Warbird Information Exchange

Tom -

Can you be more specific as to where the B-25 fuselage is? I cannot see it in my 2002 photos....

randy, the 1st mitchell is by corsair & p 47. the 2nd mitchell is by the cutlass, also in the vicinity was a wing from a blue angel aircraft, looks like an a-4 skyhawk's wing.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Tom--

More stuff I didn't see! Wish I'd taken ten times the pix I did...That Blue Angel wing is probably off Lt. Dick Oliver's F11F-1 Tiger, which crashed at Toronto's waterfront airshow sometime around 1960 (I forget which year). A couple of the stranger Walt anecdotes concern posthumous conversations Oliver had with Walt! As I said...an utterly unique guy is Walt.

S.

steve, can't remember the skinny from walt on the blue angel wing. i think it was from a past cleveland airshow mishap. i have a pic, i think it has the single plane numeral on it, i'll check if you wish. keep the snow up their, we have enough. thanks, tom

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Hi,

According to the interview in Robert Hull's "A Season of Eagles", Walter has the wreckage of Dick Oliver's Blue Angel No. 5 that crashed in Ontatio.

Kenn

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May all your bent wings be F2G Corsairs!

Are there any P-51s still left in Walter Soplata's collection?

I don't believe I saw any P-51 items at Walt's place the couple of times I visited in the late 90's. I did see the single fuselage of the XP-82E though, so this is sort of in the same ballpark. I don't remember two B-25's there though... will have to check my photos again (sorry can't post, as I made a promise not to publish them).

Cheers,
Richard

Superfort and Richard--

My understanding is that Walt briefly owned a damaged P-51D (also often reported as a P-51K), N69X, which he salvaged from a junkyard in the 70s but which by the early 80s had passed to Brian O'Farrell in Florida. Walt did have a complete EF-82E (ex-NACA), which is the one now being restored in Minnesota, plus about a third of the airframe of the prototype XP-82 Twin Mustang 44-83887.

You wouldn't have seen two whole Mitchells there in the late 90s, as by that time Steve Detch in Georgia had recovered TB-25K "Wild Cargo" (she now belongs to Jerry Yagen and should fly soon) plus, possibly, parts from a second Mitchell. TB-25N 44-86708, still in USAF livery, would still have been at Walt's then and reportedly still is. The mystery surrounds at least one and possibly two other Mitchell IDs associated with Walt...which would be incomplete airframes if they existed at all. A similar mystery cloaks the never-seen F4U-1D supposedly in the Soplata collection (his other three Corsairs are "confirmed" one way or another).

S.

I was wondering if an aerial photo might help identify some of his collection, but it sounds like from some of the reports that with so much "stuff" on the property that would be next to impossible. I hope that some of his remaining collection has a chance of being restored some day.

I have some photos that I took from the air of Walters place that shows the aircraft that he has As soon as I get my scanner running right I will try to post some somehow.

Here's a couple of shots recently from Jerry Yagen.

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Don't touch my junk!!

I read "Hunting Warbirds" and had never heard of the guy until then. Frankly, I thought it was something made up until today when I saw this thread.
The idea of someone with that kind of collection, and all the folks I know never having mentioned it, frankly baffles the hell out of me.
Wow. He really does have a B-36 on his property!

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

Lee--

Yep, a B-36 (or about three quarters of one anyway), and plenty else. The zenith of the collection was reached in the mid-80s. Since then, about half a dozen of the more complete, er, "exhibits" have moved on to different owners (at least two of whom are WIXers), with four of them either under rebuild to fly or slated for that treatment...

For what is likely the most comprehensive listing of Walter's airframes and major components, see Mike Henniger's Soplata list in the WIX Downloads elsewhere on the WRG site...

S.

As a kid, I had read the article about his collection in my dads issue of Air Classics, I about went nuts when I had seen the pics of the F2G. Who ever posted, that the millionair's will get it all. "Your right", its too bad though, I wish the kids had a interest in it so it would all stay together in their dad's memory but under cover.

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Long Live the N3N-3 "The Last US Military Bi-Plane" 1940-1959
Badmouthing Stearmans on WIX since 2005

I'm pretty sure that in an old issue of Air CLassics that there was a picture of N69X atop a pile of scrap in a junkyard somewhere. It had had it's wings torched off after a belly landing or something but the fuselage looked pretty good. That would be "pre-Walt" I guess. I'm glad he saved it for another time. The man deserves some kind of real preservation award.

Dan