History of Tallman FG-1D N3440G

aerovin · **Posted:** Sat Dec 23, 2023 7:17 pm

I'm adding individual pages on the four Corsairs affiliated with Paul Mantz or Frank Tallman (N63382, N3440G, N9153Z and N9154Z) to my tallmantz.com pages...with the first one just added on N3440G.

https://www.aerovintage.com/tallmantz-aviation/tallman-fg-1d-n3440g/

It was purchased by Tallman at Litchfield Park in May 1959 and then based at Flabob Airport. He used it in the May 1961 "Tortoise and the Hare" air race to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Naval Aviation...flown between the FG-1D and his Garland Lincoln LF-1, N12237. The FG-1D stayed with Tallmantz until 1969 when it was traded to Jr. Burchinal for a Grumman J2F-6 Duck. It was destroyed in a 1979 hangar fire but lives on and flies as N773RD with the Mid-America Flight Museum as Marine's Dream.

More to come soon.

Chris Brame · **Posted:** Sun Dec 24, 2023 6:21 pm

The fire was Saturday, June 2, 1979. The Corsair isn't specified; just "five small airplanes". Newspapers.com has two similar AP articles; one from Fort Worth and one from Tyler.

Lon Moer · **Posted:** Sun Dec 24, 2023 11:43 pm

Can't wait to see what you find for N63382, especially its time with Vought.

aerovin · **Posted:** Tue Dec 26, 2023 11:52 am

Thanks, Chris, for finally establishing the details of that fire.

As for FG-1D N63382 and its time with Vought...I have not come up with much more than is already known other than the specific dates of ownership and how much it was flown while with Vought. Still looking for more information.

Lon Moer · **Posted:** Tue Dec 26, 2023 2:15 pm

aerovin wrote:

Thanks, Chris, for finally establishing the details of that fire.

As for FG-1D N63382 and its time with Vought...I have not come up with much more than is already known other than the specific dates of ownership and how much it was flown while with Vought. Still looking for more information.

I've posted some photo's in this thread; http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=65755

aerovin · **Posted:** Tue Dec 26, 2023 2:30 pm

I've seen those colorized photos and the drawing. They look great. My basic question, though, do we know those are the colors (orange and white)? I think Vought put a later scheme on the airplane that is the one it came to Mantz in...and that is orange and perhaps a cream white. But the earlier scheme? I'd like to see some documentation if there is any.

Vought scheme:

Colorized early Vought scheme:

Later scheme:

marine air · **Posted:** Wed Dec 27, 2023 10:19 am

It would be interesting to know how many civilian warbirds have been lost in hangar fires. So there's this Tallman example, the former Junior Burchinal Corsair, the CAF's MK 9 Spitfire with a Hurricane up in Canada. There was also a P-47 project in Kentucky and a P-40 project that burned in someone's garage. Any more?

Paul Stroud · **Posted:** Wed Dec 27, 2023 1:46 pm

There was a fire in Bakersfield in the 80's which claimed a Sea Fury. The CWH fire also claimed an Avenger iirc

Hooligan2 · **Posted:** Wed Dec 27, 2023 2:18 pm

P-38 and a Spitfire in a storage hangar at the Musee de l'Air in Paris. May have been others lost, quite a few vintage aircraft were in there.

JohnB · **Posted:** Wed Dec 27, 2023 10:18 pm

Gary Norton lost a P-51 in a hangar fire at the Henley Aerodrome* in Northern Idaho in the '80s-early '90s.7

If you read any histories of aviation's "Golden Age" you'll see a lot of hangar fires which claimed a lot of great types.

Hangar fires were fairly frequent due to the obvious...lots of flammable fuel, oil, fabric dope, people smoking a lot, and the lesser known habit of emergency landing flares, which were frequently carried by aircraft of the time, igniting.

*Henley was a tourist attraction patterned on Old Rhinebeck. It operated for many years, I flew in a J-3 and Tiger Moth from there in the mid '70s.
It had hangars, restaurant and shops done in a WWI, style buildings. There were air shows on the weekend and Walt Redfern built Fokker, de Havilland and Nieuport replicas at his home/hangar across the runway.
It eventually became the successful Silverwood, a 400 acre amusement park, the largest in the northwest.

Dan K · **Posted:** Thu Dec 28, 2023 3:18 pm

marine air wrote:

It would be interesting to know how many civilian warbirds have been lost in hangar fires. So there's this Tallman example, the former Junior Burchinal Corsair, the CAF's MK 9 Spitfire with a Hurricane up in Canada. There was also a P-47 project in Kentucky and a P-40 project that burned in someone's garage. Any more?

October of 2000: Air Spray in Red Deer lost four A-26 Invaders (C-FOVC, C-GHCC, C-GWLU and C-GPUC) in a hangar fire.

The group in Evansville, Indiana (that has grounded P-47 "Tarheel Hal"), lost their first Jug, 42-8320, in a fire.

Among the many vintage aircraft lost in the 1990 Le Bourget fire:

Amiot 351
Beech D18
Bloch MB-152
Boeing KC-97L
Bristol Bolingbroke
DH-82A Tiger Moth
Dewoitine D-520
Dornier Zeppelin IV
Douglas Invader 41-39162
Lockheed F-5G
Lockheed T-33
Morane Saulnier MS-147
Morane Saulnier MS-472
Morane Saulnier MS-1500
Nord 3400
North American TB-25N
North American T-6G
SNCASO SO. 30P
Spitfire MK IX BS464

Lost in the 1978 San Diego Museum fire include:

A6M
Fleet PT-3
Curtiss Jenny
Ryan FR-1 Fireball
Sikorsky HO4S
Lockheed T-33
Several military drones and vintage types...55 aircraft total

Zac Yates · **Posted:** Thu Dec 28, 2023 8:54 pm

I remember reading of a home restorer who - along with his family home and all their other possessions - lost a CAC Wirraway project and a considerable amount of spare parts in an Australian wildfire in the early(?) 2000s. An incredibly sad story no matter which way you look at it but at least the folks involved were okay.

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