Texas Red Race 68 and another T-6...Yet another ID needed...

[Ztex]

Looking for Id's for these two T-6's

Race 68 "Texas Red" owned by Jimmy Gist?

I find info on this one...just not the numbers...



Another T-6/SNJ

[retroaviation]

I'm pretty sure Texas Red, turned into Blue Bayou, which turned into Two of Hearts. I knew Jimmy Gist fairly well (haven't seen him in years now though), and unless he built a whole new racer, that is indeed the same airplane. I helped rebuild the wings (while at Ezell Aviation) on Blue Bayou when Mary Dilda purchased the airplane from Jimmy.

I don't know the I.D. on the second T-6 pictured.

Gary

[Neal Nurmi]

No -- Blue Bayou was formerly the white racer flown for many years by Ralph Rina. Texas Red was sold, and raced from about 1988 to the mid 90s by a guy named John Luther. It raced as #99, still called Texas Red, I believe.

[retroaviation]

DUH!!! You're right as usual, Neal. I can't believe I forgot about John Luther. I wonder what his condition is after his paralizing crop duster crash many years ago?

Gary

[Obergrafeter]

I haven't heard any updates on John Luther in years. Does anybody know anything about him. Is he still with us? He was a great guy to do airshows with.

[MX304]

I'm pretty sure Texas Red, turned into Blue Bayou, which turned into Two of Hearts. I knew Jimmy Gist fairly well (haven't seen him in years now though), and unless he built a whole new racer, that is indeed the same airplane. I helped rebuild the wings (while at Ezell Aviation) on Blue Bayou when Mary Dilda purchased the airplane from Jimmy.

I don't know the I.D. on the second T-6 pictured.

Gary

Not completely on topic, but since Gary mentioned it, Two of Hearts has changed hand recently as well. John Zayak is the new owner. Not sure what the name / paint scheme will end up being.

[Neal Nurmi]

One thing I'll always regret is never having seen Mary do her aerobatic routine in "Blue"...

Sorry -- Still off topic, I guess.

[Tulio]

I saw Texas Red a few times in 2001, at the Bulverde Airport. It was in an open-sided hangar, covered by dust.

As I was told at the time, the owner had suffered a stroke, and he was either incapacitated, or had passed away; I do not exactly recall what was his status.

I was told that his widow (??) or wife, did not want to sell the airplane because she was convinced that he would recover to fly it again.

Some time later, I heard that the airplane was sold (I believe $35k was the amount mentioned) to parties unknown.








Saludos,


Tulio

[warbird1]

One thing I'll always regret is never having seen Mary do her aerobatic routine in "Blue"...

Sorry -- Still off topic, I guess.

I don't mean to get too far off topic, but I heard an interesting rumor that Mary was making the leap to the unlimiteds. Supposedly she is going to fly something very, very fast........

[retroaviation]

A couple of stories here about John Luther that I always thought were funny...

While getting our tech inspection done in the T-6 class at Reno in '94, we, along with everyone else in the T-6 class, would try to insure the tech commitee that "we've not done anything to the airplane since last year's races." As we were saying this, John Luther had just shut down Texas Red after his arrival to Stead, with the airplane looking not much different from the photo of it in the post above. It was then that the tech commitee guy said, "You know, every year, darn near every racer out here tries to convince me they haven't touched their airplane since last year's races and that it's exactly the same...but John Luther is the only one I believe."

Then, in 1995 I believe, we heard a heck of a racket as Texas Red was taxiing up to the ramp area, again, after his arrival to the races. When he shut it down, we all noticed that the engine cowling had come loose and had creeped forward into the propeller! If I remember the story correctly (the details may be a bit off here), John told us that the engine was hydraulic locked when he went to leave and he took the bottom cowling off to get to the lower cylinders to drain them. He apparently got side tracked or something during the cowling's installation and he forgot to tighten it up all the way, resulting in the looseness. So, everyone rallied behind John to find him a new piece of cowling and a new propeller, since they had gotten pretty torn up in the process. I'm not sure who's it was, but he was able to borrow someone's cowling, while at the same time, borrowing one of our race props (I crewed for Fred Johnson and Gene McNeeley at the time). Now, the funny part about this is that Texas Red now had this cobbled up engine cowling with a borrowed race prop that frankly didn't perform too well on our airplanes, but for whatever reason, he went faster, and ended up beating us with our own parts! (If you take a close look at the picture of the airplane in the hangar, above, you'll see that it still had the borrowed engine cowling on it......which I believe John just ended up purchasing for himself.)

Anyway, it wasn't until a few years later that I'd heard he'd been injured severely in a crop duster accident. I sure hated hearing that about such a neat guy and fun competitor.

Gary

[Taylor Stevenson]

That first pic of Texas Red was taken in MY hangar at KADS... They had apparently done some painting/touch-ups in the hangar because when we first got it there was red overspray all over the walls...

[Ztex]

Tulio's pictures make me sad...

I hope it's better off today..

All this is great information but does anyone actually know the N-Number of Red?

I search for John Luther in the registry and find a Race 20 (apparently the other T-6 in this thread! )
http://www.warbirdregistry.org/texanregistry/at6d-4284716.html

I also find Luther mentioned in this entry...but no clue if this is TX Red or not...
http://www.warbirdregistry.org/texanregistry/at6d-4284716.html

[Neal Nurmi]

I just knew you were going to come back and bug us about that number.

Well I dug into the archives, and when Jimmy had it it was N8048G

I should be able to come up with a # for your other airplane too, if it is in fact the former Race 20. It was just sold this spring and has returned to Reno with a new race number.

[Neal Nurmi]

Here is the former Race 20.

# seems to be N3272G

Hope this helps...

[BennoT6]

Hi,

North American T-6G-1-NH Texan
182 - 750
51-15063(USAF), 51-15063(FAF), 1710(PortAF), G-SURF, N8048J

Regards,

Benno