Matt Gunsch wrote:
sandiego89 wrote:
Was a KC-97 donor aircraft ever obtained for the mused about mating the B-50 fuselage with? Ex Greybull airframe perhaps donating wings, engines, etc. Now that would be a great aircraft so see with 4 x 4360's all full chat!!! Please!
Yes, a number of years ago, The wings, engines and what is left of the props are in Valle, AZ at the museum there
My understanding is that POF has, for all practical purposes, a complete B-50. In actuality, they have only a B-50 fuselage and KC-97 wings, engine/props,tailfeathers. This was discussed many years ago on the now defunct POF message board. Back then, they said it was going to be a very technically challenging, though not impossible, project to mate the KC-97 wings to the B-50 fuselage. They are not a perfect fit, but good enough for static. They basically said it would be cost prohibitive and, maybe near impossible, to make an airworthy aircraft out of that combination. Even static, it was expected to take a lot of time and money to make everything "fit" together. At the time (15 to 17 years ago), that project was considered a very low priority since it was going to cost a lot of time and expense to make a complete static only aircraft.
Since POF rightfully devotes all of their resources to keeping the current aircraft airworthy and not spending a lot of excess time on the non-flyers, I don't expect this project to come to fruition in my lifetime unless they get some benefactor who's willing to fork over a LOT of money to see a complete B-50. You never know, though, there might be a multi-millionaire out there somewhere who crewed on B-50's back in the day, who wants to leave a donation to POF.
Honestly, though, there are 50 other airplanes that are much more deserving to restore than the B-50. So, this doesn't bother me as I can see a complete B-50 at several museums around the U.S.
I want to see the Val, Jack, O-47, Bf-109G, B-17, F9F and Fireball fly before the B-50!