Warbird Information Exchange

Here are a few photos of Bill Ross's P-38 taken in Galesburg IL in the 1970's.

I'm not familar w/ the Bill Ross P-38. Is it still around today?

The late Bill Ross sold it to the Lone Star Museum (Robert waltrip). They repainted it as Charles MacDonald's "Putt, Putt Maru".
Presently it is in Florida at Stallion 51 having work done on it for a new owner.
Jerry

Bill Ross was a great guy. I remember back in the early 80's when he still had the hangar at DPA (West Chicago, IL). I got to sit in that P-38. Great experience, great guy.

Bill also owned a Spitfire. Anybody know where it ended up?

Greg

That was SL721 was it not? Now in Canada and still flying regularly.

Indeed he was. Bill was a charter member of the International Fighter Pilots Fellowship and a great fellow to have around.
Had a nice talk with his daughter Polly recently. She's nice as well!
Dudley Henriques

Here is a shot of Bill with his Spitfire in Washington at Transpo72. Within the year he had sold the Spitfire and it was in the UK.

Bill, centre, is flanked on the right by the late Don Plumb and on the left by a young Englishman, rather keen on Spitfires.

PeterA

The P-38 is in Texas, the state with the most flyable P-38s.

Life is indeed strange. I was there all week long managing Miss America for Howie Keefe while he went to New York. Bill had the Spit parked right next to us. I remember quite vividly some kid grabbing the trim tab on Bill's airplane and trying to make it turn. I broke Mach 2 running over there to stop that little bit of action )
Later that night at the hotel, I told Bill how I had solved these "problems" with the Mustang. We had problems with kids grabbing the pitot tube and trying to swing from it on occasion. My wife made a big red pitot cover with a yellow lighting bolt sewn on it that read,
"Don't touch! High Voltage!"
I can still hear him laughing!!! ))
DH

Bill in his P-38 a couple of years later at Windsor, Ontario.

PeterA

late time I checked California had 2 (PoF & Croul)and Texas had 2(Lewis and Friedkin).Is there another in texas that I dont know about ?

I would imagine the Red Bull P-38 is getting counted, though it won't be there for too long.

All the cute subtlety aside, for those of us "outsiders"...who's the "Englishman with a keen interest in Spitfires"?
And why is ROSS in orange in so many posts?

Mudge the outsider

Mudge, the rather mod looking gent on Bill"s right is either Ringo Starr, or our own Peter Arnold. Peter may be the highest time Spitfire guy anywhere, If you include not just flight time, but time spent reading about em, talking, photoing, painting, washing, writing, owning and everything else about em. Some guys have a Spit in a hangar, Peter had two, well most of them, in his garage. Don Plumb is the former owner of my plane in Windsor, Ontario, and a former Warbirds president.

Those were some good old days, you would have liked Bill Ross. I never got to meet Don.