Thunderbirds F-84G?

[Speedy]

Seeing the pics of the F4J airborne again got me to thinking about how much I enjoy seeing the early jets.

Back in the late 1970's, there was an F-84G painted in Thunderbirds markings based out at Mojave. I honestly don't know who it belonged to...any idea where that aircraft is today?

[warbird1]

I don't ever remember a "G" model flying at any time in the late 70's. Are you sure it wasn't the swept-wing "F" model? There was one flying around in Thunderbird markings during that time. I can't remember the exact reasons why, but it was eventually grounded and sold. I believe it ended up at Pima, if my memory serves me correctly. I'm sure "JamesatTuscon" will pipe in here in fairly short order to correct me if I'm wrong.

[Second Air Force]

I have a warbird magazine from late '70s/early '80s with a cover photo of the "F" in T-Bird paint. Not sure about a straight wing machine.

Scott

[Speedy]

Sorry...just a late-night brain fart when I wrote it. I meant F-84F.

And yes, the aircraft was on the cover of Air Comix in the same issue that covered the 1979 Mojave Air Races...so it had to have been around September/October 1979.

[Clifford Bossie]

Seeing the pics of the F4J airborne again got me to thinking about how much I enjoy seeing the early jets.

Back in the late 1970's, there was an F-84G painted in Thunderbirds markings based out at Mojave. I honestly don't know who it belonged to...any idea where that aircraft is today?

That was/is F-84F 52-6969, which was registered as N84JW. I do not remember the entire story, but the ownership was never clear and in fact somewhat "shady". The airframe is now on display at Malmstrom AFB.

I don't ever remember a "G" model flying at any time in the late 70's. Are you sure it wasn't the swept-wing "F" model? There was one flying around in Thunderbird markings during that time. I can't remember the exact reasons why, but it was eventually grounded and sold. I believe it ended up at Pima, if my memory serves me correctly. I'm sure "JamesatTuscon" will pipe in here in fairly short order to correct me if I'm wrong.

Pima's airplane is 52-6563 and has been at Pima since around 1976.

First in this scheme (sorry for the rotten picture, but I only had an Instamatic at the time!):



And later in this one:

[K5DH]

Somewhere in my archives, I have a couple of photos of that F-84F which I shot at Addison Airport, TX, in the early 1980s (using a little Kodak Instamatic camera that used 126 film and Flash Cubes! ). It was there at ADS for quite a while, as I recall, parked right by the perimeter fence along Addison Road on the east side of the field. I always wondered what became of that jet. It was very attractive in the T-Birds markings.

Cheers,

[jamesintucson]

Cliff is right. The F-84 is one of Pima's original planes. The T-bird paint job is a fake that I very much want to make go away now that we are painting our real Thunderbird F-4 in its team markings.

James

[warbird1]

I stand corrected. Thanks for the info everyone.

So, was the reason that the Thunderbird F model was grounded due to an ownership dispute?

HHHmmm, sounds kind of familiar.