Warbird Information Exchange

It was announced on Facebook today that B-17G known as Thunderbird has been sold to Mid America Flight Museum. In the comments section it was stated that the intent is for her to be a flying warbird, I really hope that happens. With the number of airworthy B-17s shrinking, it would be nice to see one return to the air on a regular basis. I tried to find a mention of it on their website, but nothing yet. My Facebook doesn't give me the option to copy their URLs or I'd post a link.

Good news!

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Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

Okay, so what's going on with the Lone Star Flight Museum? First their P-47, now their B-17. Are they in trouble?

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Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster

I'm not sure, but Rod Lewis bought the A-20 from them and I believe that the Dakota Territory Air Museum bought their Hurricane. That's 4 really rare airframes that have exited the building. There might be others, but that's all I can think of right now.

Yeah, there have been quite a number of aircraft sold from the Lone Star Flight Museum, both before and after Hurricane Ike, and now after the move to their new facility at Ellington Field. In addition to those already mentioned:

The PB4Y-2 Privateer they were restoring for many years is now at the Pima Air & Space Museum, completed and put on static display.
The Hellcat left in a partial trade/sale to the Erickson Aircraft Collection, with Lone Star receiving the ex-EAC TBM Avenger (just repainted this fall in new colors of "Barbara III").
The Spitfire TE392 was sold and after a complete restoration is now flying again in Australia.
The Grumman F3F-2 was sold to Chris Prevost and fully restored, and now owned by Jim Slattery.
The F8F-2 Bearcat (though which I believe was personally owned by Robert Waltrip) was sold to John O'Connor.
Lone Star, or Waltrip, also owned the P-38, then known as "Putt Putt Maru", which was sold to Tom Blair in 2006, and sold again to Dan Friedkin, now painted as "Thoughts of Midnite".

They have had some aircraft displayed on loan in recent years, including from the collections of the Collings Foundation and Dan Friedkin.

If "Thunderbird" was going to be sold, I'm glad that Scott Glover is the individual who has now acquired the B-17. It will be in great hands, and will be kept flying.

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The Grumman F3F-2 was sold to Chris Prevost and fully restored, and now owned by Jim Slattery.

N20RW went from LONE STAR to Chris Prevost, then to Rod Lewis, not Slattery.
Slattery's F3F came from the Friedkin family

I am glad it survived the hurricane ordeal....

Still....this would have been a great showbird!!!!

The plan is certainly to enjoy and share the B-17 once it gets some maintenance items addressed and moved to Mt. Pleasant. It is a busy time right now down there so it may not get added to the webpage immediately. Exciting times for the Mid America Flight Museum Team.
Here is a cut and paste of the text from Facebook:

"Well folks, many of our visitors have asked and heretofore, when anyone asks if MAFM has a B-17 Bomber among our fleet, we did not. But now we can cheerfully say "yes we do."
The details were worked on only yesterday but the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress formerly housed and flown by the Lone Star Flight Museum, has been acquired by the Mid America Flight Museum.
Adorned in the scheme of the B-17 G "Thunderbird," this rare 4 engine Warbird will be the largest among the MAFM fleet. With an empty weight of just over 31,000 pounds and a wingspan of 103 ft. To put that in s perspective, thats the same wingspan as the MAFM's PBY which many of you have seen. The B-17 however, is significantly heavier and has four radial engines.
We are hoping for it to arrive in Mount Pleasant sometime early this spring. We believe the addition of this aircraft to the MAFM Fleet will be a big draw to an already wonderful collection of historic aircraft. We will update more as things progress.
The Team at Mid America Flight Museum would like to say thanks to all those who follow what we are doing and we hope to be re-opened to the public in the near future. Stay Tuned!"

That is, um, amazing! BTW, for those that have not been, Mt Pleasant is fantastic.

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Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

Lone Star have financial issues due to the loan taken out for the new building in Houston. Hence these recent sales.

Lone Star hosts Rick Sharpe's birds too. A couple of Migs, Skyraider, and A-26. Lone Star probably has more quests in the Hangar than their own birds now...
I wonder if given Mid America's already established connections at Urbana, Thunderbird is due for a nose job???

I would also say that LSFM seems to also be transitioning to more of a static museum than a flying one, so some of these sales I think are probably well-intentioned. They are selling fully airworthy or potentially airworthy aircraft that can bring revenue to help with their financial obligations (especially right now with all the reduction in revenue due to the ongoing situation) to other operators who will keep flying them and then when they get into a better position, bring in already static or end-of-useful life aircraft (i.e. aircraft that are running out of airframe time) for display instead. That way they still get good displays without removing potentially airworthy aircraft from the dwindling pool.

How does that statement tie in with them selling an active P-47 with plenty of Heritage Flight commitments each year to sit parked in a shed in the back end of nowhere?

Some more details:

http://warbirdsnews.com/aviation-museum ... rbird.html

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Matt

Well considering it hasn't actually been sold yet, that's a pretty crass statement, even for someone on this forum. As for it being "parked in a shed in the back end of nowhere", I don't consider Evansville, IN, to exactly be a fit for that, especially considering it's literally the city where Tarheel Hal was built.

Maybe before you go and defame a group, you might want to do even basic research?

https://www.evansvillewartimemuseum.org/

Oh, and considering the plane only arrived at their nicely setup and well adorned hangar about 2 months ago, it's not like they've been "sitting" on the plane for long.