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Does anyone that has seen Walt's P-63 fuselage recall the markings? Bare aluminum, military insignias, anything? I've never seen a decent photo of it.
Beyond that has anyone heard Walt tell the story of how he found it?
I've often wondered how he was so often at the right place at the right time. I hope someone has at sometime just sat with Walt with a tape recorder running and asked him to tell the many stories. Hopefully he was the type to keep a written journal and files. I wonder if he had a camera to record some of his recoveries and their transportation.
Are their any Soplata sons (or daughters) that have any vintage aircraft interest?
I talked with him on the phone a couple of times, and I asked him the same sort of questions. He said he looked everywhere at every opportunity to collect a plane. He said back then there still was a lot of bureaucracy in getting a plane, and that they weren't very easy to come by. For example he said, there were deadlines to recover the aircraft, and if you were late, they could still be there off limits scheduled to be scrapped.
He also said that to get a plane you needed to pay a $15k fee w/o getting a chance to look at the planes, or something like that and then haul off several. You had a deadline to pay the fee, etc, etc.
He said even a long time ago that the Navy was extremely difficult to deal with, and Navy planes were not as available as Army Air Force.
He said that the $5000 Mustang sales were rare events which happened for a couple of months or even weeks and then were over with.
He said, the first $5000 Mustang sale happened right after WW2, and when several new buyers were killed flying them the program was stopped quickly. After that, Mustang sales were very few until after the Korean War. At that time the sales still happened quickly.
He gave one specific example of how quickly things turned south: He said there was a Spitfire still with flying helmet, maps in the cockpit at a boneyard, and he said he wanted to buy it. The officials basicly said "no" and scrapped it anyway. Much like what happens now.
He said most of his planes were experimental or one off models which were easier to get, because they were directly on the base and not in a disposal area.