hear he picked up a Mk10 somewhere and is planning to get it airworthy.
He also has a replica CAC Boomerang, built from a Harvard (Or SNJ or Texan whatever you wanna call it).
Have a look around local airfields, you may be surprised to find somewhere that restores aircraft. There is a lot out there, I'm sure one wouldn't be too far away. Aircraft Museums are your best place to start, join up and get some experience before trying to get your foot in the door of a shop. Unless you have aviation certificates (Mechanical/structural/electrical/hydraulic etc) you will only be a 'gofer' but you will be doing odd jobs on the aircraft and components under supervision.

Man that destroyed hangar pic makes me ill.
There is a couple I cant identify but there is,
Seversky P-35,
Grumman J2 Duck,
NA P-51 Mustang,
NA Harvard,
Vought Corsair,
Curtiss P-40, ( I wonder if it his TP-40 N?)
Beech 18,
Lockheed P-38, (In bits!)
Boeing B-29 Cockpit/nose section, and
What appears to be a Focke Wulf FW-190 up the back.

I cant identify the fuselage right up against the back wall or the blue one on the grass, looks French? Not sure what the large twin is in the center kinda looks like a C-123 Provider?
There is obviously some other wrecks in there but not enough visible to identify.
Kermit is one of my Hero's!
Doc.

 

Hey Doc, You need to sign up for his newsletter here:
http://www.fantasyofflight.com/enewsletter.htm
At this point he is still answering all the questions on his blog.

That post hurricane pic still makes me ill but to me the most amazing thing I
witnessed while crawling around that mess was some news crew sticking a
microphone in his face and inquire about the damage and the positive image
he was able to spin. Most of these aircraft were rebuilt from scratch and
so they will be again.
The twin you see in the pic holding the roof up I believe is an A-20 or 26.
The one in the back I'm pretty sure is a russian Yak. The B-17 was almost
a mile away from were it started The wing that was the
last load is a Kawasaki Ki-46 Hein Japanese fighter.

 

I never knew about that hurricane wrecking the collection, thanks for posting the photos. Wasn't the B-17 the same one that was in the hurricane here in Connecticut about 20 years ago when the collection at Bradley suffered the same fate?

 

I'll add some pics "Aluminum Overcast " was in Latrobe today, spent my 5 bills to check it out and WOOOOW so f'n cool I watch almost anything about WW2 that I can but to see these birds in person is something, there was some vets there and seeing there eyes lookin at that bird was something ,it chokes you up knowing they lost buddies in them planes everyday and STILL got back in them to do there job and there was some grandkids about my age(38) with pics from there gandpaps flights over germany during bombing runs way cool Now I'm no professional photog at all but I took some pics .......so here they are.....Jim

 

some more.......

 

that head-on view of the PBY5A Catalina is my favorite... i love a Cat.
and i'd rather fly as a passenger on any of those WW2 birds than any damn new POS airborne coffin..... how many B-17's came back shot full of holes and missing acres of control surface, to land and be rebuilt and fly again? try THAT with a fricking Airbus....

 

maybe a little off subject.
but here's my new tattoo of a gentleman's plane from ww2 that i meet at the Dallas air museum. Charles Mohrle.

 

A couple of you mentioned Corsairs. My favorite by far. This was in Addison, Tx on July 4th...







They put the Hellcat, Corsair and Mustang on the ground right at sunset and they taxied by at about 200 feet. The Mustang is a neat sound, but that Corsair sounds like a herd of big block chevys in the staging lanes at Ennis.

 

I'm lucky enough to work with these beauties on a daily basis as a paid profession, and I wouldnt give it up for the world. Currently returning a Hudson back to Mil spec from a 1950's airliner conversion. Big job, but never boring.

 

JB you make me SICK man.....

Rat

 

I love all those pics but that fly by at sunset is a tear jerker.

 

An acquaintance of ours has a Stearman biplane, these planes were used by the USAAF and the USN apparently during WW II as trainers, below is a picture taken at his airfield with the Caddy when we were doing a "Flat Stanley" project:



Below is a write up from Wikipedia:

The Stearman (Boeing) Model 75 is a biplane, of which at least 9,783 were built in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s as a military trainer aircraft.<SUP id=cite_ref-0 class=reference>[1]</SUP> Stearman became a subsidiary of Boeing in 1934. Widely known as the Stearman, Boeing Stearman or Kaydet, it served as a Primary trainer for the USAAF, as a basic trainer for the USN (as the NS & N2S), and with the RCAF as the Kaydet throughout World War II. After the conflict was over, thousands of surplus aircraft were sold on the civil market. In the immediate post-war years they became popular as crop dusters and as sports planes

 

we had a great show last Sept, hoping they will come out again..

here is a pix of my ride next to one of my favorite

 

Lemme guess, it sounded like this:

"You may now kiss the bride"

"What?"

"I said you may now kiss the bride!"

"What?"

Awesome wedding, by the way. I took the dive this June 6. Didn't wear a uniform, but I had the 1935 dated "gangster suit," my POS Auto-Ordnance Tommy gun (never buy one), and the 41 Plymouth Coupe. Heck of a nice day.

I rode waist gun in the Collings FOundation's B-25 TONDELAYO a couple of years ago courtesy of MasterCard. Was so loud I could taste the sound. No pictures, crummy gas station batteries were dead. I wore an original WWII HBT coveralls set and cap, gunner's wings. I figured they'd frown on the pistol belt. Not a single WWII plane has come through Zanesville this summer. Bummer.

 

If you get a chance, find the book "Air Command"or the two books "Fighter Command" and "Bomber Command." All veterans' accounts, and several color pictures on every page. In that book, there's accounts by ground crewman (as well as WASPs) and they always looked for their plane to come in, truly connected to their machines, but also, if theirs didn't come back, no one would ever know if it was enemy fire, or something the groundcrew overlooked that caused the plane to go down. You usually don't hear much about the grease monkeys.

 

LOVE the war bird shots. We have a few war birds in Ramona. A particular P-51 will do a valley climb out right off my balcony. I finally got his attention last time and he circled around the house then wing rocked and did a bank and another climb out of the valley. The whole valley roared with that V-12. Friggin awesome!

 

If you are in the Everett WA area check out the Heritage Flight museum. They restore these things & fly em! If you get on their website there is a schedule on flying dates. Took my 11 year old a couple of weeks ago to watch the P-51 & Hurricane fly, fun day out for me & the boy. The displays at each aircraft give some neet insight on how these planes were found. John

 

First time I saw a P-51 in action in person, I stood on the tarmack and started getting all mushy. Sadly enough, that local air show is no more. Lancaster, Ohio's Historic Aircraft Squadron put on what I feel was without a doubt the best air show going, pound per pound. Small airport, but ALWAYS had a bunch of warbirds. Not just T-6 Texans and Stearmans (I love them too) but COMBAT aircraft. 17s, 24s, P-51s, Corsairs, one year there was a trio of Navy planes, Avenger, and I THINK a Wildcat and a Hellcat. RIP!

 

No highjack intended, but if you ever get to Oregon make sure to see the Evergreen air museum. They have a B-17, a P-51, a Ford Tri-motor,and several Migs. But the biggest and bestest is the Spruce Goose. I left DNA in it.

 

There great for parts

 

on the nose cone of the p 38 the gun ports kinda look like 56 buick port holes

 

No, I don't think that they are the same B-17. The one that was moved over a mile away during the hurricane was a complete plane that he got from Texas. That plane is still in pieces, stored at the Fantasy of Flight I believe.
The B-17 ('s?) that were at the Bradley museum are still around though. One plane is restored and flying as the Liberty Belle (http://www.libertyfoundation.org/). Another that is listed as being from the Bradley museum is at Fantasy of flight as a static exhibit in the museum. This plane is part of a WWII diorama and you can walk thru as the speakers and video screens play out a WWII bombing mission.

I don't know if Liberty Belle and the diorama plane started out as the same plane with some pieces going to each, or if they are are 2 seperate aircraft. No matter really, they both still exist, can be enjoyed, and are paying their respect to those fallen.